Inside Alaska Airlines’ New Terminal at LAX – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
I had the chance to take a tour of the new Alaska Airlines terminal 6 at LAX, and it’s a beauty. I’ll actually be covering this further here on Cranky next week.
In the Trenches: Our Money Back Guarantee – Intuit Small Business Blog
It’s a rare occurrence, but every so often we get a client who invokes our moneyback guarantee. In some cases, it makes me want to rethink the proposition completely.
7 comments on “Cranky on the Web (March 26 – 30)”
Wow, that new Alaska Terminal puts a lot of gates and aircraft on the south side of LAX, doesn’t it? LAX isn’t my home airport, but I fly there often enough. What are putting in Terminal 3 to replace Alaska?
=M=
Well, Allegiant and Spirit moved over to T3, but I would imagine that there is now room for more if anyone is interested in grabbing some gates.
Brett,
Regarding your “bad customer.” Yup, you’re going to get them. You basically have two choices — toughen up the policy or price them into your cost of doing business.
Separately — and I know you didn’t do this — but when I hear businesses dissing “bad customers” just because they are looking for a deal, the business is missing the point. If the business is value added for the price point, they will stay in business. If they’re not, they won’t.
I agree with you, Dan. I’ve heard plenty of airline people dismiss someone because they’re on a cheap ticket, but that’s not the travelers fault. The airline put the fare out there, so they shouldn’t look down on someone for buying it.
That’s why I think the struggle for us is to explain our value proposition before people sign up so that they’re clear on what we’re offering and they have expectations set well for it.
How about a money back guarantee if they find something lower/better somewhere else and can show you proof and not just say it. All they did was have you do all the work and then turned over the info to their sister-in-law or whomever they know is a travel agent to book the trip.
I’d rather keep it as a “no questions asked” policy as long as I can. So far, nobody has come to us and said they found something cheaper somewhere else and wanted a refund. We had one person say they found it for the same price on their own, so our service was a waste of money and he wanted his money back. That was a year or so ago, but it was an isolated event.
As you said, it’s a rare occurrence. But if having such a policy is the cost of doing business and is utilized infrequently, it definitely enhances your professional reputation. Never underestimate word-of-mouth, especially in this digital age. The old adage goes “A thousand atta-boys are wiped out by a single aw-shi*t. Bending over backwards and occasionally eating some revenue sucks, but believe it when I tell you people remember the extra mile and will return when things don’t work out elsewhere.