You can shove your job! by Lindsay Campbell

The case of Steven Taylor has got all sorts of media channels very excited. You'll recall that 38 year old Mr Taylor is/was a senior flight attendant with the award winning and social media savvy JetBlue Airlines in the States and on Monday last week he very spectacularly quit his job after conflict with a passenger who allegedly stood up and tried to retrieve their luggage from the overhead locker before the plane had finished coming to a standstill at JFK, despite an announcement asking passengers not to.


The story goes that the passenger had oversized bags anyway and when Mr. Taylor went to ask her to sit down, the bag fell out and hit her on the head inflicting a nasty gash.

With this ST an employee of more than 20 years "flipped" stormed back up the aisle, grabbed the P.A. and told the passengers what he thought of them, opened the door of the aircraft and jumped down the emergency slide swigging a can of beer, walked across to his car and drove home. Well what else would any self-respecting male flight attendant do?

ST has now become something of a celeb, he has hired Howard Bragg, one of the most powerful and influential PR guys in Hollywood, he has been offered a reality show, by Showtime and is currently on bail pending the court case due at the end of next month.

This story is interesting on three levels other than the obvious. ST, despite showing a total lack of professionalism, service and care for his passengers (it is the FAA who are pressing charges for endangering a passenger jet etc) is now an internet hero, striking a blow for all those people who hate their jobs and their “stupid ignorant customers”

He has a Paypal fund already set up by "admirers" which has accumulated £45k in a week to pay his expected legal fees and court costs. He enjoys the support of a ST Facebook fan site which has 95,000 fans and another site - the rather dramatically named "Save Steven Taylor" site which has 15,000 supporters.

Interesting to say the least that the outcome of his reckless and stupid behaviour is financial reward and cult hero status. It's just a shame that the real hospitality heroes and service heroes who work tirelessly day in and day out sometimes working in really tough conditions, (not enjoying discounted flights for friends and family and duty free shopping, meal allowances and uniform etc) don't get a look in or a nod, but just get on with it because they want to, because they believe it's the right thing to do and because they care.

It reminded of me of the occasion when I was at an awards show in the Northwest and a lady was being presented with a certificate for 35 years of working as a cleaner in a local pub. She had never had a day off through sickness and illness in her whole time of employment there. She would also come in and do extra shifts when needed and helped in the garden planted shrubs and flowers and tended to the beds all in her own time at her own cost. That my friend’s is a hospitality hero. Not a self-confessed "bag Nazi" who threw a little tizzy fit by throwing himself out the escape chute.

Good luck to ST. I wish him every success, my beef is not with him, it is more the celebration of the mediocre, when we should be striving to celebrate and reward excellence - surely?

The second aspect to this little melodrama is the way the organisations involved have responded to it. JetBlue a very media savvy company who work really hard with their social media (they have seven full time Tweeters) have said absolutely nothing about the incident and maybe for good reason with a court case due and possible litigation claims from all the passengers who were on board that day.

However “Never waste a crisis”, is the old saying and I'm sure JetBlue won't and will come out of this very strongly – but right now things are a little awkward for them. Contrast that however, with the makers of the slide, TMZ who are happily issuing press releases highlighting the successful deployment of one of their slides and have been delighted to note that " their product worked perfectly and Mr. Taylor was a model test subject for it, other than he didn't take his shoes off before going down". Gulliver reports that Spirit Airlines – a low cost carrier are telling their customers, “don’t be blue, slide down to get our low price airfares.”

There is a third point to this which Slate (business section of the New York Times) highlighted this week, that employee dissatisfaction appears to be at a very high level as the workforce gets squeezed by the Head Office bean counters and with high unemployment and low morale and the continued focus on recapatilising balance sheets, the pressure to drive more production with less staff has never been more intense.

Slate reports; “The economy has been growing for a year, and corporate profits have surged—Standard & Poor's estimates that profits of the constituents of the S&P 500 rose nearly 52% in the 2nd quarter of 2010 from 2009. Much of that impressive profit growth has been driven by the remarkable gains in efficiency and productivity that corporate America has notched since the recession took hold. Last year productivity soared 3.5 %, up from 1 % in 2008 and 1.6 % in 2007”

There clearly has been slack in the system and a readjustment was required, however, we have to respect and look after our people and our teams and respect the work they do for us and more importantly for our customers.

Leadership is not about cutting costs, looking for efficiencies of course and better value for money always – but just cutting costs?, frankly it’s not the best solution.

ST story is an interesting little cameo for us in these difficult and challenging times. Perhaps now is the time to start considering a more balanced view as a report from the Bureau of Labour Statistics published last week in the States suggests that “Workers put in more hours, but output didn't keep up. They simply can't run any faster”

Anyone told the experts we don’t need them anymore?

Just filled in my review of a sad little stay at an Earls Court hotel last week - inflated prices, impossibly small rooms and no air con – that type of thing.



Thing is I knew it was going to be poor before I stayed as I’d read my reviews – ignoring its star rating, I just cut through to what the paying public thinks and they were pretty spot on, apart from the odd, “its brilliant – thoroughly recommend” which I can only assume was written and posted by the hotel management, as it was a rare chink of light in a sky of thunder filled reviews.



The interesting development for hospitality with the spread of social networking and ready access to the internet and the web is that the public decide now what is good for us and what is not. Democracy is alive and well – if your product or service sucks, then fully expect somebody to photograph it, film it, comment on it and post it to a world wide audience of approx 6bn in a matter of seconds. Social networking has put the power back in the hands of the people – the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back.



There will always still be room for a guidebook of course – ipads and iphones still have their limitations (hard to believe but true) connectivity, risk of theft, sunlight on the screen etc and the old analogy that lighters never fully replaced the match still is a good one.



However, what has changed is that we no longer need the “expert” An expert is good at conveying what they like, what they need, what appeals to them and when we had no one else to trust or listen to that was fine, but things are different now, very different. We are all commentators, informers, communicators and through blogs and social networking sites and the widespread use of smartphones we can now all have our say and instantly - we are all empowered.



The public decide who wins X-Factor, Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity etc the people are empowered, with a touch of a button, instant democracy by millions is delivered in a thrice – thumbs up, thumbs down, dreams created, lives shattered by a populous now used to deciding the fate of others – we love it, we want to be heard, we want a fraction of the action, we want a voice and now we have a platform – indeed we have many.



I can feel the luddites swaying uncomfortably, heads in the sand they stand there Canute like ignoring the inevitable and wishing for those John Major days of “warm beer, long shadows on cricket grounds and invincible suburbs” clumsily misquoted from Orwell by the way, in the Lion and the Unicorn.



However, let us consider the case of the Chinese for instance, Gulliver reports that 30 million Chinese booked travelled online last year (80% up on 2008) and 6 out of ten of them used web based forums to decide on their choice of destination. Just consider also that whilst globally the sector struggled last year – Chinas’ tourism revenues grew by 9% last year.



But things never stand still for long and China, India and Hong Kong travellers are now using social networking sites as opposed to travel based forums for selecting their travel destinations and preferences – 20% of them want the recommendations of their friends through Chinese versions of Facebook with the biggest and successful called Renren and value that more than anything else in their decision making.



Steve Kaufer, CEO of Trip Advisor, acknowledged this latest trend recently as he believes that users will no longer wade through 174 reviews from anonymous posters and will build their own group of friends and peers who they will rely on for their recommendations.



So the days of the expert are numbered – rather like John Majors’ misty eyed vision of Britain, its just for the romantics.

for more interesting blogs visit http://www.excellencefound.co.uk/

By Lindsay Campbell - Operations Director

Undercover Boss Over My Shoulder

Before I went into the new Training Academy in Coventry, I was fully aware that Marija Simovic the CEO of Harry Ramsden’s who was due to appear on the Undercover Boss was going to attend. I am generally not intimidated by people that I meet, however when you know that they could be judging you on your knowledge of customer service and coaching skills- even I was a little quieter than normal.



As soon as I got in the room, Mark Maltby (Facilitator of World Class Customer Service) was there to guide me to the seat right next to Marija (CEO & TV star of Harry Ramsden’s). But it was the best seat in the house as had 9 hours of direct insight into the challenges and changes that face them and their team and how they will go on to put it into action. The desire to deliver excellent experiences to their guests and team members was forefront of every point made during the day and it was exuded with enthusiasm from all members that attended.



It was a huge insight to see a passionate CEO and operations team engage and develop strategies to help them when going back to the floor and I have no doubt that the World Class Customer Service Course will encourage this.



At least my seat will get me first on the list for some stonking fish and chips and some welcoming service. But we know it isn’t a quick fix, so I wish her and the team all the luck in the world in reacquainting us with truly great British brand with much loved customer service skills their customers and team deserve.

To see Marija in action visit: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/undercover-boss/4od