Suzy McLeod was whacked with a 300 Euro fee to print out
five boarding passes, and took her complaint to the Ryanair boss. Rather than
resolving the issue and waiving the fee, he proceeded to call her stupid for
not complying with the airline’s terms and conditions.
Not to be outdone, Suzy took her complaint to Facebook,
where she quickly notched up half a million “likes” for her campaign against
the budget airline, far more than the 178,000 likes on the company’s own Facebook
page. Mainstream media picked up the story too and it was reported on both
sides of the Atlantic.
It’s debatable whether Ryanair will learn from this.
Customer complaints are water off a duck’s back for O’Leary whose memorable
spoutings include: ”People say the
customer is always right, but you know what - they're not. Sometimes they are
wrong and they need to be told so."
Corporate culture
is set from the top and O’Leary is eroding any chance at building brand loyal
customers. What Ryanair doesn’t understand, is that people expect to be treated
with respect, regardless of the price they pay for a seat.
Social media
channels finally give customers the critical mass and audience to fight back
against corporate arrogance and just plain bad service. How differently things could have been if
Ryanair had responded with common sense and humanity rather than the high
handed and draconian approach it took. But that could be asking too much of an
airline that alongside fellow budget carrier EasyJet has been the subject of
the most complaints by British airline passengers.
In a competitive
market customers always have choices. Let’s hope that UK budget airline
passengers send Ryanair a message that they can really understand, and budget carriers
around the world take note, learning from the mistakes of
others.
