On 1/04/15, Curious wrote:
> From Huffington Post:
> "Gordon Bethune is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher,
coincidentally) who is
> best known for turning Continental Airlines around "From
Worst to First," a
> story told in his book of the same title from 1998. He
wanted to make sure
> that both customers and employees liked the way
Continental treated them,
> so he made it very clear that the maxim "the customer is
always right" didn't
> hold sway at Continental.
>
> In conflicts between employees and unruly customers he
would consistently
> side with his people. Here's how he put it:
>
> When we run into customers that we can't reel back in,
our loyalty is with our
> employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day.
Just because you
> buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our
employees ...
> We run more than 3 million people through our books every
month. One or
> two of those people are going to be unreasonable,
demanding jerks. When it's
> a choice between supporting your employees, who work with
you every day
> and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who
demands a free
> ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose
side are you going to be
> on?
> You can't treat your employees like serfs. You have to
value them ... If they
> think that you won't support them when a customer is out
of line, even the
> smallest problem can cause resentment."
Sadly, Continental merged into United.
Posts on this thread, including this one