It’s always been one of Seth Godin’s argument that handling properly the discontents was the key to good public relations, and I couldn’t agree more.

During my upcoming trip,  I’m going to make a half-dozen hops across North America. That’s as many flights to book. I went and used the portal I regularly go to (fast and clear interface, and, up to now, no problems). I started with the 2 flights with fixed dates. I got the reservation for the first flight immediately, and a mail regarding the other one: the fare I had selected wasn’t available anymore, and so I was supposed to call myself (and pay for the call) to fix the problem.

So I called, and the person on the other end asked me if she could call me back 10 minutes later, so they’d have time to recalculate the price of the fare (hum?). So I waited. And finally she called back.

Turns out the fare had increased by a steep 69€, so I promptly canceled the flight. It got me thinking, though: had the fare increase been only a couple of euros, what would have happened? Probably the same hassle, and only for a couple of euros!

I’ve been using this website for some time now, a fact they have to know because I log in every time. Out of good faith, this intermediary could pay the difference (with a limit of course) and just notify me. How I wish they’d sent this type of mail:

“Wow, just in time!

As you were making your reservation, the price of your flight went up by X€, but we’re covering that charge for you. Consider it a gift from our part. Please enjoy your trip to Y for us!”

This situation is probably a rare occurrence; not much money would be lost in the process, and wow! would that make a great impression! I’d be a customer for life, as opposed to the present situation, where I’m going to finish my bookings on a website with up-to-date pricing.

As a follow-up on my internet access in hotels/hostels post, here’s a thought:

When access to the Internet is free, most people regulate themselves: they’ll check their mails and facebook, maybe have a whiff of what’s going on in the world, and that’s about it. If someone is waiting around, the current user will let them take over.

When people are paying for their Internet access though, it’s different. You don’t want to throw money away (after all ,you paid for that time), so you want to make the most of it, and end up checking the special offers on Amazon. While others are waiting.

Take me for instance: I’m smack in the middle of a 3-week vacation in Japan, and here I am blogging about internet access and hostels, just to make sure I’m not throwing 20￥away.

Funny how some companies apply the proverb “under promise, over deliver” completely backward.

Sales people make dubious promises to clients about some wonderfull technology that doesn’t exist. R&D has to step up, but under impossible constraints and schedule. The clients are not happy with what they see.

And everyone ends up really bummed.

Quick! Let’s start the cycle again!

Wow, long time without a post! I need to get more serious about posting frequency.

So here I am, back from a road trip across California, with yet another example of dusty business models that make you want to shake your head. In a little more than two weeks, I’ve seen more than a dozen hotels, hostels and motels. In each and everyone of them, my friend Steven tried to access the Internet through WiFi, and,  finding myself without anything better to do at those times, I started noticing the following trend: Full fledged hotels want to make you pay for WiFi access, while youth hostels and model don’t. Without any kind of insider information, I can only guess how this came:

When the new and expensive wireless technology became available, large hotels were the only/first ones able to afford it. Smelling the possibility of adding value to their customers’ experience, they proposed a service that clients liked and were glad to pay for.

Fast forward for couple of years to a world were wireless Internet technology is much more affordable. Smaller businesses (motels, youth hostels), in an effort to stand out, decided to offer the very same service, except for free. Now that it cost almost nothing, it wouldn’t impede their margin much, and would make for a nice gesture for their clients; after all, nobody likes to stay away from news and mail, nowadays. And sitting all the way across the ring are the hotels, used to take that money from their customers, who still don’t see why it would ever change.

Too bad for them of course, as they are now comparatively under-serving their customers. All of this just because they were busy looking the other way (voluntarily or otherwise) while free internet access became the norm.