Delta Airlines Shows How to Apologize

Please forgive my months of silence.  I appreciate all the folks who have asked if I am OK (I am fine!) and who have urged me to start blogging again.  You will start hearing more here about what I've been doing the last six months.  The short story is that Huggy Rao and I have been working like crazy on Scaling Up Excellence, our book that will be published in early 2014. We just have a few finishing touches after putting seven years or so into this project. Then I will start talking about it -- this book has been quite an adventure and we are already talking to a lot of different groups about the main ideas.

Meanwhile, I was moved to do a post because, as we have written the book, one of the themes that has moved center stage, and I've blogged about before, is accountability: How it is a hallmark of organizations that spread and sustain excellence (and its absence of a hallmark of bad ones).  This problem was especially evident in United Airlines' poor treatment of my friend's young daughter last summer.  As counterpoint, a friend sent me this note of apology he got from Delta. Note I have removed his name and account number.  Obviously, airlines can't control things like the weather and other systemic delays -- but when leaders step-up and do this kind of thing, it creates a lot of goodwill -- and is evidence that they are taking responsibility and trying to fix things. 

 

Please Accept Our Apology

 

Dear _____________, On behalf of Delta Air Lines, I would like to extend my personal apology for the inconvenience you experienced as a result of the delay of Flight DL1505 on July 06, 2013. I am truly sorry your travel was adversely affected by our service failure. Please know that within the industry, we have earned a solid reputation for our commitment to operational integrity. To that end, each flight irregularity is thoroughly reviewed to prevent a similar occurrence. I pledge to you that we are dedicated to providing the safe, reliable transportation you expect and deserve. We value you as a customer and sincerely appreciate your support of Delta. To demonstrate our commitment to service excellence, as a gesture of apology I am adding 5,000 bonus miles to your SkyMiles account XXXXXXXXX. Please allow three business days for the miles to appear. If you would like to verify your mileage balance and gain access to all of our mileage redemption programs, you may visit us at www.delta.com/skymiles. It is our goal to provide exceptional service on every occasion, and I hope you will provide us with an opportunity to restore your confidence. Your support is important to Delta, our Connection carriers and our SkyTeam partners. We look forward to your continued patronage and the privilege of serving your air travel needs again soon. Sincerely, Jason Hausner Director, Customer Care

 

Comments

[Trail Blazer]

What a relief to see you back!!!

[Joe Marchese]

Bob --
Welcome back... was starting to worry. Great example of the process Ron Zemke taught when we mess up. Here is a blog I wrote about the approach(I think when you blogged about the UAL incident).
http://mckeeverandsullivan.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/when-we-mess-up/