Dear ,
Despite the weakening sunlight, people in New York City are filled with holiday purpose.
Their stuffed bags and wheelie suitcases say: "I’ve been shopping" or "I'm leaving town."
Even our FedEx man added a Santa’s hat to his uniform.
And I was never more thrilled to see him than last Wednesday when he rang the bell to deliver our bag.
Here’s the story:
Bucking tradition this year, we decided to go to Amsterdam, Paris and London for Thanksgiving. More specifically we went to shop, one of my favorite vacation pastimes.
After getting the lowdown on European airlines from friends who have an apartment in Dublin, we took advantage of Norwegian Airlines budget fares.
The catch:
Everything other than your seat costs extra.
This includes:
- Checked bags. Plus a limit of 10 kilos of size-restricted carry-on luggage. Like Ryanair, they strictly enforce these limits.
- A reserved seat.
- Anything to eat or drink.
- Boarding priority.
Actionable marketing and pricing lesson:
- Cover your costs in a transparent way. Since weight directly increases flying costs, it makes sense for an airlines to charge for additional baggage and in-flight consumables. Charging for these options adds revenue while reducing staff.
Don’t worry:
Travelers can purchase upgrades until hours before a flight. We bought a small luggage scale to determine if we needed to check bags in advance. If you purchase a checked bag option in advance it costs $45.
BUT:
If your carry-on bag is too big or weighs too much, Norwegian charges you $100 at the airport. As a result, the check-in line is long since many travelers don’t read the fine print. (HINT: To reduce stress, allow extra time.)
Customer experience:
With many airlines charging extra for carry-on bags, meals and other amenities, we preferred Norwegian’s approach. Norwegian provided back-of-the-seat entertainment and device charging for free.
Even better, the Boeing Dreamliner's wide-body flight is surprisingly comfortable. I loved that staff didn’t bother me during the flight.
The catch:
Despite paying to check 2 bags on our return to JFK airport, only the black rollie arrived. Even worse, the colorfully dotted bag contained our European purchases!
While helpful, JFK baggage claims staff couldn’t provide much information. They assured us that we’d be reunited with our bag within a day or so. And we received an automated email confirming our lost bag paperwork.
Back home, we discovered:
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Norwegian saves money on customer service support since links or questions on their site never led to person. I finally spoke to a man in Ukraine by selecting to purchase a ticket. But since missing baggage was handled by third party
firms, he could only tell me that the bag was in the system.
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The Lost Baggage Tracking company used an out-of-date user-interface. Also, it provided no ability to contact a human being or provide additional information. So we called all of the airports where our bag could have gone. Despite helpful
people in the UK and Sweden, we couldn’t locate our bag.
We contacted our credit cards, trip insurance and homeowners insurance. Yes, we were covered, but we really wanted our purchases back.
After 5 days, we stopped getting perfunctory emails about our lost bag and resigned ourselves that through insurance we'd recover some of the cost, someday.
Good News!
After losing all hope, the FedEx man showed up in his Santa hat last Wednesday with our intact bag.
Actionable Customer Experience Marketing Lessons:
-
Offer your audience and prospects the up-to-date customer experience they expect. This includes your email and user interface.
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Be prepared to deal with angry and cranky people. When your service fails, make sure your front line staff are trained to offer the best experience possible as calmly as possible.
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Monitor social media and rating and review sites for issues. Discover potential problems in real time. Where possible, resolve them. It doesn’t matter if they happen at night or on weekends or holidays. Be proactive. (Note: I don't
use social media to complain or rant.)
Personal travel tips:
- Carry items you need or care about with you. Don’t leave it to chance that your bag takes a different route. Put your valuable, devices, toiletries, and change of clothes in your carry-on. (Valuables are defined as difficult to replace or unavailable at your destination.)
- Add clearly marked baggage tags. Help get reunited with your bag.
- Keep hard copies of your luggage receipts and other travel documents. Bear in mind that you may not be able to get WiFi or make a phone call everywhere.
Further, whether you’re traveling, spending time with family and friends, or working on a special project, keep your content marketing and social media calendars going through the start of next year.
Actionable Holiday Marketing Tips
Try these blog and content ideas:
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Best posts of 2018. Curate a list of your best posts and another list of other people’s posts.
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Top 2018 social media shares. Curate a list of your best posts and another list of other people’s posts.
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2018: Looking Back. Spotlight the highlights for the year. Include charts and comments. Alternatively showcase visuals, products or customers.
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2019 Forecasts. Look into your crystal ball.
No matter how you spend the rest of the
month, take time for yourself and appreciate what you have.
Despite your work and other responsibilities, realize that you’ve only got one you and you’re pretty darn special. As Dr. Seuss said, “No one is youer than you!”
Heidi Cohen,
Actionable Marketing Guide
Happy Marketing,
Heidi
 Insights into 2019 based on the dynamic social media ecosystem. Includes analysis, charts and
tactics to help position your firm for next year.
 Get your content marketing strategy on track for success
with these 10 predictions, related data and actionable tactics.
 Want to know what to get the marketer or colleague on your holiday gift list?
Don’t worry, we’ve got the list to help you.
Join Me and top social media marketers in San Diego, March 20th – March 22. Register now and save – prices go up every week! Heidi Cohen Around the Internet
Terrific! You made it this far. Now here's the fine print:
All photos ©2018 Heidi Cohen unless otherwise noted.
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Social Media Marketing World 2019
