Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/718149
AGGREGATES MANAGER / September 2016 3 September 2016 Vol. 21, No. 9 aggman.com /AggregatesManager @AggMan_editor Editorial Editor-in-Chief: Therese Dunphy Editorial Director: Marcia Gruver Doyle Online Editor: Wayne Grayson Contributing Editor: Kerry Clines editorial@aggman.com Design & Production Art Director: Sandy Turner, Jr. Production Designer: Timothy Smith Advertising Production Manager: Linda Hapner production@aggman.com Construction Media Vice President, Construction Media: Joe Donald sales@randallreillyconstruction.com 3200 Rice Mine Rd NE Tuscaloosa, AL 35406 800-633-5953 randallreilly.com Corporate Chairman: Mike Reilly President and CEO: Brent Reilly Chief Operations Officer: Shane Elmore Chief Financial Officer: Russell McEwen Senior Vice President, Sales: Scott Miller Senior Vice President, Editorial and Research: Linda Longton Vice President of Events: Stacy McCants Vice President, Audience Development: Prescott Shibles Vice President, Digital Services: Nick Reid Vice President, Marketing: Julie Arsenault For change of address and other subscription inquiries, please contact: aggregatesmanager@halldata.com. Aggregates Manager TM magazine (ISSN 1552-3071) is published monthly by Randall-Reilly, LLC copyright 2016. Executive and Administrative offices, 3200 Rice Mine Rd. N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. Subscription rates: $24 annually, Non-domestic $125 annually. Single copies: $7. We assume no responsibility for the validity of claims of manufacturers in any advertisement or editorial product information or literature offered by them. Publisher reserves the right to refuse non-qualified subscriptions. Periodical circulation postage paid at Tuscaloosa, Alabama and additional entries. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage retrieval system, without written permission of the copyright owner. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Aggregates Manager, 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. Keep Your Customers First by Therese Dunphy, Editor-in-Chief tdunphy@randallreilly.com EDITORIAL W hen was the last time you took a long, hard look at your customer service? Do customers perceive your business the same way you do? It's easy to please customers when everything is going well, but how you handle them when something doesn't go as planned can make the difference between retention and defection. I gained experience on this particular issue through recent travels. In late June, I traveled to Buxton, England, for the Hillhead show. My husband tagged along, and we spent a week after the show in Paris. Excited for our international adventure, we headed to Cleveland Hopkins Airport to catch a United flight to Newark on our way to Manchester, England. Between weather delays and hours restrictions on the flight crew, we departed four hours late and had to be rerouted through London. Inconvenient, but understandable. We got to London Heathrow and checked in with British Airways for our final flight. When I had trouble with my boarding pass, the British Airways agent told me she was working through problems with the airline's new computer system. I didn't think much of it until we arrived in Manchester and our bags did not. I wasn't happy, but figured the bags would arrive shortly. They did not. Over the 11- day trip, we never again saw our luggage, as they were repeatedly lost during their multi-national adventure. This sad story isn't the point of the piece. It's how the two airlines responded to the situation. The United representatives were helpful. They looked up my baggage tag numbers and were able to locate them from the outbound flight and forward them on. They responded in a personal manner to my post-trip email and gave us a travel voucher to acknowledge the inconvenience. I've booked two United trips in recent weeks. British Airways was not nearly as friendly or as accommodating. They couldn't articulate any guidelines for their reimbursement policy as we purchased clothing and toiletries, telling us only to purchase any "necessities." The stress of such am- biguity only compounded that of replacing our possessions during an international trip. To add insult to injury, our bags arrived in Paris a day after we did, but the airline couldn't confirm their location or get them delivered to us...for seven straight days. And, unlike United, British Airways doesn't issue travel vouchers to acknowl- edge customers inconvenienced by their incompetence. Given that the airline lost 3,000 bags during the first three days of its new com- puter system's rollout (at least, that's what one baggage claim agent told me), I can understand that such compensation might be expensive. Lost future business, how- ever, could prove more costly in the long run. When you field a phone call from an upset customer, consider the snack made famous by a third airline — Southwest. Making a simple demonstration of good faith may help you retain a customer while costing the proverbial peanuts.