During a recent episode of the CBC show, “Underdogs”, it reminded me of my concerns with most (not all) company customer Loyalty Programs.
For those of you that believe that loyalty cards were created to benefit the customer, you could not be farther from the truth. Not all Loyalty programs take advantage of the unsuspecting consumer, but several do and provide poor service in the process.
The one example that this particular episode showed was the Air Canada, “Aeroplan” program. For this particular customer’s issue, I will say that I sided with Air Canada on their stance, but I did not agree with the way that they treated their customer.
This particular customer amassed over several years, more than 30, 000 miles but during a consecutive 5-year span, he allowed his account to become inactive. Thus, according to the guidelines laid out in their program, he lost all of his airmiles much to the glee of Air Canada. I will say glee, because Air Canada depends on customers forfeiting their miles, and in turn, they make money (they actually list the amount of money made from inactive status accounts in their Public Financial Reports).
To be fair, Air Canada was willing to re-instate this customer’s airmiles, but of course, they wanted a fee for clicking a mouse button and re-activating his account.
The customer was not willing to pay any more money to Air Canada for what he determined was his rightful airmiles. He wanted his airmiles back without any further fees.
(I agree with Air Canada strictly on the fact that he allowed his account to be inactive for this amount of time, and I believe that they had the right to clear his account. However, they could have placated this man without showing the reality of the fact that simply do not care about their customers)
Air Canada refused to give back the Airmiles. He escalated this issue until it reached the CBC. To make this story short, they had arranged for him to a face to face meeting with one of their representatives if they agreed (of course they refused). The person with whom the CBC spoke with on Camera was Liz Graham VP Operations, and she absolutely refused to meet with one of her customers. Liz Graham had the nerve to refuse (on camera on a national program) to meet with a customer who had been loyalty to Air Canada for more than 20 years. Her refusal says more about the state of Air Canada than any media campaigns they have done in the past.
Simply, Air Canada is so out of touch with their customers, that they consider them as an annoyance factor. Air Canada is now completely and only about itself and just how greedy they can become. Another fact that become clear to me, by viewing her refusal, is that she should move on to a position in Air Canada that do dealings with their customers. At best, the very least that this company could have done to put them in the minds of their customers as a company that cares about the service it provides was to agree to meet with this one persistent customer.
Do they not realise that a 5-minute face-to-face meeting would have done more for their image, than whatever their decision would be.
Then, again this is the same Air Canada who when I was flying home because of a relative’s passing, refused to allow me to board my flight. I was at the airport a little more than 60 minutes (due to traffic) before my flight. Air Canada told me that I was too late to board the flight (yet, they were pulling people out of the line to rush them through the gate 20 minutes before the flight departed), and I had to wait 24 hours to board another flight to return home. This would not have been a huge deal except for the fact, that one of my dear relatives had died and I was trying to fly home.
Air Canada also refused to apologise to me.
Air Canada under the direction of Robert Milton has definitely not only lost touch with their clientele, but treat them as nothing more than an annoyance factor.
Robert Milton, your company provides a service for customers, and they are doing you a favour by using Air Canada. It is time that Air Canada stops its money grabbing Aeroplan program, and Robert Milton steps down as CEO. Air Canada is in desperate need of revamping, and must understand that they need to survive, and the only way for them to do this is to understand their customer base and meet their needs.
Nothing annoys me faster than a service provider who treats their customers as if the company is doing them a favour by providing the service. The customers are the ones doing you a favour by using your services, and in this very competitive world you had better treat them as such otherwise you will never survive in your current model.
