SK2751

I disagree. The main reason for work to exist is that we can sustain a reasonable level of life. We can take a separation of reason for work and a reason for a company as soon as we sort out the former with some other mean (like basic income). Mind you, I am not arguing for disregarding the customer, or moving focus away from the customer. I am just arguing for respecting the employees, and not simply selling them for better customer service. I, in general, agree with the sentiment in this discussion. I don't want a restaurant to bring a me a dessert with welcome drinks either (this is a kind of trick that SK is pulling on us). I think concluding from that SK should really care for customers more than for employees is going one step too far for me.

CPH-Flyer

The guy who was the driving force behind the establishment of Southwest Airlines, and developing them to most of what they are today had a very famous statement "The biggest mistake in the service industry is view that the customer is always right" He was a very strong believer in the fact that staff came first customers second.

If the staff is happy and satisfied, generally the customer service will follow if the staff is at a constant war with management you get United flight attendants, or all drinks for the flight at the beginning of the flight....
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fassy

And

Sorry, that was not the point I was trying to make. Of course I fully support that a company should good care of their employees. Both to retrain top-talent which would just leave a bad company in a heart-beat and also to just provide a reasonable good working environment for everybody. Happy employees are a key to a companies success, not a doubt.

But then, we are talking about a job in a customer facing service industry. As a customer (and since as a consultant I'm in the same boat to some extend, in my case both to my contracting employer and the employer's customers) I expect to get decent service for the money paid. An employee working in such a position should accept that and do as best as they can to provide top service to the costumer to retain customer loyalty which is especially important in some industries like air-travel where the competition is quite fierce. And let's face it, "Service" is not a strong point in Nordic culture which bleeds into all the different parts of daily life, including air travel. Living in the Nordics out of my own free will, there are a lot of nice things here, but compared to a lot of other places on the world, in most business here, service just sucks.

I can't even imagine who at SAS had the idea to pitch this concept to a group of 15 managers which then spend the next 3 weeks day on and day of to discuss it until all came to the conclusion that it will be a success. Probably some strategy or business consultant from one of the big guys. Like they recommended to McD in Germany to remove the paper tissues from the counter so people won't take more than 1 per person at 0.00001c/piece. Few weeks later, they put hem up again since the found out it takes much more time for the employees to actual hand them out all the time.

nacho

I agree employers should take care of the employee - like Mr. Marriott said to his GMs - if you take good care of your associates then they will take good care of the guests. However that's not always true, some people are trying to take advantage of the kindness they received.

Service like this in GO I can imagine and I'll make my choice by taking that into my calculation. I can imagine 2 reasons why SK is trying to do this:

1. To differentiate Plus and Business more - to encourage those who wants real service to buy a business class ticket;
2. To see how much they can cut without scaring off people.

livious

A bit of a contrary view, but there is one instance where I felt that this type of service works. Flying ORD-CPH last week and our flight was delayed. Due to the late departure time (22:05) and extra delay (45 min), the meal service comes rather late and I believe that quite a few people (myself included) prefer to keep a short meal and drink service so that the lights can be dimmed and we can sleep a bit easier. This type of service speeds up the process, which I feel is acceptable for late night departures.

Otherwise I agree with the general sentiments that there is no need to ask people to order all drinks in one go. The table space gets cramped on long-hauls if you want to order a few drinks, so it would be best to offer drinks and both the drink and meal service. However, it is not that unreasonable to use the call button or wander back and order drink. It has not stopped my from enjoying a few drinks on long hauls.

monvoyage

[QUOTE=CPH-Flyer;29889699]The guy who was the driving force behind the establishment of Southwest Airlines, and developing them to most of what they are today had a very famous statement "The biggest mistake in the service industry is view that the customer is always right" He was a very strong believer in the fact that staff came first customers second."

Indeed. Southwest actually considers its employees to be internal customers and the rest of us to be external customers. Having a happy staff goes a long way toward having happy customers, but a company has to find the balance.

As for the "this is a customer service business" part, it is...except that we are reminded on every flight that the crew is primarily there to get us safely from point A to point B. I wonder what it would be like today if flying had never been "glamorous." They could just serve you some water on a shorter flight and be done with it, and make you bring your own food on long-hauls.

I would not want to live in that world. But I also don't want to have to store multiple drinks )getting cold or hot) on a crappy plastic tray for an entire flight.

I wonder how the FAs would react if you said that you would be glad to place all of your drink orders up front, but that you wanted one drink delivered every 75 minutes. And they were three different drinks.

SK1989

Probably yes, since they reduced staffing from 9 to 8 not that long ago...

Frizzy

There's always a compromise. Order, say coffee, wine and water to start with, which you'll drink in your own sweet time. When they are finished and you want another drink(s), just order it/them. That's what I do, whether I've been invited to or not.

GFrye

Apart from the decision whether to order coffee at all on flights (algae tank water...), I'd prefer to get the coffee served when I want to drink it, not x number of minutes or hours ahead of time.

AlicorporateUK

Very well said and, above all, welcome to FlyerTalk.

G

CPH-Flyer

Since the J meal service always has 4 in the aisles, that leaves 4 for managing two galleys and serving Plus and Go.

I always assumed that there was someone in the J galley during the meal service. But either way, it does not leave a lot of hands to run the meal services in Plus and Go. I could understand why the staff would say "we need to remove some tasks during meal services"

My guess is their gambit was that this was so awkward that management would never accept it and the cut would go away. But lo and behold, management did not take the bait. I don't think the staff/management relationship is to the benefit of the company at the moment And that really should be the prime target for them to fix.

SK2751

I am just not getting why serving drinks later complicates the service. It should make it easier, as the main meal service is then faster, and the extra drinks come at much lower intensity anyway (if served later).

AlicorporateUK

I have been trying hard but I genuinely can't think of any airline adopting such nonsense (possibly an understatement but I need to adhere to the forum's rules in order to remain polite), especially in the 'day & age' of the dine-any-time's concept.

One can only wonder what next (make sure to go to the toilet at the beginning of the flight because we only have a limited supply of toilet rolls?).

G

criced

SAS servicevlevel have become pathetic. I flew ARN-HKG and the situation in the cabin in the end become really funny when CC did not even wanted to hand out water to passangers after meal service. All cabin started to lough out loud to CC, that then hide in the galley for the rest of the flight. Never more...

CPH-Flyer

I am not convinced that there is a lot of time saving in this, but maybe they can save one scheduled trip through the aisles for a service round.