pitflyer

Well said phillyd2. Count me as part of your 1%. Given the counts so far, there must be thousands of FFOCUSers to make up for us 1%! LOL

phillyd2

It's Ford's & Chevy's. - No, its really not. To again use my 7-11 / WaWa example, your approach is like complaining after 7/11 stopped their 2 for 1 Slurpy promotion and machine now only has Raspberry and Lime flavors. If only they had Mango we could excuse the poor service. (Or maybe I'm taking this metaphor too far?)

We are free..... Of course you are. Nobody is coming to your house with a baseball bat to stop you. We are just also expressing our freedom and saying what we think.

You used the words Respect and Courtesy but I will not post the sweet comments from you and the rest of the FFOCUS cabal (cabal here was used to illustrate wit and does not imply that there is really a cabal with virgin sacrifices, on the other hand if there was I may actually join .

Enough to say that not all of us have a stick up their butts.

Tell you what, if you really want a meaningless PR event - call US and volunteer to clean one of the planes after its last flight of the day. This can be done in the hundreds of cities where the FFOCUS members live. It would make good TV and something positive would be accomplished (cleaner planes that is) and when you set up PHL, I may join you! BTW, since this was my idea - you get the bathrooms.

jetsetter

I asked someone in our sales department if they had ever heard of a "veto letter," and they said no, and that they googled the term and could not find it . It sounds like some kind of ultimatum? Or some kind of challenge to the client? Can you advise what book or theory this veto letter comes from? Again, just curious?

phillyd2

Another sales device used by lower end sales guys selling copiers, office supplies, etc. (not saying this to offend or demean anybody or any job). Mostly a tactic by those in the sales industry.

VITO stands for Very Important Top Officer from a book by Anthony Parinello (check spelling) "Selling To VITO" His approach is to send a one page letter focusing on the value of your products/services to the prospect, ending with a promise to follow-up with a phone call at a specific date and time. Then you follow-up at the promised time.

Others can give better details, I'm sure.

sbtinme

No, essentially that's it. It is a tactic that frankly will/would not work in most industries. It would/has worked exceptionally well for some selling lines like copier systems which represent high usage/high cost investments.

If a middle manager from Kraft Foods sent a memo to the President/CEO of Kroger or Safeway trumpeting his company's new line of England's Digestive Biscuits (or whatever), he'd likely get laughed at (at best) or more like ignored in the extreme by the Grocer and nearly fired from his Kraft job for derailing the appropriate sales presentation protocol.

PineyBob

Well I did work for Xerox. And the Deal I mentioned billed nearly 15 million dollars over 3 years. Is that a small transaction?

But other techniques work as well. Miller Hieman "Strategic Selling" is another great "system" that takes a different approach. Much more for managing relationships and how to move around in the account. The best selling model out there is the one that gets you the deal.

LPCJr

What is CCY?

deelmakur

The lipstick protest sounds cute, but probably has no impact. For openers, the customer base is now mostly casual (versus regulars). You can see it in the number of F seats available at departure. In spite of fairly full coach cabins. with upgrades free, even to lower tier members, it speaks volumes that nothing back there has enough status to upgrade. With so many defections, we remaining regulars are not the power group we were. That, by the way, is a problem for the company, not us. Reality was my trip from PBI to HPN last Wednesday evening, with a connect in DCA. We push 40 minutes late from West Palm, mainly because there are quite a few wheelchairs, and so few gate agents, they can't get them on easily. We land at 9 PM, and my connect is scheduled to leave at that time, but the F/A has said they radioed ahead, and asked for connections to be held. The problem has begun because they insist on selling 30 minute connections in the hubs. I immediately learn my flight has gone, even though the 50 seat RJ had fewer than 10 passengers. It suddenly becomes clear that these morons have taken a flight sold as a 30 minute connect, and launched it 15 minutes early, effectively creating a 15 minute connection. It can't be done. Dozens of connecting customers for many different flights are stranded, with agents telling them there are no rooms, and claiming the West Palm agents should have never let them board (they never said a word). I luck out. My flight is going on to Hartford, which is only 90 minutes to my place by rental car. As I reboard, heading to a place I never bought a ticket to, the F/A on the PA says it all, with an announcement that the flight is so lightly booked, coach passengers cannot sit forward of Row 12, or the thing won't take off because of weight and balance issues. The folks trying to run this joint are quite simply, members of the 3 H club...helpless........hopeless, and hapless. I vote to scrap the lipsticks ,and substitute suppositories. This bunch will never even notice.

dayone

In other words, the most obvious statement is the one that is the most obvious.

There are many personal techniques that can be applied in sales and it is silly to believe that any one "model" or "system" is superior. The successful salesperson is simply the one who delivers personal value tailored to the unique needs of the customer. Beware of anyone who complicates the art of peddling with high concepts like "strategic," "consultative," "relationship,� "model,� "system," "platform" or �technology.� Jargon is a poor substitute for knowledge and competence.

bostinboggs

It stands for Crystal City (Alexandria), Virginia: the location of the corporate headquarters of US Airways. I just recently asked the same thing and it is good to see that I was not alone - lol

phillyd2

"Well I did work for Xerox"

Well that does answer so many questions on so many levels

phillyd2

"customer base is now mostly casual (versus regulars)"

Finally somebody is sober enough to hit the issue on its head. I will not dwell on the elitist statement of Casual verses "Regular" customers (I would have used a different word) but this is exactly the issue faced by all including US and United. In the 1700's John Adams was considered the most traveled American ever. This means that he traveled to England, France, the Netherlands and a few other countries in Europe. Today, I have been around the world more times I care to count. Until around 1980 Air travel was only for the upper classes of our society. I well remember flying to FL on Eastern and all of us were dressed as going to Church. Service was fantastic and my fellow passengers were all very well mannered. We drank from glasses while eating great food served on white linen. We even smoked after the meal and life was good. We did this only every few years for our vacation and every aspect was exciting and special.

Welcome the United States Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

Almost every one of the complaints heard here and elsewhere can be blamed on Deregulation. Now, welcome to competition with all the mess that comes with it. The skies are full of sweatpants wearing families flying as they were taking the bus to the next town over.

A more intelligent and honest discussion would be if Deregulation was a good or bad thing. For me I too miss the special nature of air travel but I come down on it being a good thing. Almost in a "power to the people, American kind of way". No longer are the skies only open to the few. When you see your fellow travelers, in all their glory - remember that you are seeing us, all of us - the good, bad and ugly.

This is the world that our airline finds itself in. No amount of letters or lipstick will change this. US will have to transform the airline to be a LCC Plus. Low fares & minimum service to places where the masses fly to with some additional perks for the FF & business travel tossed in. Not a easy job trying to be all things to all people. They will need to find a way to offer better service to all without raising costs too much. Almost impossible but doable with the correct employees. Not many like Wal-Mart, but the fact remains that they get paid $ 7 per hour and still manage to say hi with a smile when you enter the store. These lower educated, lower paid workers would never even consider hiding the shopping carts just for spite because they are mad at their management.

I still fell that US should charge a extra $ 25 per flight and offer food, drinks and seat back videos on all flights. The additional cost of $ 25 to even the lowest $149 fare would not be missed by most and US would truly offer a better product compared to the rest. RJ jets are here to stay but this is not really a bad thing if we are talking about offering service to smaller airports. RJ from PHL to Houston is silly but this may be a capacity issue. All this was in their original Transformation Plan. Do not know what ever happened to it but if I had to guess I would think that the high fuel prices put all these potential positive changes on hold. Since high fuel price appear here to stay, I worry about US.

So when some of us rant about Twinkies, doing things that mean nothing - this is what we are talking about. Think what you want but I do not feel that those at US are stupid. They see that world they operate in has changed, completely. They also understand (I hope) that we are not going back to a regulated system where a few airlines have a monopoly on certain routes where their profits margins are set by law. It is the wild west out there and they have a tough road ahead.

While going through all of this, they now have to contend with amateur sales letters and lipstick sent by the case.

Gee, wonder why they are ignoring you?

PineyBob

Care to share what you meant by that? Trying really hard not to let you bait me again.

There was a time when they were a pretty cool company to work for. Opened a ton of doors for me as their training is STILL Considered the benchmark against which others are measured.

longing4piedmont

duplicate post

longing4piedmont

I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you.

For one several us have received private responses back.

Two, see this article . Did it work? Dunno. But at least an effort was made. What have you done lately besides rant on this forum?

From the article.....

A week after laying off hundreds of employees at the Pittsburgh International Airport, US Airways Group Inc. has recalled some employees to clean its aircraft.

"We are recalling a small number of fleet service employees from furlough to perform primarily utility work, cleaning aircraft," said US Airways spokeswoman Amy Kudwa, who declined to say how many workers were being brought back.

Next rant please.........