McDonalds. Shocked by Customer Service!

We all know McDs as the place for fast as can be done, no nonesense service. Where service is limited to taking an order, fulfilling an order and then bringing it to your table if your Big Mac won't be ready in the next 60 seconds...

So last weekend I got a shock...

Strolling in to the McDonalds near the local Sky Train station with my daughter and niece in tow, carrying a number of bags ready for their bus trip down to stay with Granny, I attempted to make my order.... as I started a nice young lady interrupted me and asked me to sit down... I must admit I was confused, resisted, checked for her United Airlines ID and made a quick look around for someone rushing up to take me down... but no I was ushered over to a table where a Menu was presented to me, orders were taken and the delivered to our table. Service was somewhat slower than the usual DIY system, but certainly with two kids and a bunch of bags in tow I was very happy for the extra wait.

The question I ask myself though is why was I singled out for this service, Kids, Bags, Foreign Person... no idea because although I watched while we were eating no one else got the same service....Maybe you have to be "Foreign with kids and bags" to qualify, but sure as heck I felt very special.

So what's that got to do with Affiliate marketing. Every affiliate wants to get special service, to feel like they are the most important person an Affiliate Manager deals with, would you want to have an AM from the UA school of customer care or McDonalds? Unlike both of these services Affiliate Managers have the luxury of distance and email to mean they don't need to deal with "in your face" demands, so there should never be a reason for an Affiliate Manager to not treat each affiliate as special, no matter where they rank on the revenue table.

United Airlines Sit Down Shut up and don't ask for help or else!

So we knew John would come back from the US with some great stories of people he'd met, things he done and places he'd seen. But his best story was before he even left Bangkok, courtesy of those nice people on United Airlines... you have been warned....

So John's on the plane, he has his seat and he's just waiting for the rest of the passangers to settle in. When infront he notices a Thai Chinese family with two young chidren is trying to shuffle their family into one section where they could sit together. Naturally this involved requesting a little bit of assistance from the flight attendant, those nice people who's job it is to ensure we all have a pleasant flight.

Naturally the flight attendant, okay flight "don't bother me" attendant gave this middle aged Father of two young kids about as much notice as anyone else asking for help and continued to ignore him, no intention of making any effort to help him out, ask another passanger or two to swap seats to accomodate his family. In a desperate attempt to get her attention, he took hold of her upper arm....

The reaction was instant, but not quite what everyone was expecting, shouting and screaming at the top of her voice - what no one could quite make out, but obviously the UA code word for "Violent Passanger On Board". A male flight attendant then came barging down the aisle, knocking passangers out of the way without so much as a "excuse me please" to physically assault the paying passanger and have him bundled out of the door by a couple of passanger friendly flight "fear me you economy class scum" attendants.

Naturally this went down real well with the kids who were shocked to see their father being dragged out of the airplane for trying to request help... I guess he's lucky someone didn't try to shoot him, err on the side of caution an'all that.

To add to the joys of flying with UA, John was treated to the joys of customer service at it's best at the UA counters at Denver... if an hour in a queue doesn't phase you, then try three hours in Denver.. Customer Service awards anyone?

Nothing to do with Affiliate Marketing but sure is interesting to see how customer service is done in other industries where it matters !!