I Almost Feel Sorry for United

United’s recent handling of the forced disembarkation of a passenger in Chicago will go down in history as a textbook example of the power of social media.The only company I’ve ever publicly complained about on a regular basis is United.  I fly over 100,000 miles per year on United, and I have traveled well over one million lifetime miles on the airline.  I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of crews.  It’s great set of individuals, but I’m convinced that United’s senior management has led to a customer culture at United that is far inferior to competitors such as Alaska, Southwest, and the soon-to-disappear Virgin America brand.How so?  Look at refund policies.  Look at how they handle canceled flights.  Look at whether their on-board WiFi actually works.  I’ve never had a Southwest, Alaska or Virgin flight delayed on arrival by a moveable gate without an operator – but I remember dozens and dozens of United flights where the gate agent was nowhere to be found.  Rainy day on the west coast?  Somehow the other airlines handle “weather delays” better than United.  And I never check baggage with United unless I have no choice.  At SFO, waiting for United luggage easily adds an hour to your trip.  Or how about flights that have been canceled because the crew “went illegal” and couldn’t crew a flight due to too many hours worked, because United’s scheduling algorithms called things a bit too close?Earlier tonight I was on a flight back to SFO from Houston with two of my kids.  Before we left the gate, the captain invited them into the cockpit for pictures.  My children were thrilled to sit in the pilot and co-pilot seats!  I took a picture and posted it on Instagram and Facebook.  The flight crew was picture-perfect on every dimension.  Friendly, thoughtful and engaging.  I felt like I was on Virgin America, Alaska, or Southwest.  Nice work, I thought.  Impressive.Within minutes, I received my first comment from a friend on Facebook:  “… before they were dragged kicking and screaming, from the cockpit.”  That was the first response; not one congratulating the airline.  Not one saying “wow, that’s awesome!”  That reflects a lot of frustration that’s been building up for years.  I can’t quantify it, but it’s real and it’s got to be affecting United’s bottom line.I almost felt sorry for United at that moment.  A culture of treating passengers badly on balance – relative to their key competiiors – has created a tinderbox enabling a huge groundswell of negative emotion to ignite a raging firestorm of anger.  Just search “@United” on Twitter to see for yourself.  The social media reaction is off the charts.United management should look at this to understand the difference between a strong social media team, and a weak one.  Or at least the difference between a social media team that’s empowered, and one that’s hobbled.Using NPS, this was quite predictable.  I actually talked about this about two years ago, as you can see here.  As a manager, you’re missing critically important items when your NPS trails your competitors by 40-50 points.  Just look at Southwest’s NPS of 62 versus United’s 10.  Do you think United’s forced disembarkation have been news if it happened on Southwest?  Or better yet, would it have happened at all?  In a customer service organization, a terrible Net Promoter Score is a disaster waiting to happen.United’s behavior finally tapped into a deep well of repressed emotion that management needs to answer for.  This isn’t a matter of “unions versus management.”  It’s just poor senior management.  They’ve let things fester for years, in terms of how they treat their customers, and finally they’re paying the price.