This Week - San Francisco : Next week - Who Knows!

Greetings from the CDI-MDM Summit in San Francisco.  I'm scheduled to fly back to the UK on Sunday, but an e-mail I received from Virgin Atlantic last night has got me worried - apparently they think I'm flying to Miami.

The UK is currently suffering what the BBC is describing as "the coldest weather this year" so maybe I'd be better of in Miami, but I'd really just like to go home, Sir Richard (Branson), if you don't mind.

Of course, I've checked my booking on-line; the booking reference in the e-mail is different to the one on my account and my flight to London is still there.  My guess is that I've received someone else's booking details and that "computer error" will be blamed if I ever get an explanation from Virgin Atlantic.  I wonder how many customers have received confusing e-mails from Virgin today quoting the wrong flight details...

The impact of poor data quality is not always easy to quantify.  The direct cost to Virgin of sending out a few thousand erroneous e-mails is trivial in the scheme of things.  But what is the true cost of this data quality problem? 

• How many customers have been inconvenienced and spent time checking their bookings? 
• How many extra calls (at premium rate) have been made to the Virgin Atlantic call centre?
• How does this apparent incompetence in handling customer bookings impact people's view of the Virgin brand?

They say that as a rule of thumb a satisfied customer will tell up to two people about their experience, while a dissatisfied customer will tell ten.  I guess that statistic pre-dates blogging. ;o)

Comments

[Steve Tuck]

I've finally received a response to an e-mail I sent to Virgin on 2nd March. They first replied on 13th to say that my message had been forwarded to the Customer Relations department "for further investigation."

They must have been very thorough with their investigation, because it's taken them more than 4 weeks to respond. So what gems has it unearthed to explain the data quality problem? Read for yourself:

Our Ref: 873714/WNSCRW/1

31 March 2006

Dear Mr Tuck

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry to read of your disappointment with regards to the incorrect information you received about your return flight to London Heathrow on 05 March. Please be assured that I have brought this matter to the attention of the relevant manager for his review.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us, and we look forward to welcoming you on board one of our flights soon.

Yours sincerely

Raymond D’silva
Customer Relations Executive

That explains everything then does it? Virgin Atlantic not only have data quality problems, but it also appears that they have a very slow and largely pointless Customer Service function.