Super Affiliate Marketing Blog

I rarely make posts not affiliated with affiliate marketing or the business of internet marketing, but I just had to express my love for JetBlue today because of how they took a serious and almost potentially reputation damaging issue and turned it into a positive change and experience. Whether something similar to this ordeal happens in our industry (happened to me over the last 2 weeks), damage control is something not many people ever address or pay much attention to, and it’s really something we can all learn a lot from.

Last week, NYC and the rest of the North East had one hell of an ice storm and snow storm. It was brutal. Of course delays were bound to happen at airports, but this one stuck out like a real sore thumb because of the way JetBlue handled it, or didn’t. The reason focus went towards JetBlue Airlines is because they’ve only been around for 7 years, but their track record is amazing. Their service, prices, flights, planes, staff, crew, safety and experience is top notch. There have been many times where I could have flown in business class on American Airlines or Delta, but chose coach on JetBlue, because their coach is just like first class, but without the shrimp cocktail and wine. The flights are always good, the staff always friendly and accomodating, and they are also witty and funny people, which I like a lot. So back onto topic, the reason people were making such a big deal out of JetBlue is because their delays carried over for not just a few hours, but 3 or 4 days! While over 30 million people fly with them a year, and this only effected 10,000 or so, it became a serious issue because they let a lot of the planes just sit on the runway for up to 6 hours! I know if I were forced to sit on a plane on the ground for 6 hours, regardless of how long or short my flight was, I’d be pissed to no end.

Naturally, the media had a field day with this, but after everything went back to normal, JetBlue did something no one saw coming. Instead of just issuing a press release or press conference saying how sorry they were and blah blah, they decided to make a change. Not just any change, a serious one so that it would never happen again, and if by some chance it would, the customer would be overly compensated. No airline, ever, has done this or gone to this extent as quickly as JetBlue did to make a change. This is why I will continue to fly only with JetBlue as often as I can.

So what did they do that was so spectacular? Well, first off, they issued the normal statement saying they were sorry. Normally a company does something like that, the media eats it up, pokes fingers for a week, and then the story is dead and entered into the large history books of errors and screw ups made by that airline. Instead, JetBlue’s CEO and Founder David Neeleman did an interview with The New York Times, and expressed his feelings, almost un-censored about what happened. Yeah that’s impressive, I know, but it doesn’t stop there. They have also decided to change the way they do things and restructure their HQ staff AND their airport staff, as well as add new training programs so to address the issues at hand and any future ones.

But wait, there’s more!

JetBlue has gone even further and made something they call “JetBlue Airways - Customer Bill of Rights”. What the?! Are you serious?! Yes, they are quite serious. So what is this bill of rights to the customer? It’s pretty much their way of saying: if we screw up in any way, shape or form again, and you are not satisfied, you’re going to get comped immediately, either through  free flights and vouchers, or get an actual check from them for up to $1,000.

What other airline has ever done something like this. Even the ones who crash more often than a drunk driver in a parking lot. All they ever do is settle it quickly, issue a statement and press release, and move on. This is why I love JetBlue, and you should too. Here is an airline that really wants to change the way business is done. Not to mention they are the only airline that buys brand new planes, flies them for 2-3 years at most, and then sells them to the major carriers only to buy new ones all over again. For me, flying brand new planes vs old ones is a serious safety precaution that they are willing to invest heavily on.

The moral of the story here is that JetBlue could have taken the usual wussy route. Admitted they screwed up, done the press releases and interviews, and then said “better luck next time”, but instead they accepted full responsibility, and made serious changes, quite publicly too, to address the matter and make damn well sure it never happens again.

Here’s the link to the official page for JetBlue. A video from their founder/CEO, and an outline of the new customer bill of rights program. Kudos to you JetBlue, you’ve done good here, better than any other airline carrier ever has, and you will be remembered and trusted for it. Not to mention your competitors will be even more jealous of you guys now than ever before, but screw it, you guys deserve it and they don’t. Hey American Airlines, take note of these guys, they rock.
I compare this story to something that happened to me and WickedFire over the last two weeks. We had made some serious mistakes over the last few months, and let people do what they wanted. After cracking down a bit, we quickly realized where we were at fault and made the necessary changes and as the owner, I publicly admitted and apologized for what had happened, to all parties, both at fault and not at fault. I also did something I haven’t done in a long time. Ask for advice from everyone and anyone. The results were amazing. At first the experience had got me down, low enough to the point where I was considering selling off WickedFire and walking away from the whole project. But my drive and passion for it and for a changing industry kept me afloat. Not to mention the overwhelming amount of support and advice from members and non-members of the forum.

Instead of just making some blog or thread posts about being sorry, it sparked a serious change in the entire base of WickedFire. From changing jobs and staff positions, to adding a completely new team that we had never considered doing before. We’ve made serious changes, all in hopes that it was the right decision and goal to meet for the future of both WickedFire - as the community, and for the industry.

We’ve started to take a very serious and aggressive approach to changing how things were done before into how they should have been done before things started to head downhill. Like any musician, I never wanted WickedFire to become some one hit wonder and then die out in a year or two. I’m here for the long run, and now I’m glad to say we are finally acting like it too.

Thanks to everyone for your advice, comments, feedback, and support. I definitely could not have done it without any of you. Keep the comments, feedback and ideas coming, I’m reading everything and exploring lots of new areas and ideas we never considered before.