Truly great moments in business come around very seldom. If your present when one occurs its something you remember. I was there when my business partner Ron Powell returned from a trip after meeting Bill Inmon and it changed the course of our magazine's coverage leading us down a very successful path. I can't help but wonder if the same is true of the bad ideas do we really take notice? Or do they happen so often that they have become common place?
Can you imagine being in the meeting when someone suggested the following:
I have a new way to increase profitability lets lie to our customers and tell them we'll deliver our service (insert hotel room or seat on a plane here) lets reinforce the lie by issuing a confirmation number that we know in the end has no real meaning. But in the background we'll actually sell more of the rooms or seats than we actually have. We can call it "over booking" this way it will have an official sounding term and the customers will just except it as policy. We can insure our plane/hotel is full and we'll increase profitability. Now I realize we'll probably screw up client business trips and family vacations but heck we'll all get rich so who cares!
At some point this conversation took place at companies like Frontier Airlines (who minutes ago informed me that my flight was over booked and Hilton hotels who simply didn't have a room for my family this past weekend after booking well in advance and calling to confirm from the road the same day as the reservation. The conversation wasn't as satirical as my version but bottom line these polices exist so why didn't some MBA educated professional jump up during this meeting and scream ARE YOU KIDDING ME THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD! Because some companies are driven by greed not service.
I take a simple stance on how I run my business. I try to deliver what we promise, we don't lie to our clients and we do most of our business based on relationships. We've been successful and by most accounts we are respected by our peers so it makes me wonder how policies like the one above even make it into a meeting let alone are actually acted upon.
Overbooked....its a good thing.....if your a hotel chain or an airline.
Can you imagine being in the meeting when someone suggested the following:
I have a new way to increase profitability lets lie to our customers and tell them we'll deliver our service (insert hotel room or seat on a plane here) lets reinforce the lie by issuing a confirmation number that we know in the end has no real meaning. But in the background we'll actually sell more of the rooms or seats than we actually have. We can call it "over booking" this way it will have an official sounding term and the customers will just except it as policy. We can insure our plane/hotel is full and we'll increase profitability. Now I realize we'll probably screw up client business trips and family vacations but heck we'll all get rich so who cares!
At some point this conversation took place at companies like Frontier Airlines (who minutes ago informed me that my flight was over booked and Hilton hotels who simply didn't have a room for my family this past weekend after booking well in advance and calling to confirm from the road the same day as the reservation. The conversation wasn't as satirical as my version but bottom line these polices exist so why didn't some MBA educated professional jump up during this meeting and scream ARE YOU KIDDING ME THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD! Because some companies are driven by greed not service.
I take a simple stance on how I run my business. I try to deliver what we promise, we don't lie to our clients and we do most of our business based on relationships. We've been successful and by most accounts we are respected by our peers so it makes me wonder how policies like the one above even make it into a meeting let alone are actually acted upon.
Overbooked....its a good thing.....if your a hotel chain or an airline.
Posted June 29, 2009 1:32 PM
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