What Do Meg Whitman And United Airlines Have In Common?

You can’t be great at everything, just ask Meg Whitman and United Airlines. I recently heard eBay’s ex CEO, Meg Whitman speak. During the Q&A she talked briefly about her candidacy to be governor for California. At a recent campaign stop, a voter asked what she was going to do about a particular issue if elected. “Nothing,” she responded. “I will focus on three things and only three things: jobs, spending, and education.” I loved her response and especially the conviction of her response.

Her story reminded me of the YouTube video from last year, “United Breaks Guitars” that has had over 7 million views. In case you haven’t seen the video, a United Airlines passenger, Dave Carroll, had his Taylor guitar destroyed by the airline’s baggage handlers during a flight in 2008. For several months, a number of United Airlines people from the flight attendant on the flight to multiple customer service representatives in the United States and India heard his plight. After United Airlines finally declined to reimburse him for the $1200 in damages due to what appears to be a technicality on when he originally filed his compliant, he wrote a song about the incident. Only after the tremendous amount of coverage did United decide to “make it right.”

From what I can tell from reading an interview with Barbara Higgins, VP of Customer Contact Centers at United, each of the employees from United Airlines that dealt with the issue were just following a standard operating procedure designed (or at least managed) by a senior executive at the airline. Ms. Higgins talked about how 99.5% of bags arrive on time with no damage. I did a little research and found that United ranked 10thout of 19 airlines according to an April 2009 tally from the US Department of Transportation. 

Both United’s response to this individual incident and their overall ranking in this area is average.

If the CEO of United Airlines had made customer service as it relates to lost/damaged baggage a major focus, I suspect that this incident would not have occurred or would have been resolved early on in the dispute. There would have been different policies in place with the goal of making United #1 or #2 or #3, instead of #10 - instead of just being “average.” So, it appears that United is fine with its average approach on dealing with this kind of issue. And, of course, you can’t excel or be #1 at everything.

I am all for United being average in this area if it was a decision executives consciously made. In fact, I encourage it. Lots of companies are average in certain areas of customer service (next time you are in a Costco, ask where the express line is or try calling Amazon or eBay with a complaint).

A decision to be “average” is a fundamental key in order to be anything but average in other areas of your business.  Costco may make you wait in a long line to buy that expensive big screen TV, but they will also allow you 90 days to return it and extend the warranty from one year to two.

Being “average” in many areas can be just the thing you need to make your business more valuable in the long run if it enables you to focus on where your business is definitely not average.  No company, not even one with infinite resources, can afford to be #1 in all areas -- the ability to make the correct tradeoff decisions for your business is the foundation for an Order of Magnitude executive.

Make the hard choices to purposely decide where you are going to be “average” like United Airlines, or “do nothing” like Meg Whitman.