How Ryanair succeeds with poor customer service

It's interesting that you have picked up on Ryanair. Their cost cutting is legendary.

They removed the 2nd toilet from some new aircraft they recently purchased so they could add another row of seats.

As far as I know the staff have to buy their own uniforms.

About 3 years ago there was a big story here in Ireland because after they posted record profits O'Leary canceled the staff Christmas party.

I guess the only good thing is that they really don't pretend to be something they are not. You know you are getting transported from one airport to another at absolute minimum cost and that's it, plus they have forced all the other airlines here in Europe to lower their prices also.

I think when people go for "cheap" they don't expect much and they really shouldn't. So basically when they pay such small price they know EXACTLY what they are getting, same as buying cheap clothes that won't last long.

Ryan doesn't see the need to "sweeten" its customers with good c. service because it has no competition in prices...if it did, maybe it would be nice in addition to cheap.

This past summer, my wife, three kids and I were flying from Spain back to Ireland before coming home. Ryan Air was dirt cheap and we gave it a try. No seat assignments, long lines, and a continually changing departure gate turned it into a circus. I guess I'm one of those "other customers." I'll spend a few extra bucks next time and relax. Thanks.

I think that craigslist is a similar example. It goes against everything we learn about good design, yet the user experience is obviously good. Does that mean fancy usability tests are pointless? Is the positive user experience on craigslist only due to the members?

I think that when you go from a situation where a product or service is inaccessible to a situation where it becomes accessible, customers are more forgiving (or less demanding) about a good customer experience. The "good experience" is the accessiblity of traveling for a very low price.

I think we should remember that European focus on customer experience is at a markedly different level than in the Americas, Japan or even most of the rest of Asia.

For whatever reason, Europeans seem to thrive upon treating one another (and, with increasing frequency, visitors) rather rudely. It is, in my opinion, a subconscious, cross-cultural response to the hegemony of the European Union.

However, when given a choice between low cost/bad customer experience and low cost/good customer experience, even jaded, angry, rebellious Europeans will take the latter. They're bitter, not stupid.

The issue here is simply that the extremely low cost outweighs the pleasantness of the consumer experience for some people under some circumstances. I guess we all calculate costs against benefits. As someone who works in Canada and comes from Australia I am used to the 20+hour flights + jetlag + loss of a day one way. Even though I know that I'd sleep much better, actually enjoy my meals, and be more rested upon arrival at either end of the trip if I were to upgrade to business class, I refuse to spend my hard-earned dollars on the comforts associated with that.

For the comparatively short hops within Europe and the UK, I'll personally put up with rude, yelling airline - but not if that ride comes at the end of a cross-Atlantic all-night trip. so, again cost versus benefits.

The day someone offers Ryanair prices and decent customer treatment, I daresay Ryan will quickly change its ways or be out of business. Even gate changes are acceptable if they are conveyed politely with a hint of an apology. Meanwhile, consumers will have to put up and shut up.

Interesting point about Europeans there, Rob - sadly, it's hit pretty well on the nose, speaking as one of them.

I don't know if this has anything at all to do with the EU but the very idea of delivering service merely to insure that other people (whom you don't know, no less) have a pleasurable experience (be it flying, shopping, paying taxes or anything really) seems to be frowned upon.
Very sad indeed.

I actually experienced a small rebellion by a polish (I think) Ryanair flight attendant - because I was in those seats where the 2nd toilet used to be I had no overhead bin (nobody pays for a bin so, unlike the extra seats, none was put in) and my bag had to be stored 14 rows away, in the opposite direction of the door.

Since I imagined myself incapable of going against the flow during disembarkation I asked if I could get it right after landing, but before the door was opened - the blunt reply was "No!".
- but the young lady apparently felt uncomfortable with this because she did indeed bring me the bag in time, and even tried to smile a little.
In your face, O'Leary!

Jj

I would be curious to know what Ryanair's core values are and how they synch with Mr. O'Leary's public persona. If there's a good match, he can probably get away with the brash behavior, to a point. If not, the divergence will create issues for the brand, and likely, his career.

There's a company that does a local version of Consumer Reports called "Checkbook" - there's a "Checkbook Boston", "Checkbook Washington", etc. I noticed that for the most part, when rating businesses, overall satisfaction and price were inversely correlated--the cheapest mechanics, for example, tended to have the highest ratings. I wonder if there's a parallel?

I say two cheers for Ryanair.

Before Ryanair flying across europe was incredibly expensive. Ryanair forced the other airlines to cut their costs. Thats a positive customer experience.

When everything goes well with Ryanair their customer experience is fine. Clean flights, good staff, more aircraft on time than any other airline in Europe. When things go wrong well you're screwed. But at least you know in advance that this is what you're getting and what you're paying for.

As to Robs point the choice was low cost, average customer experience. Nothing exceptional but not bad or rude or nasty, or high cost good customer experience but nothing exceptional either.

Lets face it the worst part of flying these days are the airports and the airline experience is often a distant second place to the airport experience.

Dermot

As an American living in Ireland for the past two years I have used Ryanair more times than I care to count. I never fly with Ryanair because I want to fly Ryanair. I only fly with them when I have no other choice, like when they are the only direct flight to cities like Leeds in the UK. One of the jokes around the office is "Ryanair, we fly you almost there" and this is one of main reasons for the cheap flights.

Ryanair selects small regional airports that give then great discounts on the cost of using the facilities. In Dublin, the reason that the check-in stands don't have computers is a result of Ryanair getting a better rate from the Dublin Airport Authority if they didn't get network services at their check-in counters.

In Ireland, Ryanair is often compared to Southwest Airlines, for reasons I never understand. The two airlines have completely different business models. Ryanair has decided to gain a competitive advantage by focusing on cost and cost alone. Southwest focuses on low fares and on the experience of the passenger. You can do both, but that is a business strategy question, not a user experience question.

It is important to note that the "good experience" premise which I agree with is based on the strategy a company decides to go after. If your strategy is the lowest cost, you decide there is a market to serve in that space, and you can make good margins; then the user experience is irrelevant. Until consumers stop buying your product you don't need to change your strategy, you are after all making good money. We need to make sure we don't mix the desired outcome of an interaction with a product or service, with the larger issue of business strategy when talking about user experience.

Maybe the success depends on the product people are looking for. If I want a relaxing experience (ie I'm going on vacation), I'll pay the extra to fly on a "normal" airline and not have compounded stress.
If I'm desperate to get someplace and have little money to do it, I might opt for Ryanair's cheap price. This would be a one-time deal.
Reminds me of experience with TigerDirect - very low price on a piece of hardware. Malfunctioned and had to go through a hassle and rudeness to resolve situation. Another one-shot purchasing experience.
Yes, there is a place for Ryanair and similar business mindsets. Ten years down the road will show the feasability of such a mindset. Who knows.

This story reminds me of a restaurant here in Richmond, Virginia, called "Mamma Zu." Though I haven't been there in quite a while, all of these may still be accurate... they definitely were the norm when I went there in the past:

The place is known to have a waitstaff with bad attitudes and little patience; It is not visually appealling in the least and it is located in a less-than-desirable area of town (though improving!); usually, you have to wait a longer time than seems acceptable before getting your food; And lastly, an obese transvestite sometimes sits by the door as an unofficial "doorperson" (I'm not making this up)...

All of this seems to add up to a place where no one would want to eat very often. But they do... for one reason... the food is excellent!

The seemingly negative attributes have actually become part of the "charm" that is this restaurant. And every word of mouth recommendation I've heard describes these attributes like badges of honor or something... strange how that's worked out.

In the true definition of "branding", Ryanair is doing exactly what it should: choosing very specific key differentiating attributes (in this case, lack of customer service and low prices) and being CONSISTENT with them.

Take another company like IKEA, for example. It's a furniture store that sets customer expectations that 1) product selection will be inexpensive and 2) you will need to assemble the furniture on your own (a certain form of low customer service). Over time, although the extra left-over bolts can be sometimes disconcerting, customers expect this experience as they "vote" IKEA with their wallets.

Running a business should never be seen as a moralistic endeavor -- where everything is owed to the customer -- but as a strategic game where choices are INTENTIONAL and CONSISTENT. Otherwise, businesses would compete on the same criteria and we would end up with a world of "vanillas" and no choice, no character at all.

Customers ultimately want various choices within any industry, and in my humble opinion, that supercedes even customer service.

What people don't seem to be noticing is that, firstly, Ryanair's extras often make it much more expensive than other airlines and, secondly, when everything goes wrong and you are stranded in a foreign country, the refund of your headline fare won't be very much either, but it's all you'll get.

Most airlines would make sure their customers got home somehow. Once dumped by Ryanair, you could up paying a very large amount.

On August 24th i took my granddaughter to France we travelled Ryanair to Bergarac from EM all was well but on our return to Bergarac on 29th August
for our return flight we were advised that our flight had been cancelled du bto bad weather and it had been divertedn to Limoge but they refused to wait for us to be transported there or supply a
further plane we were all abandoned with an offer of a refund within 7 days it is now 5 weeks and i have not even received an acknowledgement of my
claim we had to stay until 31/8/07 as we could not
get a return flight and had to fly from Bordeaux
to Birmingham and my car was at EM it cost me £500
FOR 2 SINGLE RETURN FLIGHTS plus all my other expenses for staying 2 extra days. I do feel i havebeen treated very shabbily i have tried numerous times to telephone ryanair but could never get through i will have to take things further as this is terrible customer services are ryanair covered by ABTA? or who do we complain to
as i am at least £600 out of pocket this is not
cheap flying

Mark, thanks for the great post.

Ryanair is successful because they deliver on a Brand PROMISE. A good customer experience occurs when the cusotmer knows what to expect (i.e., a Promise is Made) and actually gets it (the Promise is Kept)!

Ryanair appears to be Promise-Driven, and in this way is an example to others that Promise Driven Organizations can deliver high levels of Customer Loyalty, Market Differentiation, and Profitability. I don't know enough about the company to know about their ability to attract and retain Employees, but that is another area that Promise-Driven Organizations excel.

For more about Promise-Driven Organizations, stop by our blog at www.customerexperiences.com/blog. Mark, I added yours to our blogroll since we're in the same space. Hope to see you soon.

I am an aged person who has just returned from Portugal where I spent 4 days of the complete trip in hospital. Dispite being advised by the medical profession to stay in hospital I had to ignore their advise because I could not make changes to my booking. The reason being that RA only had an answer phone system in operation which advised to go on the web, difficult as that I was in hospital couldn't speak Portugese. and no computer. I checked myself out and on reporting to the airport when asking for someone from RA I was sent around the corner where there was a contractor handling all their inquiries. They couldn't have cared less about anyone. Then to top it off these mongrels charged me €40.00 to take back to the UK exactly the same weight which I arrived over with. I have heard of Ned Kelly (bushranger) Robin Hood etc. but never in my life have I ever had the misfortune to business with a bunch of lowlifes in the guise a successful company and the powers that be continue let it continue all need a boot up their rectum. I must also pose the question Who is Ryanair Who are the directors how many people actually are on their payroll How many are contractors to them.
I think they are a greedy bunch of robbers who should be banned from our skys. I will not travel with them again and any one who does so must be considered to have a minus IQ

Great post and comments. Two things came to my mind when reading this.

First, smiles and apologies are free. There's no business reason to treat customers like crap, and there's many benefits in giving them and overall good experience.

Second, and most important: What about safety? If they're cutting costs in every area of the company, how can anyone be sure that their technicians are well trained and motivated, among other critical things?. Even the big airlines have accidents once in a while, so I'll never fly with people that shows that low level of commitment with their customers. It's not worth the risk.

Ryanair is cutting costs at all corners - the unpleasantness from staff and the time delays caused by incoherent processes and lack of training were not worth the stress caused to us on our recent trip to London Stansted from Glasgow!

Delays were caused by printing "priority pass tickets" as advised by Ryanair website. The airport scanner did not read the printed barcodes and we were sent off to the unfriendly ticket desk together with a significant number of other "priority pass" travellers. Take off was delayed by half an hour due to technical problems. So far so good, after all, it is a low cost airline and we didn't expect smiles all round, nor smooth honed processes.

It was the trip back that put the bitter icing on the cake! Fortunately we arrived 2 hours early! The scanner, once again, did not read the barcode on one of the tickets. We stood 20 minutes in a queue to be told that before we could get the ticket re-issued we had to pay £2 to the ticket desk. After wasting another half hour at the ticket desk, we were told that we did not have to pay for the re-issue of the ticket and could just go back to the 1st queue and collect our ticket!!!! No pleasantness or apology was involved in the process. Another half hour to get through a very slow baggage security meant we were just in time to go straight to the gate where the air hostesses could hardly speak english and had not attended the training course that explained that a pink ticket marked "re-issue" was in fact still a priority pass ticket.

At this point we are really stressed and I really do not want to think whether safety on Ryanair also being compromised together with the cost cuts!

I used to travel with Ryanair quite frequently, with cheap weekend flights to Venice, Barcelona etc every year. However their service level has gone from bad to abysmal, treating passengers the same way a dog treats a lamp post. I reluctantly took a Ryanair flight from Cape Verde to Dusseldorf only to find that my 50 euro saving compared to Air Berlin diminished by 12 euros as I had to pay for the 80k journey to Weeze Airport . At check-in they were going to charge me for excess baggage unless I moved items into cabin baggage. I argued the case that it was better to have more weight in the baggage hold than 10kg in an overhead locker which is more likely to cause injury if it lands on someone’s head during an incident or turbulence. The ground hostess said it was company policy to get as much money out of the customer as possible by making this request. I’ve queued for 30 min at check-in only to find that instead of the ground hostess inputting my personal details from my passport she insisted that I gave a booking reference number. After queuing for a reference number I waited at check-in once again but this time deliberately didn’t give a reference number and as I suspected it wasn’t an issue with another member of staff. There is an obvious lack of training and poor customer service levels. I believe that if management don’t care about the staff the staff are unlikely to care about the customer which is evident in the case of Ryanair. Even the pilots are pushed to turn the aircraft around as quickly as possible, to such an extent that safety is sometimes compromised and this year were reprimanded by the UK Airworthiness Authorities. I do a great deal of business travel and avoid Ryanair like the plague, (especially as I’m not paying for the ticket). However this year I’ll take fewer flights for pleasure, perhaps with other budget airlines such as Easyjet or Air Berlin’s comfortable Airbus Aircraft which are also making good profits, have seats that recline, shades on the windows, nets for magazines and a cabin that isn’t completely plastered with advertising….and best of all I won’t get treated like a piece of dirt.