I've been tardy with my posts lately, dear reader, but I have a good excuse. I was out on the road documenting the joys of modern travel for your reading pleasure.
Before going any further, I'd like to say something about expectations and satisfaction. If I ask you, "are you satisfied with the service", you actually conduct a process along these lines before answering the question:
- I didn't expect much, and they more or less delivered ... "satisfied"
- My expectations were low, and they actually did more than I expected ... "very satisfied"
- I didn't expect much, and they were actually worse ... "dissatisfied"
- I could keep going here, but you get the idea ....
The thing about airline travel right now is that our expectations have been lowered A LOT. Between the airlines and the security services, it's a far cry from what it used to be, and even what it could be. [Unless you happen to be paying full fare for overseas first class. I only wish ....]
Remember we used to complain about airline food? The little plastic trays it came in? The fact that the salads were always weird? Strangely rubbery eggs? Yeah, well ... here's what we've been reduced to:
I can actually recommend the beef brisket sandwich. But I'd really like some kind of service that doesn't involve tossing me a foil-wrapped thing without any ceremony at all. This isn't a meal in any sense I can identify -- it's refueling at best.
But the fact that it tasted good actually exceeded my expectations, which were exeptionally low. So I guess I'm satisfied with the food, right? Don't be fooled by customer satisfaction scores -- they're only half of the story.
Oh yeah ... about the wine. Stay tuned for the next post, where we discuss service recovery.
