How are Ryan Air and British Airways similar?

As a soft toy wholesaler we are committed this year to expanding in to Europe, and have specifically targeted Scandinavia and France as countries where our fair trade, knitted and crochet toys would be popular.

In order to do this we have scheduled to exhibit at trade shows through out the year and we started in Jan by exhibiting at Formex, Stockholm.

When I am on holiday I have no issues with flying on low cost jets such as Easy Jet. The only airline I completely refuse to fly on is Ryan Air as, in my personal opinion, I think they discriminate against disabled people.

However when flying on business, for various reasons too numerous to detail now, I like to fly with more business like airlines such as British Airways.

I won't bore you with all the details of the dispute I now have with British Airways but it revolves around my frozen shoulder and the subsequent £35 excess bagage charge I had to pay for having 2 small bags rather than 1 big one.

What has surprised me was the complete lack of discussion about the matter. At what stage should a company think, I'm going to make this customer happy because this disputed amount is so small that it is not worth losing a customer over?

This is especially true when you have a variety of means of paying, i.e Boots can give Advantage points and BA could give a discount towards a future flight. This means that although you theoretically give money, in the end you gain.

What I have learnt from this minor issue is not to sweat the small stuff. Previously I have been annoyed when consumers have come directly to us for a refund when they perceive their toy to have been faulty. Emails are invariably emotional and never accompanied by proof of purchase. We don't get many, approx 1 every 4 months, but I now see that I have not treated them with the right attitude. (Luckily Liz has taken them off me as she has been far more pragmatic.)

Now I am going to remember that the cost to Best Years is tiny compared to the customer satisfaction we can give by promptly replacing the toy. Why get upset by a very small sum of money when it can buy such instant and disproportionately large customer satisfaction?

We can, and will, treat customer complaints as an opportunity to promote customer good will, rather than try to save a tiny sum of money.

And as for British Airways? Well I simply will not fly with them again until my frozen shoulder has healed and I can manage to comply with their 1 bag policy. Given that we are exhibiting at Playtime Paris, and Formexover the summer, visiting Pebble in Bangladesh and looking for new suppliers in Nepal, I estimate that between all the flights we won't now book with them this dispute over £35 will lose them flights worth £000s.

So therefore the simularity between British Airways and Ryan Air is that I won't fly with either of them due to my opinion on their attitude towards disability.

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