If you serve them, they will come

I used to remember a time in the 1980’s when compact cars were nothing more than an engine and four wheels bolted onto a steel body. It didn’t have anything powered: everything was all manually operated; giving rise to popular terms like “pawis steering.”

You’ll be lucky to have even the most rudimentary safety equipment (front disc brakes?) or an AM/FM stereo with a tape deck.

Thankfully, cars have come a long, long way since then. Today, your typical compact car doesn’t scrimp on features. It’s brimming with style, safety, and technology; heck, the all-new Ford Focus can even parallel park itself. Buyers can consider themselves lucky nowadays: they’ve got three times the choices, three hundred times the features, at prices comparable to those in the 1980’s (inflation adjusted, of course).

In short, the automotive industry has gone the way of the consumer electronics industry. Your PlayStation 3 with all its computing power and multimedia capability is comparably priced to VHS players of five years ago. Your latest Apple, Samsung, or BlackBerry smartphone comes packed with more features and more memory at prices similar or even cheaper than they were before. And consumers couldn’t be happier.

Consumer taste and technology are all evolving and moving at a very fast pace to the point that if a company can’t catch up, you’ll be dead in a few years, tops. Just look at Napster, Friendster, or most dotcom companies with “-ster” in its name—they’re all gone, only to be replaced by the new zeitgeist: Facebook. And even Zuckerberg’s wonder company isn’t safe from criticism: some pundits are saying that Facebook will be gone in five years. That’s how quickly people’s tastes, wants, and desires shift.

Sadly, there’s one critical area that needs to be badly addressed: the service industry. In fact, the service industry is perhaps one of the few industries out there that hasn’t adopted, isn’t willing to adopt, or is slow to adopt to change. For instance, complaints about how terrible, slow, or incompetent call centers or hotlines are, is a fact of everyday life. Lousy signal, unable to call or send text messages has spawned countless internet memes. Sure, the average Filipino has the propensity to make light of the matter, but this opens up a very serious argument.

And a perfect example of this is the airline industry. I’m sure there are some other industries out there that could use a beating, but this eureka moment of mine is quite fresh, so bato-bato sa langit.

As mentioned, with prices adjusted for inflation, cars and electronics are becoming better value as the years or models go by. With just a modest increase in price (if ever), you get more. Sadly, that’s not the same with airlines. Anyone who’s travelled recently will notice that some airlines will charge you for each little move you make. Travelling with luggage? You pay. Hungry and want food? You pay. Feeling chilly and need a blanket? You pay. Overweight or extra wide? You pay. Seriously, at the rate things are going, airlines will charge you each time you use the toilet onboard or remove toilets altogether in economy.

Just last week, I went to Thailand with a group of twenty or so journalists and the folks from Ford Group Philippines. We took a flight to Bangkok via Philippine Airlines. This is the first time I’ve taken the country’s flag carrier (and the first in a long time when Ford last used the airline), since the San Miguel conglomerate takeover.

Sadly, after the promising start provided by the Philippine Airlines “welcoming committee”, things don’t look too good. First, I’ve immediately noticed how overly “relaxed” the ground staff is. Even if July is a lean season, it shouldn’t be an excuse to slack off on how to handle your passengers. If there’s a manual that states that a passenger transaction should be completed in X minutes, it should be followed. In our experience, a simple seat assignment (and the plane wasn’t full) and bag tagging costs time. Second, being Philippine Airlines, it was ubiquitous that our flight was delayed. There’s no avoiding that fact. Third, a good handful of personal entertainment systems were offline, forcing some to move seats. Fourth, when it came to serving us in the half-empty plane, there was no choice of meal. It was simply the awful fish curry or the awful fish curry. And it sounded impossible since the cart just left the galley. And where did the butter go? A bread roll should always go with butter. Oddly enough, the entire experience was replicated (except for the flight delay) on the way back to Manila. Of course, the 30-minute wait for the luggage served as the great equalizer.

After this rather not-so-wonderful experience, I kept thinking to myself that if Philippine Airlines were a carmaker, it would be introducing an all-new model with the same price at its predecessor and will have fewer features, get less fuel mileage, go slower in a straight line, and have poor reliability. In other words, it’s not a great car by anyone’s measure. And it reflects poorly on the company as well.

Undoubtedly, carmakers such as Ford have gone through dark years with lackluster cars and ho-hum technology. They’ve relied heavily on financing and fleet sales to move units. But Ford has learned their lesson. They’ve learned to go back to what made them great in the first place: building cars. Building them right, building them great. And look where that realization has taken then? Cars and trucks such as the Fiesta, Explorer, Ranger, and now the all-new Focus. It shows that if you’ve gotten your act together, you can achieve greatness.

With a self-professed car buff now heading Philippine Airlines, I hope it serves as a shot in the arm. I know it will take time, but I do hope he understands the importance of getting the most basic ingredient right. In the case of Philippine Airlines, and airlines in general, it’s all about service. You can buy all the newest airplanes, hire the most beautiful flight attendants, and offer the most luggage allowance; but if you can’t serve your customers right, nothing will happen. To paraphrase the movie, Field of Dreams, “if you serve them, they will come”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a PhD holder to figure that one out. It just needs an out-of-the-box thinker, and I think there’s a chance they can deliver.

Follow the author on Twiter: @carguideph.