Ever found a hidden nasty in your food? Ever suffered food poisoning? Maybe you run the risk whilst eating at a back alley food hall. What if you spent the $855 joining fee to access the Qantas Club Lounge only to discover an industrial bolt in the complimentary service food? A Qantas spokesperson confirmed the February 8 incident at Sydney Airport, “Qantas removed the foreign object, a small bolt, and removed the tray from the food service counter immediately. Qantas investigated the incident with the lounge caterer and the object was not consistent with any of the equipment in the lounge catering facility. Together with the caterer, we will continue to closely monitor the service to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Whilst the airline also posted a half year net profit of $111 million in February, Qantas passengers could well be left wondering how a metal contaminant could make its way past security and into the club lounge food. Just how vulnerable is the airline food supply chain? Whilst airline security will screen you down to your socks and deodorant to avoid weapons and explosives getting on the plane with you – how safe is the food they serve? Previous security trials at international airports have found food trolleys to be vulnerable to exploitation.
What would a scenario look like if a flight is targeted by contaminating the food of passengers and crew? It is precisely this reason why Qantas should acknowledge the seriousness of such a case and have a coordinated response – not only to avoid privileged club lounge members breaking a tooth or choking, but for all passengers and their safety – because after all “you’re the reason they fly!”
Learning outcomes for Qantas
It is one thing to have a great vision like ‘you’re the reason we fly‘ but staff need to be trained and share that vision. Otherwise they can and most likely will damage the customer’s experience, the company’s reputation and in some cases, risk operations. Here’s how Qantas staff performed on this particular trip:
- Ross @ Qantas Bookings – made the wrong flight and car hire booking. Cost $70 to amend the car hire terms. Informed #qfcustomercare via Twitter – no response.
- Manfred @ Qantas Club Lounge – handling the food contamination complaint – advised customer care would call the following week to formally apologise and inform the outcome of investigation. Qantas failed to call.
- Bianca @ Qantas Customer Care – #qfcustomercare via Twitter promised to investigate – no response.
- Toni @ Qantas Customer Care- called at 7:50am on a Monday morning (2 weeks following incident) – said she would call back later that day – called 8 days later and was unaware of Twitter and written complaints.
- Courtney @ Qantas Corporate Communications – promised to respond within the day – responded 3 days later to a follow up.
It is this type of customer handling that causes frustration, mistrust and reflects poorly on the organisation. There are also some important lessons for companies operating social media complaint systems – they have to be integrated with the corporate complaints system – otherwise it creates yet another bad customer interface.
So the advice to Qantas? Lift your game!! And start with spending some of the $111 million on some staff training!!
Happy and safe flying.
Chris Cubbage CPP, GAICD
APSM Executive Editor
