Customers have a VOICE - that you can BELIEVE!

@KevinSmith an author and podcaster from the U.S. is tweeting about his very personal late experience on a SouthWestAir flight. He wasn't allowed to fly with them - "too fat due to regulations"so the personnel figured. CRAZY!

Despite the good reputation of SouthWestAir the story seems pretty harsh. Would I have been on this flight, I guess I would done similar. In case I have in a similar case on traveling to Belgium with Thalys (a subsidiary of SNCF) which is a super-highspeed train traveling from Cologne to Paris via Brussels.

Kevin's experience you can read on Twitter, here or there. Twitter makes it possible and if the company is as open as SouthWestAir. They are the "Toyota of the Sky" and have been exceptionally customer focused.  "Lean in the air" was probably a slogan that was all to true till the event a few days ago.

Customer focus is quite easy and quickly to achieve, by any rank in the company. What has driven the personnel on this particular flight - who knows. 

What has driven the personal on my journey with Thalys up to Brussel late August 2008, I don't know what was in the air (during the event and afterwards).

How much reputation is destroyed by such BAD customer experiences for the company? How much stress is on the not well-treated customer? What is the negative ROI (Return of Incident) truly measured in $$$, €€€ or equivalent?