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Views from the FT’s finest
Ryanair volte-face shows feedback is best given face-to-face
By Lucy Kellaway
Earlier this month Ryanair decided that being horrid to customers was not a great business strategy and declared it would be a bit nicer. This was pretty remarkable and has, indeed, been much remarked upon.
Yet even more remarkable was what caused chief executive Michael O’Leary to make this U-turn. It was not market research. It was not social networks. It certainly was not anything to do with management consultaants, whom Mr O’Leary once said he would shoot if they ever darkened his doorstep. Nor was it due to pressure from the board.
Instead, the trigger was people who periodically accost him in McDonald’s to moan about his airline ...
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