Airline CEO Hits "Reply All" and Slams Customer

A Florida couple received this unintended slight when Spirit Airlines' CEO hit "reply all" instead of forwarding their e-mail to an employee. The couple, already upset about missing a concert due to a flight delay, posted the e-mail on a blog that has been discussing the airline:

From: Ben Baldanza [mailto: xxxxxxxxx@SpiritAir.com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 1:02 PM
To: Christy; Martin; John; Pasquale
Subject: Re: Complaint

Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

Yikes! As this story illustrates, it's all too easy to slip up on the Internet. While your e-mail mistakes may not put you in a media hot seat, they do make a poor impression on prospects.

"Wanting to respond quickly is no excuse for poor grammar, misspellings, and bad form," warns Tina LoSasso, Managing Editor of SalesDog.com, and contributor to Top Dog Sales Secrets. "Proofread your response carefully before sending it out. It's easy to miss errors on a computer screen. Try this: print out your draft and read it aloud to catch any mistakes, missed words, or poor syntax."

A final word of caution: Don't enter the recipient's e-mail address until you have written and proofread your e-mail.

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A Sales Mistake of Biblical Proportions

"Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of an ass. That many sales are killed every day with the same weapon." - Unknown

Take a minute to think about what you're missing by jumping into your sales pitch before listening to your customer. Sales guru Ari Galper has done just that.

As Ari states in Top Dog Sales Secrets, "Most of us work hard to distance ourselves from the negative image of a high-pressure salesperson. By launching into a discussion about our product before we've established integrity and trust, we create pressure, which inevitably causes prospective clients to retreat." Ari offers a solution to this common problem, saying "Instead of relying on your product knowledge to spark prospect interest, try creating a conversation focused solely on discovering if prospective clients have a problem they want solved, and if they'll consider allowing you to solve it."

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