The Opposite of Ryanair

This blog is NOT about Ryanair – despite the title ‘Opposite of Ryanair’. Let me explain.

On February 19th 2009, an Irish web developer called Jason Roe found a bug in Ryanair’s booking process. He blogged about it and not long after that he had Ryanair staff calling him an idiot and a liar among other things. Click on the link and take a look at the comments and see how Ryanair handle things.

I followed along with the story on Twitter and basically shook my head thinking ‘this is just typical of Ryanair’.  The story went viral during the week and got acres of coverage in the press. Ryanair came out and confirmed that it was indeed their staff that posted the comments on Jason’s blog saying :

“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.”

On Friday 27th, Jason Tweeted that he had been asked to “write a 500 word piece in defence of blogging… what would you say?”. I replied to say that defending blogging is like defending free speech and to cite examples of business that listen, improve and grow with the help of bloggers.

It got me thinking about something bloggers could do to turn the spotlight away from Ryanair and focus it on businesses that do care about their customers and take feedback in a positive way.

I wrote about it on my personal blog on Friday and would encourage any blogger to write an ‘Opposite of Ryanair’ story. Just give a shout out to a business that deserves to be in the spotlight and I will link to your story here. Anything goes – if it’s a restaurant you think more people should visit because they are consistently good – blog it. Does the person behind the cash register put you in a good mood – blog it. Any and all examples are welcome if you think it’s the ‘Opposite of Ryanair’.

If you don’t have a blog, just email oppositeofryanair at gmail dot com and tell your story. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Apparantly, when we have a bad experience we tell 10 people but only tell 3 people of a good experience. It’s time to change that and send some business to companies that deserve it.