I guess I am living in a bubble of best practices. How else could I explain my shock and disappointment with a recent transaction at a major airline (think American Airlines)?
I do quite a bit of traveling for IndustryWeek. And I have the great fortune of having a travel agent right in the Cleveland office where I am based.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a dedicated travel agent for pleasure trips.
I booked my own flight on Jan. 20, 2007, for travel to San Francisco this Memorial Day weekend. My husband and I rarely get the chance to take a vacation, so I wanted to book early to ensure a low fare and to make sure we wouldn’t miss a single hour of much needed R&R.
Here’s where the trouble begins. In March I received an e-mail alerting me that my travel itinerary had changed. This would not do, so I called the phone number provided in the e-mail, contacted an agent and got the issue resolved in what I thought was an acceptable manner.
No harm, no foul – right?
Not. This past weekend I logged onto the American Airlines site to check our itinerary and found that American Airlines once again changed our flight – this time on the return trip. And once again I called to have the flight changed back.
I was spun into the system and my call landed at the desk of one of the rudest customer service representatives I have ever encountered. His name is Frank.
I told Frank of my situation, and Frank really didn’t care. I asked to speak to a manager. This got Frank’s attention and he demanded to know why I would want to speak with a manager when there was nothing they could do either.
I told Frank that I was a customer and I wasn’t pleased with the service I was receiving. After several requests to speak to his manager, Frank was getting more and more belligerent. Finally Frank got the best of me and I called Frank a name. (Knowing my libel laws, I am certain a jury of my peers would clearly see that the name I called Frank couldn’t possibly cause him distress since he does not actually resemble a farm animal.)
Frank then told me, “Good luck resolving your issue. I am releasing you.”
Uh oh. Did Frank release me from the call? Or did Frank release me from my flight?
Concerned, and seeing red, I called back. This time a much nicer representative answered the phone and apologized for Frank’s actions and promptly got a supervisor on the phone.
Now I’m getting somewhere, I thought. Until I realized that the supervisor and Frank must have been trained at the same time. The supervisor essentially told me that American Airlines never guarantees times of flights, merely dates. And that airlines change their schedules all the time. She even was kind enough to rattle off about 18 different airlines that offer similar shoddy service as American Airlines.
Gads. . . no wonder airlines are having so many financial woes! Their motto: “We’ll get you there sometime.”
I informed Miss Mediocrity that I have never had this happen to me before when I fly Continental. And once again she started rattling off airlines that will, indeed, offer terrible service – Continental included. To her credit, she did offer to refund my tickets so I could book with Continental, since I liked them so much.
At this point I gave up and thanked the supervisor for her wonderful soliloquy of how American Airlines doesn’t give a hoot about customers and ended the call.
My husband, who was in the next room during the entire customer-service nightmare, said, “Great, now we are going to be cavity searched and we can forget about seeing our luggage ever again.”
I’ll let you know in a few days if his prediction is correct.
Last edited by Traci Purdum; 5/23/2007 at 03:24 PM.
As a frequent business traveler I can vouch that American Airlines is the absolute worst.
I could write a book on all the airline mishaps I've expereienced. When its American, I am virtually guaranteed of any one or combination of the following on any given itinerary:
Lost luggage
Delayed flights
Cancelled flights
Missed connections
And yes - their call in customer service is pretty much useless. I missed a connection recently and the desk clerk told me to call the 800 number. after going round and round it was clear they weren't going to help me. They told me to go to a desk at the gate, I reminded them that it was who told me to call them in the first place. I gave up, and went to another gate, the first person was clearly not interested in helping, but I finally found a cleark that would and got it straightend out - by them switching me over to United!
I can't think of any other industry that could get away with such crappy service and remain in business ( except utilities, but they have you captive).
As promised, I am here to give you an update on my travel woes and customer-service nightmare.
Our scheduled flight leaving Cleveland was to depart at 5:55 a.m. We arrived at the airport at 4:03 a.m. The airport was bustling with passengers waiting at counters to get checked in for their flights. There were agents at every counter except – you guessed it – American Airlines.
At 4:23 an agent sauntered to the counter and took about five minutes to get situated. At this point there were about 45 people in line waiting for assistance (the self-service lane was closed since no one was there to check luggage). At about 4:33 another agent strolled over to the counter to assist. The self-service kiosk was opened and a mad dash to that counter rivaled the running of the bulls.
We waited our turn in line and finally made it to the kiosk -- only to find our flight had been cancelled. Ugh. Was Frank getting his revenge, or was the story about weather in Dallas (our stopover) true? At this point I was reduced to tears. . . I had no coffee in my system, I was up several hours earlier than normal and I just wanted to board my plane.
Mary, the American Airlines agent assisting self-service passengers, was witness to my tears and immediately got on the phone to reschedule our flight. After about 15 minutes she found a flight on Delta that would get us into San Francisco via Atlanta.
Between my tears I was able to thank Mary and we ran to the Delta counter, checked our luggage and proceeded to security.
My husband's prediction was partially correct. We were flagged for extra security checks. My co-worker, senior editor Jill Jusko, says that any time you switch airlines at the last minute the airline automatically flags you for extensive poking and prodding. My theory: Frank had us flagged as a security risk because I called him a name.
Noting that I got further with tears than name-calling, I vowed to proceed through the rest of our trip with humble gratitude that shoddy service was better than no service. With my new attitude we made our flight and had a wonderful vacation.
For the record, I still believe that customers deserve the best service possible if businesses want to sustain and thrive. And despite finally finding a customer-service representative who did everything in her power to get us on a plane to San Francisco, I doubt I will ever fly American Airlines again.
American Airlines is the worst! I fly out of St. Louis where American predominates. Never, ever again will I fly on American. As I told their fine customer service people: If my only choice is to fly American, I'll be driving instead (usually quicker & less hassle than dealing with the airline0.
I am not surprised. I think have been sending all their agents to the "Sales Prevention" school since the 90s. In 1989, they left my minor son to fend for himself when flying unaccompanied trying to connect in Ohare. This in spite of us filling in the forms and boarding agent taking the pains to inform the flight crew. Lucky for me he was a savvy kid and was none the worse for the wear. Since the only response to my written complaint was a form letter from American saying that they are not responsible since he was 11 years old. Ever since then American has never got any of the 150K miles I fly each year. I'd rather drive.
How about Sprint's decision to simply eject all customers who had too many complaints? (Although I guess you could make the analogy that that is no different than manufacturers ejecting low-profit-providing customers.)
Customer Service Practices To Avoid
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