Airline customer service
I’m sitting in the Boston airport living in the wonderful world of customer service in the airline industry.
When checking in at the kiosk today, my reservation wasn’t found either when I used my credit card or when I entered my confirmation number. I proceeded to wait in line for an agent to help me. While waiting in line I witnessed the classic display of not servicing a customer:
A man, his wife, and 2 kids were checking luggage. I heard him ask why his seats were no longer next to each other (for his family) on the flight. The agent replied with, “I don’t know” and refused to help offer an explanation or reconfigure his seating arrangement. I could see his frustration, but because it was not worth his time to pursue it further (2 antsy kids clawing at his feet), he reluctantly lunged his bags onto the scale for the agent.
I couldn’t help but wonder why the experience at the airport check-in counters is always like this from airport-to-airport. It was as if this man had personally wronged the agent behind the counter!
On the flip side of the coin, I was dealing with a cancelled flight. I really wish the kiosk would have told me it was cancelled and that I would need to use those mysterious-looking black phones near the kiosks that are only designed to dial into customer service — a simple notification would have saved 10 minutes of my time waiting in line. Instead, I.waited, only to be told to use the phone to rebook my flight. Fine.
I spent more time on the phone on hold, at the airport. The agent on the phone couldn’t figure out why the flight was canceled, so this made me more confused. He could have put me on standby to fly me to an airport within an hour of my house (instead of the one only 15 minutes away). This one wasn’t cancelled. Since it was only standby, I didn’t want to check my bag and not get on the flight. Because the cancellation was “weather-related”, Delta couldn’t get me on another flight because “all other airlines will experience the dame weather-related issues.”
Unsatisfied with this answer, I thanked the agent for trying and proceeded to call American Express business travel (through our office). I hopped in a cab to get driven to the united airways terminal while I booked a flight over the phone for a flight out this evening that wasn’t cancelled. After getting my confirmation # seconds before getting to the kiosk to check in, I was all set.
The AMEX business travel agent was fabulous in accomodating my travel needs and dealing with my distracted attention span while I hustled from terminal-to-taxi-to-terminal-to-kiosk. Likewise, united airways was curtious during check-in too, and fielded my stupid questions about the weather causing delays.
Delta could take some customer service lessons from other folks in the industry. The airline industry in general could do a better job managing traveler expectations during inclimate weather situations as well.
No comments yet, be the first.