I worked in customer service, for many years, during high school and college and have a general rule that I do not approach a service complaint as a customer with any type of anger or bad attitude on the front end.  I remember what it was like to be generally abused by the public for problems that didn’t originate with me or anyone in my department – in a word, it sucked.  So I like to give CS personnel the benefit of the doubt.

But if it is one thing that drives me crazy, it is poor customer service.  It seems there are more instances of bad CS than there are of stellar ones and the airline industry tends to be at the top of this list.

Case in point:

Last week, I had to fly to Las Vegas for the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.  Kim and I had seats booked on a Delta flight from Providence to Las Vegas by way of Detroit.  (Side bar: since the Northwest/Delta merger, Detroit has become their new favorite hub and every time I’ve flown through there, I’ve had less than 1 hour connection time which has made for some close connections.  Another story for another time but the sum total is – it’s a terrible hub).

Our flight out of Providence was 30 minutes delayed when we arrived at the airport – we knew this getting there and were faced with an ultra short connection time in Detroit as a result (15 minutes or so – we may have made it, our bags definitely would not have).  We quickly packed a carry-on with some essentials just in case and gave our larger bags to a colleague who was flying on Southwest - AND HAD NO PROBLEMS, DELAYS OR ISSUES GETTING TO VEGAS.  Ahem.  We sat at the gate and watched as the delay went from 30 minutes to 1 hour and 1 hour to 2 hours in a matter of minutes.  We were going to officially miss our connection to Vegas.  We spent 20 minutes at the ticket counter only to have the agent tell us it would be impossible to get us from Providence to Vegas any other way that particular day.  Our best bet was to fly to Detroit, hope that there were open seats on another flight to Vegas or the miraculously, our connection was also delayed.

There was no miracle.  Though our connection was delayed, it simply meant we missed it by 18 minutes as opposed to the scheduled 42.  Terrific.

We proceeded to the gate agent to ask for assistance and request stand-by on the next flight.  She ignored us and then with an annoyed glance told us to go to another gate where the agent wasn’t busy getting a flight ready to board.  Hmm, ok.  We went to a location a few gates down and the woman looked at us with the same annoyance.  There is customer service at C5, she told us.  So we went to C5 where the gate agent there looked at us like we had just told her we were there to board our spaceship.

We were eventually put on standby for the next flight.

The next flight was significantly oversold, as is custom with Delta (even more so these days, I’d say) and not only did we not get on, some people with confirmed tickets for that flight did not get on.  More people for the standby list.

The last flight of the day was the same story.  My favorite part was when they were offering passengers $500 travel vouchers and 1st class tickets on another flight for volunteering to give up their seats.  At the end of the day?  We were told by Delta representatives that they don’t offer discounts or travel vouchers for the hotel right next to the airport (the Detroit Westin Airport Hotel, if you are interested).  They could, however, give us $18 worth of food vouchers for both dinner & breakfast.

$18, in case of you haven’t flown since 1999, buys you a pack of cashews, some Starburst and maybe a water.

We were put on a flight (with middle seats, for 4 hours – decidedly NOT 1st class) the next morning and arrived in Las Vegas just in time to miss a breakfast event for one of our clients.

When all was said and done and I arrived back home, I called Delta Customer Service Skymiles line (as I am a Skymiles member and Kim is a Gold Medallion member) to complain and ask for a partial travel voucher for our ridiculous run around and delays.

I was told that because the 2 hour delay on the front end was due to “air traffic control problems” and not a Delta issue, there was simply nothing they could do.  Nothing at all.

I told her we had terrible customer service.  I explained that perhaps if they hadn’t oversold every single flight out of the airport that day, we might have had a shot at flying standby.  I protested the lack of help in booking us at a hotel and giving us $18 worth of food vouchers as if it was 1976.   I asked for her supervisor.

She said she could do nothing.  Except write in and give my dissatisfied feedback.

HA.

So here is my statement to Delta, should they ever read this.

You wonder why you and your industry is suffering so much – why airlines like Southwest manage to thrive when everyone else is declaring bankruptcy and merging to stay alive.

You treat customers as expendable items, numbers on a ticket, dollar signs and problems to be dealt with.  I started a Skymiles account because I thought flying with one airline would help me as a business travel earn good favor and make my fairly regular travel more comfortable and convenient.  I was, in a word, wrong.

I just earned my first free flight on Southwest Rapids Rewards programs, came in my inbox a few days ago.  I don’t even need hands to count the number of times I’ve missed a flight on Southwest – it is zero.  I have never been treated badly and in fact, a CS rep one time went back through all of my travel data just to make sure everything had been accounted for in my RR account.  It took her about 1/2 hour and she never once made me feel like an annoyance.

The lesson here is that while airlines like Delta might cater to a more business based clientèle and offer things like first class upgrades and in some instances, in-flight WiFi (I’ve never actually experienced this yet), when you are stuck and stranded in the Detroit airport for 8 hours, those things mean precious little.  It all comes back to customer service – and for Delta, that is definitely a fail.

Posted by: Ashley / follow me on Twitter

Over the past few months there has been a strong movement towards incorporating social media into our PR and marketing campaigns. Great. I’m all for it. Increased exposure is our ultimate goal anyway, right?

While social media tends to be relatively inexpensive, probably one of its major draws for companies, but what is it really costing you? Remember when a sales rep not only knew you by name, but also knew your significant others name, as well as pets and children? What about actually going into a store and talking to a reputable staff member about a question you have?

Gone are the days of true customer service and forging long-lasting relationships. Today is the day for IMs to your clients and Tweets to your customers. I agree that many customers prefer to go digital, but it is always nice to be able to reach someone if you have to. There is nothing I hate more than looking for a manufacturers contact information (i.e. a phone number) and all I get is a general email with no name to address it to. My question lies in the healthy balance between social media and true relationships. Ultimately there is room for it all, but we need to find that happy medium, otherwise we run the risk of alienating customers, and that would be bad.

Posted by: Lauren

Much has been written about Southwest Airlines and their ability to thrive in a difficult airline market due in large part to their corporate culture and attitude towards customer service.  I can say first hand that I have never experienced such consistently good service (especially when traveling) and I’ve determined that it’s not just their cheap flights that make them excel far beyond their competition. 

Let’s take their refund policy for example.  Granted, their cheapest fares are non-refundable but they will let you retain the full credit of that flight for future travel if you cancel – no penalty fees attatched. None.  I just cancelled a trip to Florida – and sure, I spent $200 on a flight I’m not using but I’m not losing the money because I know I’ll travel sometime in the next year and I won’t lose a dime of that initial charge.  Do you know how rare this is?  I booked a flight on American and United through Hotwire for $149 to Phoenix last year and ended up having to cancel due to scheduling changes.  The customer service representative was happy to tell me that I could retain the entire value of my ticket – hooray!  But just a small reminder the rebooking fee through Hotwire is $150. 

Wait.  So if I wanted to use the credit from my flight (esssentially my money, they still get to resell that seat and I’m out $149), I’d have to pay $1 extra to rebook in addition to the cost of the new flight? 

Well, yes m’am.  But you will still have your $149 value in full. 

But you’re charging me more than the value to rebook.

Yes m’am.

Oooohkay then.   I think Southwest gets it right here on so many levels.  I can be assured with SW that if I book a flight, I can always cancel up to the last day and not lose my money – and that assurance is worth way more to me than the value of the ticket.  It’s assurance that I’m not throwing money away that I’ll never see again.  I wonder how much Hotwire makes a year on flights they sold and then were able to resell due to cancellation?  I bet a lot.

Southwest also has an excellent frequent flyer program which I only recently signed up for.  I had been participating in Continental’s OnePass program which includes a variety of partners including Delta and American.  Which was great – I’ve banked almost 20,000 points in just a few years.  However, flights not on Continental don’t count towards Elite status (you know, where you can get upgraded and all the perks?) so I have exactly 0 Elite status points despite my number of miles. 

I also discovered that if I wanted to use my points, I could probably get from Boston to Newark.  And still have to pay about $15 in fees.  Sounds like a good time.

I signed up for Southwest Rapid Rewards and upon calling their customer service line, was told I could actually get credit for all the times I’ve flown with SW in the past 24 months.  !!!!  What?  Yup, and to top it off?  The rep actually stayed on the phone with me and punched in ALL MY CREDIT CARD NUMBERS to check for any flights I may have taken.  She clarified that she probably shouldn’t do it but I was clearly a frequent flyer with SW and she wanted to make sure I was rewarded accordingly.  Hot damn they are good.

It takes 8 roundtrip flights to get a free flight on Southwest.  EIGHT.  That’s it.  I almost have a free flight and I just signed up a few weeks ago due to my back log of travel.  I’ve been traveling with Continental and partners for 3 years and I can’t even fly to Newark for free.  FAIL.

We talk a lot around here about how to survive in this economy.  What the newest trends are (green, sustainable, affordable, necessary) and what will help drive companies forward as a new way of thinking falls on us.  But I truly believe that this model – where customers are given so many tools to get the most out of every minute of every experience they have with the company ?  It is the golden ticket.  As a consumer, my ideal world would consist of Southwest airline policies in every experience I have. 

They get it right. A lot.

**I was not solicited or paid for this blog – it is literally a manifestation of some really great experiences in a sea of crappy customer service.

Posted by: Ashley / @ashleyatcaster