< Rant follows >
I was reading Luis Benitez's tweets tonight where he said:
and I thought, gee, what's so surprising about a lying airline gate agent? It's happened to all of us. For me, it was that time I was at New York Laguardia trying to get to Boston; American blamed our six-hour delay on "weather", while US Airways and Delta were flying the same route with only minor delays. The giveaway was the time we boarded a plane and then deplaned a few minutes later, only to board a different plane. Yeah, that wasn't exactly "weather".
When I wrote to American Airlines about the problem, giving specifics of the people involved, the other airline flights that flew, etc., I asked only for a personal apology for being lied to. Instead I got a form letter and 10,000 frequent flyer miles. I like the miles, but I would have valued a human admission of error more. I asked again for the personal apology, and got no further response.
This week, Hertz sent me a congratulatory note that I had re-qualified for their "five star" status. One of the supposed perks is an as-available one-class car upgrade. Except that on my last four rentals, I've had no upgrade -- and was even downgraded once. Every time, they've had hundreds of cars on the lots. One recent rental, my car was dirty, snowy, and parked far away. Not good. So I sent Hertz an email in response to the congratulatory note, again providing specifics of issues and places, and...got a form letter reply. The form letter apologized in two different ways, but that was it.
Today, my wife was calling hotels for some of our upcoming travels -- she's coming with me on some of my business trips. We need a crib for the 5-month-old, and it seemed best to call ahead. Embassy Suites was the big winner -- I was able to reserve a crib online. But a Doubletree told her "sorry, we don't reserve cribs, they are first-come, first-served". As if we have any real options when we arrive at a hotel expecting a crib and none is available. Even worse was the Four Seasons in Toronto (which yes, is on the IBM hotel program), who told her matter-of-factly that the room I had booked was "too small" to accommodate a crib. They told her they could waitlist us for a larger room, or we could pay C$275 - more than 2x the IBM rate/night - for an upgrade.
This last bit was too much for me, and I decided to call out the big guns. All those status cards that George Clooney flashes at Vera Farmiga in "Up in the Air"? Yeah, I have some of those. Despite Toronto hotels basically being sold out the days I'll be there (for the Lotusphere Comes to You in two weeks), I found that the Toronto Sheraton's website would, oddly, give me the IBM rate for any given night of my trip. They just wouldn't for all three nights. So, I called the Starwood Hotels "platinum" line. In ten minutes, they had kindly agreed to honor the IBM rate for all three nights of the trip, and book the crib in the room. (Thanks for the coaching, Kathleen)
I often daydream what it would be like to be in a similar job in the travel industry. There are so many millions of decisions that go into smooth operations of an airline/hotel/car rental company, it's no surprise that things often go wrong. Just on percentages alone, if 1% of all American Airlines passengers in a year have issues, that's nearly a million of their 85 million passengers. In some ways, it has to be easier to tell little white lies, redirects, and hold details, and deal with the consequences later. I'm not sure I could do that, personally. On the other hand, there are so many easy ways to delight customers with small perks, those other 99% shouldn't always be made to feel like sheep.
There must be a good reason why the room at the Four Seasons is "too small" for a crib (fire code? I had booked a closet? The ice bucket service gets in the way?), but that inflexibility resulted in a cancellation. Given how busy Toronto is that week, they'll probably garner a replacement customer, so maybe it's just playing the percentages. And obviously, even in this economy, they don't appear to be hurting. But I have this belief, perhaps a blind faith, that those who do right, win more in the end. For sure, the little things mean a lot, and affect my decisions for a long time to come.
< /Rant off - reminder, the views expressed herein are my own and not my company's >
Post a Comment
- 2
Alan | 4/7/2010 4:36:37 AM
You are right about the sheer volume of customers/passengers. As someone who works in the travel industry (cruising) its all about managing customer expectations and the range of techniques used is huge. Its the tiny things that people notice (and complain about) the most - get the tiny things right and the big things often fall into place. Its also a unique industry in that people are far more likely to complain and expect something to be done right away - contrast this with automotive or IT for example. There's a wonderful episode of the John Cleese comedy series "Fawlty Towers" that illustrates this - some American guests turn up late after the kitchen has closed and demand a Waldorf salad (the whole series is a homage to good old-fashioned British hotel service...)
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Gary Wood | 4/7/2010 7:57:11 AM
Like you Ed, I travel a lot and I've noticed all the same things as you and Luis. Being platinum, I get those little reward certificates you can hand out to recognize AA employees when they do something unusually well. It's pretty rare to give them out. I've given out one in the last year and I'm actively looking to give them out.
Flying with my wife for a week, we played a game: I would give one of those certificates to the first AA employee that smiled. 12 days and 6 flights, not one certificate given out. Not one. How is it we can make six flights and all the time in an airport that goes along with that interacting with AA employees and not one person smiles in greeting or just while doing their job? Is it really that bad?
- 4
Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 4/7/2010 8:47:42 AM
The travel industry sets themselves (and their customers) up for failure more thoroughly than any other business I've experienced. They routinely and deliberately overbook everything they can, in order to protect themselves from cancellations (funny, the rest of us just deal with it when somebody cancels an order). On airlines this is mostly just annoying because sooner or later somebody will agree to a delay in exchange for a voucher, but in the hotel industry it can be a real problem. I was in a wedding party once where the hotel confirmed (with credit cards) all of our reservations on the morning we were supposed to check in, but then only had rooms for half of the people.
Between that and the absurd variety of costs and offers and discounts and fees and penalties, it seems to me that they START from a position of a dissatisfied customer. Add in the frustration most travelers feel and you've got a downright surly customer. I bet the people on the front lines think their customers are all jerks.
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Mark Hazlitt | 4/7/2010 8:59:07 AM
This reminded me of an article in USA Today recently about airline travel. The results of a survey showed the #1 complaint regarding airline travel was that passengers were fed up with being lied to, when there are problems.
Apparently, they actually prefer to hear the truth. And they needed a survey to find this out!!
I am not sure why, but there does appear to be tendency these days to put a "spin" on everything. I don't recollect these classes in school. Maybe I am too old to remember....
- 6
Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 4/7/2010 9:12:59 AM
Service in the travel industry runs the gamut from the flight attendants who obviously hate all of humanity to the dining room server on a cruise ship who is teary-eyed when you leave. As Alan says, it's the little things that add up to set a customer's opinion. Get the little things right and the bigger things don't matter as much. Honesty should never be compromised.
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John Kingsley http://www.teamstudio.com | 4/7/2010 9:34:02 AM
Compare and contrast. I tracked a package being delivered via UPS and could see every step of the way including that it arrived at the distribution center in the next town on Thursday, and was scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday. But at least I knew where it was.
vs the airlines.
I was at the gate 2 hours early and my checked baggage didn't arrive home with me. Their tracking said simply 'We found it, and it's on its way to you.' I went from DC to Boston, and my baggage went from DC to Miami to Chicago to Boston. But at least they found it. Wait - didn't they also lose it?
- 8
Alan | 4/7/2010 12:15:06 PM
In the travel industry the people with customer contact tend to be the least well-paid and yet the company's reputation lives and dies with them. In the relaxed atmosphere of the cruise industry people have more time to get to know the people who serve them, to the point that we actually get customers requesting which ship a particular cabin steward or server will be on and booking cruises accordingly. Its a bit different in a huge hub airport like JFK or Heathrow with their oppressive atmospheres, long queues, and just a few seconds to impress a customer. Are our expectations too high in such environments?
- 9
Harold Wilson | 4/7/2010 1:11:51 PM
I rarely fly, but went on a trip with Southwest Airlines over the weekend. If having a smile was the criterion for an award, every SW employee would have gotten one. Sometimes the smile was in their voice and not their face, but they were smiling none-the-less. Very enjoyable.
- 10
Timothy Briley | 4/7/2010 1:41:32 PM
My wife and I arrived in Florence by train last April and walked a short distance to one of Thrifty's downtown locations to pick up the rental car we had reserved. When we got there at the reserved time the office was closed. No note on the door or anything. Luckily I had the number and called. A lady answered and said that she was at lunch! She got there in about 15 minutes.
Her first words were "You have to pay cash. Our credit card machine is broken". Upon hearing that I didn't have that much cash on me, she sent me a few blocks down the street to an ATM. That ATM did not work for me as my bank, Bank of America, wasn't a part of that ATM's network. When I returned to Thrifty's office the agent asked to see my ATM card, then sent me several blocks down the street in the other direction to look for another ATM. I finally found the ATM, but it was offline.
When I returned, I told the agent that this was their problem (the credit card machine being broken) and that Thrifty better find a way to handle it. Her response was that she couldn't accept my card even if the credit card machine worked because my ATM card wasn't a credit card. I replied that I of course knew my ATM card wasn't a credit card and that I planned to pay with a credit card. When asked by her what kind of credit card I had, I replied "American Express".
She replied that she could take my American Express card. My reply was "Wait a second, when I came in the door, you said that you couldn't take credit cards because your machine was broken. How can you take my AMEX if your machine is broken?"
"Our credit card machine isn't broken," she replied, "my company (Thrifty) tells us to tell people that in order to force them to pay cash."
I was both stunned and furious. "You are saying that you lied to me and sent me running around a strange city for the last half hour looking for an ATM so as not to inconvenience you?"
She replied, "Not for my convenience, it was for my company. It's their policy (Thrifty)."
But wait, there's more:
The car provided to us was damaged on the passenger side, but the space on the car rental agreement for listing pre-existing damage doesn't show any. To protect myself, I took a picture. You can see the picture here: { Link }
I wrote Thrifty about this, but never heard back. Of course, they'll never hear from me again either.
- 12
Timothy Briley | 4/7/2010 2:14:47 PM
@11 - I was so naive I actually thought that Thrifty would be so horrified by my treatment that they would refund my money or offer me a future free rental. Evidently they are so naive they didn't think I would share my story. ;)
- 14
Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 4/7/2010 10:15:55 PM
I have noticed overall a disturbing trend of institutionalized dehumanization of the customer by "hospitality" personnel, even here in Vegas, which used to be an exception. It's the same line of thinking that car salesmen use to rip off their customers, and a slippery slope. And it's not limited to availability of resources - note the recent trend for hotels to tack on inexplicable "resort fees", even in hotels that have marginal recreational facilities.
On the other hand, I see new features every day that offer greater accessibility to hotel, airline, and car rental systems via the Web, and lately prefer to deal with them rather than human staff. When I check in and select a airplane seat or Hotel room online based on my status, I'm probably getting a selection of rooms as good or better that I'll get after lining up at the front desk, and can be reasonably assured that I'm not being lied to about what's available...
Customers who prefer to deal with systems via the Web directly vs. talking to staff is something that the staff of these places should think about when they make that personal decision to mislead a customer. Lying is not what they're being paid to do.
- 15
Timothy Briley | 4/7/2010 10:38:03 PM
@14 = Brian, I hate to break it to you, but in the case of the staff of Thrifty in Florence, Italy (see @10), lying is exactly what they were paid to do.
- 16
Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 4/7/2010 11:11:16 PM
@Timothy - Even if lying is what she was told to do, it was still her personal choice to lie, or not.
I guess you can be happy that her boss didn't tell her to kill all the customers who showed up that day without cash, and eat their livers with some fava beans and a nice Chanti :).
- 17
Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 4/8/2010 1:56:13 AM
One more thought that Alan touched on - nothing condones lying, but at least some of these issues have to do with the worldwide expansion of the gap between socioeconomic classes.
- 18
Roberto Boccadoro | 4/8/2010 10:03:07 AM
@Ed - "I wonder whose pockets the cash go into if you pay in cash." The point is that if you pay cash, Thrifty gets all the money, if you pay with credit card, they have to pay a commission to Amex.
- 19
Frank Paolino http://blog.maysoft.org/ | 4/12/2010 9:44:41 AM
One of my customer service pet peeves is waiting with my purchase at a register while the staff have a little chat amongst themselves. I have found an ingenious way to get immediate service that I want to share with everyone here:
Walk over to the register and say (loudly) "This must be one of those new self-service registers that I read about!" and pretend to start ringing your order.
EVERY TIME, guaranteed, the staff comes running over. Instead of being annoyed, I just look over and say "Ahh, I really wanted to try to ring it myself".
My wife is afraid I'll get arrested, but it hasn't happened (yet).
Reminds me of Lance Secretan's speech at Lotusphere (I forget what year). He talked about how to bring the customers back for more by just doing the right thing and in hard times proved with one customer that continuing policies they had in good times, rather than cutting back but doing more for their customers and in the end got even more business. Should point those "bad actors" to Lance.