Recently I had a very unfortunate experience with American Airlines. I purchased a ticket for my daughter and son-in law to fly to Dallas. Cost of ticket $110. I made the mistake of putting the wrong last name on my daughters ticket. Recently married and all, I put the wrong name. Being a Platinum member, I called in to the Platinum call center. After explaining my story I was told it would cost $150 to make a name change. Since the ticket was $119 dollars and I felt I had some "juice" because of my frequent flier status, I asked to speak to a supervisor. The rep put me on hold and came back and said the "supervisor will do it for a $100." Told her that this was not what I wanted and I wanted to speak to the supervisor. She came back with another bargain price of "$50". I told her this was not a used car sale and I wanted to actually speak to the supervisor.
He came online, I gave him my story. Told him I appreciated "getting on the plane first etc." yet this was an opportunity to help me out. It was after all a simple mistake and the same person. He read me the contract that allowed him to charge $150, offered to do it now for $25 and then lectured me on my responsibility to the airline and that I needed to step up to the plate and take responsibility for my actions. I paid the fine with a final thank you for helping me to "understand that I needed to take responsibility for my actions." I also took his name and number.
Needless to say I wrote a nice long letter to the SVP of the Airline and had it delivered to her office. This letter detailed my frustration over the issue, my complaint over being "taught a lesson by the supervisor", my complete lack of understanding of their customer strategy with their top frequent fliers and finally my burning desire to find someway to get some sort of expanded satisfaction for my $25 lesson they taught me in customer responsibility. (Note: I have had delusions of spending my next $10,000 in travel with other airlines, asking at least 200 people to purposely pick another airline for their next flight, see if I could get another Airline to give me elite status, changing my credit card mileage, making a commitment to myself to check Travelocity or someone else first rather than checking American first as I do now.)
Five days later I received an email response (not from the SVP's office) but from customer relations. It was a fast return but not pretty.
The email used three different fonts. It had a description of the contract with the airline, and a listing of the benefits of being a frequent flier. They actually told me the fee was a benefit because they give me many opportunities while buying the ticket to make sure I have no mistakes. The letter also expressed that they were sorry I had expected more from my preferred Platinum status.
Do you think that was the type of letter the SVP wanted to send? I hope not. She could not possibly have read it. As a matter of fact I will bet you all the money in my pocket that this was the last thing they wanted to send to a customer. Problem is that large companies because of their mere size get way too many of these types of complaints and because of the volume it must delegated most likely to a call center that responds. The bigger problem is that in virtually every call center the poorest employee will speak to more customers in one day than a SVP might speak to in a month or a year. The result is customers that get hacked off over $25 not because of the $25 but because they were treated poorly. Here are some of the factors that were missed:
1. I sent the letter to the SVP. Send it back from the SVP's office. SVP customer relations would have been okay.
2. Figure out how to use the same font. Just incredibly unprofessional. It was clear they were cut and pasting answers in. At least fake it better.
3. Show some form of empathy. Actually show ANY form of empathy. If they had said" Listen we understand. We could have charged $150 but we gave you the biggest break we give anyone... or the same thing we offer Executive Platinum...." I would not have liked it but it would have given me some pause.
4. Do not under any circumstances, remind a customer of their responsibility to you. They are not your children. Anger at an unfair situation in a business to consumer environment is nothing compared to furthering that aggravation by having not one but two employees teaching you a lesson.
5. Never negotiate through a lower level employee unless you are a car dealership where the customer expects it. Either empower the front line employee or just transfer the call.
6. Make your response match up to the customers complaints. We have enough people around us each day that do not listen to us. We expect business's that we give money will actually listen to us. They did not answer any of my real questions.
Ironically, I love American Airlines. This transaction flat out stunk. The question is how many other times has it happened? The real question for you is what happens when you have a customer problem? Do you really know what is being sent out to customers? If not, you better figure it out.
