Every one of us has experienced just bad, horrendous service from a company or organization at one time or another. Aside from all of us being consumers, the fact that we are also customer and marketing professionals makes these customer "experiences" that much more shocking.
Please share any of your bad company customer experiences ALONG with how you would have managed the situation after it occurred or prevented it in the first place.
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I am throwing United Airlines "under the plane"...
ReplyDeletePART 1/2:
Summer 2005 I was looking to redeem miles on United for a family vacation. As a Premier Exec status earned from my excessive business travel as a consultant, I had an award for a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere they (or an alliance partner) flew in the world. Around spring of that year, I began the travel planning. This would be a family trip, so I would also need to purchase an accompanying ticket for my wife and (at the time) 3-year old son.
Our travel schedule was somewhat flexible, just looking to find a 4-5 day window anytime during the month of August, not one of the industry's busiest times. With the possibilities of a free ticket to anywhere in the world, I started out looking into a trip to Paris, one of our favorite destinations. Non! How about London? No!
Soon, I saw where this was headed...which was closer and closer back to Chicago. After about five more destination attempts with their Reservations group, I was still determined to go anywhere, somewhere outside the U.S. We ended up going to Montreal. Nothing against Montreal.
ISSUE #1: It has always been next to impossible to redeem miles through United's Mileage Plus frequent flyer program, or most other airline programs, for that matter.
RECOMMENDATION #1: There needs to be a corporate directive and processes in place that makes mileage redemption easier for the customer. The blackout dates and other restrictions run counter to the intent to reward frequent customers. I truly believe the airline can achieve revenue targets while still ensuring that customers are able to redeem most awards when and where they want, within reason.
Of course, we depart our plane about 11pm in Montreal and wait at baggage claim. An hour later, it is all too clear our baggage will not be joining us tonight. The missing luggage area in the United claim area looked like a Sampsonite warehouse. I could not believe how many bags had become separated from their owners. It was eye-opening.
ISSUE #2: No Customer Service. As much as I wanted to fault United for the lost luggage, I do realize that it happens from time to time. Throughout my frequent travel history, this was the first-time it had happened to me...so I was willing to cut them some slack (although my wife was not). However, there were absolutely no customer service agents to be found anywhere.
RECOMMENDATION #2: There should be a Customer Service agent on airport premise at all times when flights and arrivals are still occurring. Period. If not a human being, then there should have been a phone with a direct connection to United Customer Service to promptly begin looking into the matter and resolving this issue. I was forced to call my Premier Exec Customer Service number located on the back of my Mileage Plus card. They were pretty unhelpful and unsympathetic and instructed us to wait until the morning for an update from them.
We arrive at our hotel in the Old Montreal part of the city thinking this was all just a bad dream...that everything would get resolved the next morning. I thought having that special Premier Exec phone number would be my hotline to a quick resolution. Wishful thinking...
To be continued...
PART 2/3
ReplyDeleteISSUE #3: Lack of communication, data history collection, follow-up or even empathy on part of Customer Service department.
Over the course of the next few days now, I spoke with at least five different CSRs back in Chicago, sometimes 3-4 times each, including a supervisor. Each time, I was forced to repeat my same story, even when speaking with the same person again. I now seemed to know each of them by name and knew their shift schedules. I kept getting different info from each. "The bags are somewhere in Montreal." "The bags are back in Chicago." "I'll get them today." "Tomorrow." They also never called me back every time they said they would. I was forced to call them about 15-20 times, morning, afternoon and night. At one point while in a shop, my wife grabbed the cell phone from my hand and began shouting at them, thinking I was being too nice and calm. That didn't help either.
RECOMMENDATION #3: First, Customer Service needs to have a database system in place that allows the full details of an incident like this to be captured, stored and retrieved, so no matter which agent may get involved, there is only one single source of truth that keeps being updated until resolved. Secondly, the first agent I spoke with, or one assigned, should take ownership of resolving my issue. This rep should be the one coordinating all communications and problem-solving on their end. I do not need or want to speak with five different people. I also don't want to hear five different stories as well. This should also ensure follow-ups occur. Finally, they expressed absolutely no sense of empathy. Not once did an agent apologize for the inconvenience. At one point, when we pointed that out to them, she said, "ok, I'm sorry...there is your apology."
In the meantime, we were only on vacation for 5 days. When it became clear on our first full day that we would not be reunited with our bags any time soon, we were forced to buy some basic clothes and toiletries. We did our shopping, but it wasn't a shopping spree by any means. We're talking The Gap and a drugstore. Luckily, we had the carry-on for our son, so he was all set. He actually thought this was the best vacation! We assumed we would be reimbursed for our purchases. We remember thinking United was just lucky we didn't have to replace any formal wear or anything expensive, so they would be "happy" they got off the hook rather inexpensively.
On day four I get a call from a representative of Air Canada, an alliance partner of United. They had located our two bags...they had never made it onto our plane in the first place, and they would be dropping them off at our hotel in a few hours. They arrived right on time and the Air Canada messenger couldn't have been more understanding. I received no communication from anyone at United.
ISSUE #4: Lack of communication
RECOMMENDATION #4: Building off that recommendation to more completely document and store customer data, as well as to assign one agent to quarterback our issue, the information in their system should have been updated regularly until resolution and the agent alerted to contact me frequently to communicate the status updates and final resolution. Oh, also, they could have apologized one final time.
Our 5-day international "vacation" was now over. Back in Chicago, I had all my replacement shopping expense receipts nicely organized and readied for submission for reimbursement.
To be continued...
PART 3/3 (SORRY FOR THE LONG BLOG...TOO MANY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ISSUES HERE)
ReplyDeleteISSUE #5: Their reimbursement policies are inflexible and inadequate.
After contacting the same Customer Service department upon our return, I soon learn of their reimbursement policy, which allowed for a fixed dollar amount, which ended up being less than half of what we spent on basic clothing and toiletries for only two adults. To make matters worse, I soon received my cell phone bill and had a charge for over $300 due to all my calls to Customer Service which put me over my long-distance and roaming minutes (glad I went international!), all the result of all communications going one-way, from me to them. None of this was reimbursable. I ended up being out about $375 due to this situation they created.
RECOMMENDATION #6: Although it's ok to have basic reimbursement guidelines, they should allow for flexibility to adapt to individual situations. The agents then should be empowered to exercise their good judgment in order to provide a fair and satisfactory resolution to the customer.
Needless to say, I began flying another airline exclusively when I returned from this vacation.
What was needed here was true dedication to the customer experience and problem resolution from the top of the organization down to the bottom, the people on the front-lines. Whether one was a loyal, valuable frequent customer or even a new one that had the potential to be, all customers should be valued. If they had a serious commitment to the customer, they would have had the right systems, procedures and processes in place similar to my recommendations that would have addressed every issue. Not to simplify what it takes for a company to be customer-centric, but they have a long way to go to truly be the friendly skies!
Why I hung up on AT&T home internet service....
ReplyDeletePART 1 OF 2
When I recently moved into a townhouse I had decided (due to the placement of the outlets for phone and cable in the house) to use AT&T for internet service. This was to turn out to be my worst decision to date during 2009 for several reasons. The attempt to have the service installed went on for over two weeks, required that I also purchase a land line and demanded uncounted numbers of frustrating phone calls with unempowered and uninformed ssales and service reps (most of whom only are available M - F, 8 AM to 5 PM); all of which ultimately caused me to decide to hang up on AT&T (without ever having gotten the service turned on)and seek internet service from another service provider. Let me outline a few of the specific issues below and what AT&T needs to do to in general to resolve them - thereby improving customers' experience, attracting new customers and stopping the loss of existing ones who now, like me, are likely bashing the brand in private and public.
1. Requiring the purchase of bundled services
AT&T realizes that many people are no longer interested in having land lines in their homes due to the widespread use of cell phones. While I'm sure this is a huge loss of revenue to the company, forcing customers who are looking for internet only service to purchase a land line is a huge dissatisfier and makes the customer feel he is being "held hostage" by At&T. A true customer centric company attracts and retains customers by providing what customers want, not by holding them hostage.
2. Slow order processing time
The first time I called AT&T to place my order for internet service it was a Friday evening. I called the number on the promotional piece of direct mail I had received and reached a recording informing me of their M-F, 8 AM to 5 PM service hours (not stated on the DM piece). I therefore had to wait 2.5 days(until Monday morning) to call back, which already took away some of my interest in working with AT&T. But, I dutifully called AT&T on Monday morning and spoke with a rep to place the order. I assumed they would have someone available in 2 or 3 days max. I was told the earliest appointment was Friday afternoon, during a 4 hour window in which I would need to be home the entire 4 hour time. No weekend appointments are available. So now we're talking about waiting an entire week between the time I first tried to place the order and the time it would be convenient for AT&T to fill the order. AT&T needs to have a stronger appreciation for customers' sense of urgency in establishing new service, perhaps with a commitment to establish service for new customers within 48 hours. I would have been impressed with a commitment such as that.
PART 2 OF 2
ReplyDelete3. Underskilled installation and call center employees
As my installation appointment was now scheduled for a 4 hour period of
time on a Friday afternoon, I had to take the afternoon off of work
because the installation guy only would commit to calling 30 minutes
prior to arriving for the appointment. A big process improvement here
would be for AT&T either to tighten the 4 hour window down to a 2
hour one, or commit to calling an hour ahead of time to give customers
more flexibility. Regardless, when the service man arrived (very near
the end of the 4 hours) he spent an hour trying to get the service
connected (both phone and internet). At the end of that time he said he
couldn't get it working, didn't know why it wasn't working and that he
would need to have a "specialist" come do the work. He informed me he
would place that order with the dispatcher and that a specialist would
come out the next day, Saturday morning, to do the work. I sighed and
thanked him and prepared to wait until Day 8 to have my service
connected. On Saturday around noon I realized the "specialist" had not
yet arrived, so called the service phone number that the Friday
installer had given me. Fortunately, this phone number did have
Saturday staffing for trouble shooting, however, the rep on the phone
told me there were never any Saturday service calls and that the Friday
guy should have known that. By this point I was confused, angry and
feeling taken for a ride by the Friday guy who probably just wanted to
get out of my house at the end of a Friday afternoon and told me what
he thought I wanted to hear so he could get away. The next service
appointment was set for Monday, 10 days after my intial attempt to set
up service with AT&T.
Over that weekend and into the next week there were many frustrating
conversations on the phone with AT&T reps. I don't want to belabor
the point, but the key message is that the call center reps, both on
the sales team and the service team, were very uniformed about the real
time status of customers' orders and therefore unable to troubleshoot
or offer anything other than hollow apologies. AT&T needs to
develop CRM systems that allow their teams in different silos in the
organization to have access to other silos' information and in real
time. This would empower the reps to have intelligent, problem-solving
conversations with customers. In addition, as AT&T is in a customer
service business, the company needs to be staffed to meet customers'
issues 24/7, both in the call centers and the mobile service providers.
Anything less is unacceptable in today's world.
AT&T has a long history as a storied American brand. However,
perhaps much of the company's past success and size came as a result of
its monopoly status. To be a world class brand in the 21st century will
require providing customers with what THEY want, not what AT&T
wants to deliver. I hope the company figures that out before they end
up in a situation similar to GM!
Here's another classic example of the ultimate poor company experience...
ReplyDelete47 passengers spend 'surreal' 6 hours stuck on airport tarmac; Continental apologizes
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-nightmare-flight,0,235920.story
As a follow-up to providing great customer service in the air, I wanted to link to this relevant article...
ReplyDeleteConsumer Power Takes to the Skies
http://www.1to1media.com/view.aspx?DocID=31845