Seat at the Table

Not.

I would love to see how much of American Airline’s reputation comes from customer service.  These days, almost every airline experiences delays, cancellations and other problems.  It’s how they communicate around these problems and treat the customer that can drive so much of the reputation.  Here’s my person example (warning: if you want to like American Airlines, do not read this):

I arrived at the airport to find out my flight was canceled.  Here was the response

1. The check-in machine rejected me without explanation.
2. I waited on line for over 20 minutes since there was no one to help those of us being rejected.  The lone floor staffer had to go search for someone.
3. An I’m sorry that I barely heard and sounded about as sincere as…oh, wait, I didn’t hear an apology.
4. An explanation that it was due to La Guardia’s traffic control.  Anyone reading the news about the airline industry knows American Airline’s has been overbooking flights at airports like La Gaurdia for some time now (lord knows why the airport lets them do that).
5. An offer to fly me to a different airport or the next day – without compensation to cover the cost of transportation between airports or for the hotel.
6. Saying since the tower told them they had to cancel flights they didn’t need to compensate me for a hotel, airport transportation (let alone the inconvenience).
7. General all around rudeness.

What’s the result?  I have  now upgraded my attitude toward American Airlines from neutral to telling people it’s worth the money to pay a bit more to avoid them.  Yes, and I’ll now be yet another person writing congress to ask why American Airlines is allowed to have such a choke hold on Dallas (where I flew from).  Even Delta and United staffers have better manners.

What could they have done?

1. Been staffed once they saw a flight was canceled.  Obviously, a canceled flight means no automatic check-in.
2. Apologized and sounded like they meant it.
3. Provided compensation for the money I have to pay for airport transportation (I skipped the overnight stay).  Even if cash is too much, miles, vouchers or other forms that have a high value to me and a low value to the airline would have been something.
4. Apologized and sounded sincere and provided some sort of apology compensation.  Yes.  It’s that important. 

What would have been the result?  Yes, I still would not have been happy with the situation.  But at least they would have had a chance and salvaging a small part of their reputation (scheduling stinks but at least the staff is decent).  Their training customer service representatives anyway, why not train them to actually care about the customer.

And I’ll be this plane ticket to the wrong airport that I’m not the only one on the flight feeling this way.