Have the airlines lost their focus on customer service?
The concept of “the customer is always right” has never known a more opposed industry than that of United States based airlines. There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but the general air travel experience is fraught with unfriendly rules, fees at every turn and a surly attitude from agents. And should there be delays or other events as part of the trip things can spiral out of control in a hurry.
This decline in customer service can be blamed in large part on management slashing jobs in an effort to cut costs. With fewer agents available to work with handling customer inquiries wait times will lengthen and tempers will flare. Two recent examples show just how badly the US airlines are handling such situations.
If you were flying on United and had a problem on your flight you could send a letter, send an email or call the customer service desk. The customer service desk was part of the call center in India, and apparently they weren’t very good at solving customers problems. At least that is the story that United’s management wants you to believe. Or, it is possible that they were so ignorant that they just gave vouchers and mile credits for anything and everything that someone complained about, like “this guy.
United’s solution to this problem was to kill the phone lines. United actually “pulled the plug on their customer service number and shut down that group at the call center in India, preferring to handle such claims only via email or webpage submissions going forward. They claim that this will let them keep some USA-based employees on the job and save some money from the ICC. Not a bad deal, I’m sure, for everyone except the customers (even those who don’t abuse the system like Mr. Yen above).
US Air had a similar problem. The folks in most of their call centers just weren’t very helpful for the customers. But the Executive Offices out in Arizona had another group of customer service folks who were there to provide a last line of help when everything else came up short. That service was so effective, in fact, that people actually used it. A lot. And so US Air had to put an end to such practices. Rather than forwarding that phone to some other group of internal CSRs who were trained to provide appropriate customer service, “US Air just disconnected the line. Call the number and you get a lovely recording from the phone company that the line is no longer in service. Talk about a horrid way to treat your customers.
In addition to the outright service cuts, airlines are implementing policies that show no love to the customer. “An unbundled service model with fees for the services used makes sense, but it depends on actually cutting the base price for the folks not using those services. Otherwise it is simply a cash grab by the airlines, regardless of how they try to shine it up. These policies as they are implemented today are not customer friendly; it should come as no surprise that the airlines that charge fewer of these fees rate higher in satisfaction surveys.
Many agents that the passengers interact with are pleasant, friendly and otherwise happy to be doing their job, but there are enough who aren’t and enough policies that are hamstringing even the friendly agents that the overall experience can best be described as strained and leaning towards unbearable. Such is the state of “customer service” in the United States airline industry today.