American Airlines customer service follow up - it’s a start
- Posted by Ephraim Cohen on December 18th, 2007 filed in Reputation Management
Past readers of this blog will know I’ve had some pretty horrendous experiences on American Airlines in the last year that were compounded by a couldn’t-care-less attitude from staff. I’ve always acknowledged that airlines have a risky, difficult to manage business (from what I understand) but they should at least focus on better communicating with customers when flights are canceled, changed or otherwise causing inconvenience. Even people that understand cancellations don’t understand poor customer relations.
Yesterday I got a call from American Airlines noting that after flying with them fairly consistently for ten years I haven’t flown in a while. I told some past stories, relayed my perception that staff couldn’t care less when they, oh, landed at the wrong airport and didn’t offer transportation to the right airport, and said I had given up. I was at the point were I would take a connection rather than fly American. The person apologized profusely, offered to upgrade my frequent flyer status and asked if I would just give American Airlines another chance.
This was a great move by American and one that I can’t consider common - I have dropped other brands after years due to lousy customer service with no response. Perhaps they’ll look for a way to catch this when I’m standing at the counter of a canceled flight next time instead. This would save them lost revenue and reputation as I do relay my stories and look to use other brands after consistently bad experiences.
But I will try American Airlines again. If they have a system to notice when I stop flying and make any effort to apologize, then maybe their customer service is moving in the right direction.
January 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
i booked a ticket for an infant when enquiring i was told it would be no more than £70 it was infact £170 with no bagage allowance no guarantee of a sky cot i have booked AA to visit family in usa on several occassion i will not again
January 10th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Dear American Airlines
The other day (Sunday the 6th), while flying back from Guatemala through Dallas several situations developed that I feel need to be brought to your attention.
First, in August - when I originally booked the four flights in question, the time posted was a 4:30 departure which means that I could get my kids back at home in Vancouver at around 8:00 PM since it takes an hour to go through Canada customs and another hour and a half to drive home. A few months after, American Airlines changed my return schedule to 5:00 delaying the flight by 30 minutes. OK, we can live with this change.
Upon arrival in Dallas, we go to the designated gate – I think D19 – and there posted is a 1 ½ hour delay. I immediately go to the AA counter representative and ask why the delay? I planned to be home at a certain time for dinner, due to work the next day and kids going to school. She told me that the crew has been delayed but as soon as they arrive, the airplane will be towed over. She said they should be here in 20 minutes. I questioned what was causing the delay and she said she did not know as there was nothing more written on the screen.
With extra time to waste, we went shopping around the airport. During our shopping, in a bookstore, we told our kids to meet us at the gate. A lady next to us asked if we were going to Vancouver advising that they had changed gates – it would now be D50. Upon arriving at gate D50, we noticed that the flight was further delayed by some 45 minutes and the new departure time was posted at 7:15 or so. I go to the AA representative at the gate and ask what the reason for this delay. She said sometimes, they will take one plane and move it to another more pressing flight. I told her that we are already 2 hours behind and asked why would American Airlines do this? She said they do things like changing planes and gates all the time. After leaving in disgust, I go back to the gate and ask: “now that you have eliminated any possibility for us to have dinner in Vancouver, I assume American will now provide meals?” She says no, we no longer offer meals on flights that are under 5 hours. I said, this flight is now close to 7 hours including the delay. I then ask who is in charge? Some other representative simply echoes the same story… we are not responsible. No food.
At this point, knowing full well that the choice of candy bars, chips and imitation peanuts are the options on board, I leave the gate to find some food to take on board. When I get back to Gate 50, another notice: gate has been changed to D23 (I think). Upon arrival, yet another 30 minute delay. Finally, we board. 20 minutes, 25 minutes… still no movement. The plane is still docked. The captain finally gets on the pager and announces that one passenger whose baggage is on the plane is not on board. Due to regulations, we have to remove his luggage from the airplane belly. This will take another hour. The pour sap that missed the flight is probably on the flight to Paris or North Carolina due to the 3 or 4 gate changes that were instituted. This happened to us once when flying to San Jose Costa-Rica and ending up in San Jose California… so this can and does happen.
By the time it is now 9:00 PM and we finally take off. Then more fun… the video system does not work in this obviously well aged 757. No movie service. So, we have now had a forced 8 hour stop-over. Unbelievable. Now we can no longer buy food on the way home for breakfast and will have to make due to fast-food in the morning. Not so bad considering… the girl next to me is frantic on her cell-phone because she has her boyfriend’s two kids that were to be put on a plane to their mother’s home which has now departed from Vancouver without them. She is also booked on a red-eye to Montreal that will be leaving at midnight. She calls the mother who lived 5 hours away to tell her that he kids will be at the airport without a place to go.
I am pissed off.
Finally, the stewardess shows up with the drink cart and am completely taken aback. “You are not offering passengers free drinks after what we have been put through?” I refused to pay. I said I paid $5000 for four tickets to arrive in a timely fashion. Not only are you late, you have completely disrupted my day and instead of making a bit of good, you treat us like crap. When I tell the stewardess that she should take the initiative to take care of the customers, she said that she has worked far too long at America Airlines to take that kind of action. She suggested I send a letter to complain. I told her I have sent many letters to airlines over the years and that few do much if anything at all other than send out a form letter. This past year, an airline broke one of my guitars while in a hard shell case and never even replied to my letter.
Her response: Maybe air travel is not for you and you should drive. Alas, in business, one does not have much choice…
A few minutes later, my wife then asks for the drink that she had requested and had yet to be delivered and the stewardess slams it down on her tray with the words ‘Bon Apetit’. I figure, OK, she is stressed, probably been getting abused by a bunch of travelers who are as pissed about the situation as I am so I leave it alone. Not two minutes later she starts talking about me to other customers behind us. Enough is enough, I pull the 10 bucks to pay for the beer and wine, got up, tapped her on the shoulder and said: “here, take the money. If you need it that badly here you go”. Instead of taking the money from my hand, she says: “don’t touch me; I will have security arrest you at the gate!’ I look at her in disbelief and the guy next to me says: “it’s not worth it” which I can only assume he felt as dismayed albeit less vocal than I was regarding the unacceptable service. She took the money.
About an hour passes and then the purser comes to see me. She said that the stewardess was afraid and that I physically went too far and that a guy got up to intervene. The only person that got up was the fellow sitting behind me and he asked if he could get by to go to the washroom. When I went through the details with the purser, she finally told me that she too was writing a long report on the mess-ups of the day. She said please write a letter because they do not listen to us, they only listen to passengers.
Last night, my wife said that I was too hard on the stewardess and that it was not her fault that the airline was delayed. She is right, it was not her fault, but unfortunately, when you take on the responsibility to be a company representative, it is your job to represent the company and do what you can to make things right. If the company messes up, someone has to fix it. American Airlines management must have the foresight to trust their employees to make decisions to do the right thing and in a case like this, the absolute minimum would have been to give the passengers a free drink. This is what the low cost airlines do with a smile. But judging from the reaction I received from your staff, the air of impunity with respect to changing schedules without regard to our plans, it seems that your airline has deep routed troubles.
I suggest you read the book Good-to-Great and try to understand why taking care of customers includes spending money when you mess up to try to make things right and empowering your staff to take care of the customer. There are plenty of airlines to choose from and with pricing all being very competitive, those that take care of the customer will ultimately win.
For a frequent flyer, I can tell you that airlines that support their customers are the ones that will win my business. Air Canada refused to credit me some12 flights to retain my gold status last year due to a clerical error at my travel agent’s office. After several letters and complete denial from both Air Canada and Aeroplan, I switched 9 credit cards and several hundred thousand dollars worth of business & transactions and flights to another.
Today the consumer is king. I think some airlines do not seem to appreciate this reality.
Peter
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:16 am
..I HAD A REALLY BAD EXPERIENCE FLYING WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES…IT WAS TERRIBLE! POOR SERVICE!I TOOK A FLY TO COLOMBIA TWO WEEKS AGO DUE AN EMERGENCY(MY MOM WAS AT INTENSIVE CARE)THE PLANE SUPPOSED TO GO FROM TAMPA TO MIAMI WAS BROKEN! SO WE (ALL THE PASSENGER) HAD TO WAIT ALMOST FOUR HOUR SO I LOST MY CONNECTION TO COLOMBIA!AS YOU CAN READ, AMERICAN AIRLINES IS DOING A REALLY BAD SERVICE !IT IS NOT FAIR, WE PAID EXPENSIVE TICKETS FOR WHAT? THE SERVICE IS REALLY BAD. I WON’T EVER WILL TAKE ANOTHER AMERICAN AIRLINES FLY. SO I AM CHARING WITH EVERYONE MY EXPERIENCE!MARTHA
July 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
In this day and age of airline problems… customer service should be KING… when it isn’t it sure makes me think about EVER traveling with that airline again. I had a nightmare experience with WestJet in Canada… they didn’t care…details on my blog.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:08 am
Dear Peter Janis.
I read your comment and my goodness, what a horrable time you had. Your poor family having to eat junk food then pay for a lousy drink after being inconvenienced so many times.
I am at this point writing an email to AA about damage that was damaged completly. They sent me an email telling me that I should have reported it within 24 hrs, and we did as soon as we picked it up from baggage so, I am guessing that they sent me a form letter.
I am truely tired of their antics (after being stranded in LA in April when all planes were grounded due to technical error) and I hope this company closes down. They seriously dont know what they are doing.
Customer service?
They kissed that goodbye a long time ago.
Shame AA, shame that people are now paying full price fares, blankets, pillows etc as your service goes south.
K~
October 30th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Oops!
Correction:
I am at this point writing an email to AA about damage that was done to our baggage~
Sorry guys..