Forgive me loyal readers, I know this isn’t normally my style on this blog, but this is a day in the life of Jeff Gibbard, and I am frustrated. Here’s my latest US Airways story.
Dear US Airways,
Here are the facts
I was scheduled to take a 12:30p flight from Orlando, Florida to Philadelphia today.
Due to a mixup, I needed to push my flight back to accommodate plans in Orlando with my client. These things happen in life and business.
My original flight had generously been purchased for me by IBM so that I could attend the IBM Connect conference.
Here’s what happened
When I called you (US Airways) to move to a later flight, I was informed that it would be…wait for it…$465 between a $200 change fee plus the cost of the flight. Keep in mind that I’ll still have to pay an additional $25 for bags, because bags are obviously a luxury when you travel.
So….I get angry at the very idea that what was originally a $260 round trip flight (covered by IBM), was now being bumped to a $465 one way experience (for me to pay). So I escalate the situation, and you ONLY make me pay the $200 change fee. Keep in mind, I had paid nothing until this point.
Furthermore, I know for a fact that there are plenty of empty seats on the flight I wanted to switch to. By calling to switch my flight this morning, I know that you could resell my seat on the 12:30 plane. But instead of tweaking your policy to help me out of a rough spot, you chose to stick to your policy and make my customer service experience frustrating.
Imagine how I feel putting $200 out of pocket on a flight that was only $260 round trip, that I didn’t even pay for, to switch to an open flight, so you could resell my ticket this morning. For the record, that’s called empathy –“imagine how I feel”–and it’s one of the things you’ll need for good customer service.
My Reaction
I’ll insert the Storify Twitter stream at the bottom of this post, but first I want to tell you how it could’ve gone, because basically how it went was this:
I take to Twitter and Facebook to vent my frustrations, because that’s what you do nowadays when you want to share with the people in your life that you’ve just been ripped off and dealt a shitty customer service experience. Friends chime in with similar bad experiences. Other friends are shocked and surprised.
I swore to you online and on the phone that I will do everything in my power to NEVER fly your airline again. (Let’s not forget, I’ve dealt with you before…remember?)
I will make sure to tell everyone about my lackluster experiences with your airlines. You are, simply put, barely mediocre at what you do.
Now here’s how it could’ve gone:
You could’ve helped me switch to a later flight, waived the change fee (at some point you’ll have to explain to me where that fee goes), and thanked me for choosing to fly US Airways.
I could then take to Twitter and Facebook to spread the good news about the great customer service experience I just had. I would’ve made sure to tell everyone how much your airline has improved, and how they really seemed to have turned things around. Another 1 or 2 good experiences, I might even put you up with Southwest as a great airline. I would’ve done all of this instead of blogging my bad experience and arguing with your @usairways team about how they don’t get it.
So what’s the big deal?
Your customer service approach, your ridiculous fees, and your overall subpar experience builds no loyalty, no trust and no affinity. I’m just one person, but if you aggregate my experience with all of the others you give this same experience, you are building a company destined to fail. When given the choice, I overwhelmingly choose Southwest, everytime, because they delight me, they try, it’s their culture.
But US Airways will never be Southwest, because you simply don’t have the culture to be like Southwest. Your customer service is about doing the least amount possible and, when pushed, doing as much as possible, so long as it fits within your nice, neat little policy book. Southwest empowers their people to delight me. They don’t blame me, they don’t offer vapid apologies. And in turn, I promote them and speak highly of them every time. In fact, most people do (at least more than other airlines).
You, however, suck. Twitter stream to follow: