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A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

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Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#21

Post by pjc50 »

jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

The only reason to go public with a complaint on Twitter is lack of faith in the dispute resolution process - which is usually justified.

I once had an insurance company reach out to me after I posted about them on Livejournal. They connected me to someone with the ability to fix problems! Must have found me through search as well.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#22

Post by kqr »

jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

> It helps drive to a much quicker resolution and overall provides a much better customer experience.

Are there measurements behind this claim? It could be that you are optimizing for customer support experience rather than customer experience.

I mean, with the resources, a Twitter interaction could look like

Customer: your service sucks.

Support: I'm sorry to hear you have that experience. Is there anything we can do to make up for it?

Customer: don't send me a bill for next month and I'll stay as your customer.

Support: Sure thing. Hope you can enjoy the service more in the future.

This type of exchange is bad for the company only in that it does not provide any valuable feedback, but as long as you have other ways of getting that, I bet you the customer will feel content.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#23

Post by jdavis703 »

jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

I recently told a SaaS startup that their password change page was down -- this was communicated via Twitter with an exact error code and everything. After a few hours, they resolved the problem without needing any further details from me. Obviously YMMV, but some issues are appropriate to call out over Twitter.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#24

Post by Old_Thrashbarg »

I'm disappointed to see more companies trending towards text messages. Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication, but some companies (like my network carrier) text me to let me know things like my bill was auto-paid.

I'll be in the middle of coding and my phone goes off, so I stop everything I'm doing to see that my monthly was autopaid. With email, I check it every 2 hours to minimize distractions and I can also use filters to ignore certain routine emails, but companies text messaging me feels like an intrusion into my privacy.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#25

Post by _jal »

joosters wrote: post #19

Great. Another way for companies to send me an automated response that doesn't answer my question.

At a guess, that's what airline decision-makers are probably thinking, too.

It doesn't have to be that way, but probably will. This is an entirely different category, but my local hardware store started publishing a number to text with any questions about home repair and whatnot, and they're actually great, responding quickly with good answers and sometimes a bit of humor. Really awesome customer service.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#26

Post by jorts »

guiomie wrote: post #20
jorts wrote: post #18

Tweets are a terrible communication channel for solving customer service related issues. I run a customer support team, and almost all of our customer service related tweets end up with us either emailing the customer directly (if we can identify them) or asking them to email us so that we can get more information about their issue/concern. Text at least gives you a private chat where you can give information that yo…

Tweets makes your problem public. Multiple times I couldn't get reach to customer service or I would be lost in a Labyrinth of various agents who would simply transfer me over and over.

Yea, if the company has a terrible support process outside of tweeting, it becomes the nuclear option to get someone to actually deal with you, which is just terrible for everyone.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#27

Post by wyc »

I had a great experience with SMS as customer service. I bought some pens from OfficeDepot and they didn't ship. Texted their support SMS number with my problem and upon request of my order number, I just took a picture of the order email receipt on my computer monitor. I half-expected MMS not to work with their service, but it was fine. They found the problem in a few minutes and I got a shipping confirmation.

This was a huge time saver from my perspective. No reading of order numbers, no waiting on hold, no confirmation of order details. The real value in my situation was the delivery of my full context to the appropriate service that could help me. I think WeChat is riding this exact wave.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#28

Post by maehwasu »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #7

I fly weekly. After every flight and almost every phone call I get an email requesting I take a survey. Knowing how metrics driven most big companies are (I'm a consultant) I have to assume that for all the complaining nobody is filling out these surveys. When I fill them out things happen. Every time I give a negative review I find myself higher in the upgrade list or upgraded outright. It's actually a "hack" anothe…

That's such horrible incentive-setting on their part--and now I really want to try it...

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#29

Post by criddell »

Old_Thrashbarg wrote: post #24

I'm disappointed to see more companies trending towards text messages. Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication, but some companies (like my network carrier) text me to let me know things like my bill was auto-paid. I'll be in the middle of coding and my phone goes off, so I stop everything I'm doing to see that my monthly was autopaid. With email, I check it every 2 hours to minimize distrac…

You can probably set your notification preferences somewhere on your carrier's website. Unless you do that, they probably have no idea if you even have an email address.

> Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication

That's how I use it as well, but I'm not sure we're in the majority. To the phone company, a text message is the less time sensitive way to communicate. Time sensitive communications are handled with an actual phone call.

Re: A New Way to Tell Your Airline You Hate It

#30

Post by ubernostrum »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #7

I fly weekly. After every flight and almost every phone call I get an email requesting I take a survey. Knowing how metrics driven most big companies are (I'm a consultant) I have to assume that for all the complaining nobody is filling out these surveys. When I fill them out things happen. Every time I give a negative review I find myself higher in the upgrade list or upgraded outright. It's actually a "hack" anothe…

If you fly "weekly", then as long as it's a round trip of at least one segment each direction, you're going to hit 100+ segments/year. And as long as you spend enough on tickets to hit threshold, that's in at least the platinum tier of all three major US airlines, and knocking on the door of their top tier. You shouldn't be surprised that you're getting upgraded.
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