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Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

publikdemand.com

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Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#11

Post by larrys »

courtneypowell wrote: post #7
larrys wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what vetting you do of the complaints that you handle this way? What do you do to verify they are valid and not, for example, hoaxes or even if not hoaxes that they contain all of the relevant facts and are not slanted in favor of the harmed person?

I personally reached out to the mother, checked the flight records and reached out to United before sharing anything. We also waited until the child was home safely before sharing anything.

Ok that's good.

From a business perspective can you scale that approach? I would imagine it takes a fair amount of effort and time on your part. Are you planning to get community involvement in the vetting process?

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#12

Post by courtneypowell »

alayne wrote: post #10

This reminds me of the issue with Dave Carroll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars . As a company, you can't afford to get yourself in conflicts with people who have genuine issues and are savvy with social media.

I agree! I am not sure why they have yet to learn from the past.

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#13

Post by JeremyBanks »

Was this Tweet the only one made @United from the account before it was blocked, or were there others?

https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898

If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#14

Post by courtneypowell »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #13

Was this Tweet the only one made @United from the account before it was blocked, or were there others? https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898 If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.

They were most likely upset that I called their emergency press line in order to get the mother help. After I gave United the contact information for the mother they refused to talk to me further. They blocked us the next morning.

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#15

Post by courtneypowell »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #13

Was this Tweet the only one made @United from the account before it was blocked, or were there others? https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898 If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.

I also tweeted at the from my @CourtneyPowell account on Twitter.

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#18

Post by courtneypowell »

courtneypowell wrote: post #7
larrys wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what vetting you do of the complaints that you handle this way? What do you do to verify they are valid and not, for example, hoaxes or even if not hoaxes that they contain all of the relevant facts and are not slanted in favor of the harmed person?

I personally reached out to the mother, checked the flight records and reached out to United before sharing anything. We also waited until the child was home safely before sharing anything.

Re: the question on scaling. Our system is built to allows companies to simply respond to complaints we automatically share with them via Twitter. We then send the company's response back to the user receive that response via SMS so the conversation can be continued without our involvement, although we retain the conversation data privately on our site. This removes us from the typical dialog we see on the majority of complaints. I only personally get involved when we see something of an emergent nature.

Re: Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

#19

Post by kevinpet »

I'm somewhat surprised that the regulators are not cracking down on these incidents. This is not the first time we've heard of kids being stranded and not getting the chaperone that parents paid for. Refunding the chaperone fee is a bit like choosing to refund the cost of insurance rather than pay a claim -- the fee is far more expensive than the usual value of the services, and it's only paid to protected against unusual situations like a flight rerouted.

This is a bit like a hosting company offering a 24/7 support hotline for a monthly fee but never staffing it, and only refunding it when people complain after failing to get through to the support hotline.

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