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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

#51

Post by jonknee »

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…

In my experience it's the absolute best way to get shitty companies to offer passable customer service. They seemingly put better people on the social team than the general call center. Usually it's a single tweet and then a reply asking to hop into DM.

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

#52

Post by notahacker »

hammock wrote: post #48
nathancahill wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way, tweets are great. It's the only way I've been able to connect to airlines immediately (once after waiting on hold for 4+ hours). Most quickly jump to private DMs. No more phonetic spelling my confirmation number over a bad phone connection. Problems get taken care of really quickly, but even it they aren't, I'm able to do other stuff while I wait, unlike waiting on hold, which really saps attention (constantl…

>tweets are great. It's the only way I've been able to connect to airlines immediately (once after waiting on hold for 4+ hours) That is true, but has less to do with the platform and more to do with how few people are on it, compared to how many dedicated social media person(s) there are responding. In other words, so few people know how to send a tweet (vs send an email or make a phone call) that you are competing…

Also, the social media person is incentivised to create good PR (or avoid bad PR), not to follow a set of prescriptive rules about how customer service enquiries are handled and escalate to a more senior decision maker only when strictly necessary

(Corollary: they might have less ability to actually solve routine problems because they don't know the relevant protocols. But they'll make you feel important when trying)

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

#53

Post by camhenlin »

jorts wrote: post #26
guiomie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is that terrible for the person tweeting? Usually, it works out pretty well for them.

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

#54

Post by patrickyan »

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…

Public shaming is the only way to get any customer service at all for many shitty companies.

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

#55

Post by noxToken »

probably_wrong wrote: post #13

The article is slightly too optimistic, bordering on naive. My problem is not that I hate airlines. My problem is that I hate (some of) them because they keep ignoring my complaints. Even when it is "hugely expensive" for them to listen to me, they still keep me around for hours. If the medium were the reason of traveler's unhappiness, all problems would have been solved by now with Twitter/Facebook/WhatsApp. Social…

Which is why they want to use texting in my opinion. Social media is public, and when an angry customer uses it as a platform to complain, you have to handle the situation post-haste. The longer a mention goes publicly ignored, the worse it is.

Think about the other communication platforms. People hate calling, because it usually means waiting on hold to get connected. Email can suck, because it can be days before you get a response. Face-to-face can work, but airlines seem to train their desk agents in customer service warfare.

That leaves texting. It keeps customer out of the face of agents. It's private. Turnaround is faster than email, and you can lodge your complaint in the same amount of characters as a Tweet. "Why do a social media mention on Twitter when you can text us directly at your leisure?" It's the perfect way to subvert public shaming. Anything that can be handled in SMS can be handled through Twitter DMs after you call them out for your terrible experience.

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

#56

Post by ubernostrum »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #42
ubernostrum wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

sigh I know what airline status is thanks. I also know where I normally sit in the list of upgrades given the route and number of empty seats. When I respond negatively to surveys I get upgraded almost immediately, others have noticed this trend as well.

I never noticed it in years of getting surveys, as an AA EXP and Delta PM. Always depended on the same old known factors: elite load on the route, time of booking/time of request (depending on airline), etc.

Only thing I ever could tie to surveys/feedback was AA comping me 5k RDM after one particularly horrid flight.

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

#57

Post by keebEz »

I had a stewardess dump a tray full of water on me and my laptop about an hour into a 5 hour flight. She couldn't give me more than a $50 credit, and I had to go to the customer service rep desk after the flight.

First thing he said after I explained to him the situation was "Do you have twitter?". Confused, he explained to me that it was the first thing he had to tick off on the customer resolution checklist. I get it, but a bit of insult to injury.

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

#59

Post by soared »

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…

I'm likely younger than you, but I use text messages exactly opposite of you. If something is time sensitive, call me. If I can glance at it, or just outright ignore it for ~8 hours or more, text works perfectly.

If you're checking email every 2, texts should be every 4. If you're getting urgent messages over text often, someone else is making a mistake. Most people I know don't even read texts for hours later.

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

#60

Post by abandonliberty »

nathancahill wrote: post #36
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…

No way, tweets are great. It's the only way I've been able to connect to airlines immediately (once after waiting on hold for 4+ hours). Most quickly jump to private DMs. No more phonetic spelling my confirmation number over a bad phone connection. Problems get taken care of really quickly, but even it they aren't, I'm able to do other stuff while I wait, unlike waiting on hold, which really saps attention (constantl…

I'm pretty sure this only happens because the social media teams are new and over resourced compared to the traditional channels.
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