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Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

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Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#81

Post by rdl »

jmtame wrote: post #77
rdl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The place to warn about this would be before he missed his flight (or at initial booking, but it would annoy frequent travelers to be presented information like this every single time they book; it's in the rules of carriage). I've flown on some airlines where they send mail encouraging online checkin which also includes "miss your flight" information. And, I've flown others where if you miss you flight, they call or…

agreed, they should do better at making sure you read this. but they shouldn't bury this somewhere EULA-style. that's an aside. the point is: they told him to check-in. their system is flawed. they took the time to hire someone to program the ability to cancel the whole flight, but they ignored the part where they tell him to check-in. to make things worse, they treated him terribly when he tried to and didn't realiz…

EULAs are basically meaningless, so I skip them (unless I'm evaluating a large purchase).

Terms of Carriage/Fare Rules are actually quite important. I absolutely do check things like change fees, reroutability, fare class, etc. when I buy a ticket, and will often pay the 5% premium to get a more changeable ticket.

This is much more like reading the tech specs for a new laptop (does it have a linux-supported wifi chipset? discrete graphics?) than a EULA.

A useful fact you may not know: most "legacy" carriers will interline you onto another airline if they can't accommodate your scheduled travel -- for instance, if they cancel a flight, they will put you on another airline's flight if it will get your there faster. This is a VERY BIG DEAL internationally, where they don't always even have daily flights -- if a flight is canceled, it could be 2-3 days before the next flight with the same airline to your destination. Low cost carriers (e.g. Southwest) won't.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#82

Post by whakojacko »

jwegan wrote: post #6

I'm always astounded why so many companies seem more willing to lose a loyal repeat customer than take a small hit on the bottom line for a particular transaction. Companies like NewEgg, Costco, and Zappos have demonstrated how being willing to take a small hit on some transactions can engender a fanatical customer base, but it seems most companies still prefer to be penny wise and pound foolish.

Honestly though, I doubt he is a loyal repeat customer of UAL, since he almost definitely would know about the "miss a segment, your itinerary is cancelled" rule if he was. IMO, US legacy airlines are relatively good to their valuable customers via frequent flyer programs and elite status.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#83

Post by edw519 »

jmtame wrote: post #68
edw519 wrote: post #60

...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…

why would they tell him he could check in on the return flight if this is such a common thing? why not a notification saying "you missed your first flight so we canceled everything. warning: don't come to the airport and try to check in, buy some new tickets instead because that's what people have been doing for 30 years now." the airline screwed up here too, especially if he's someone (like myself) who didn't know a…

this blog is completely justified, and it shows that wepay stands behind its commitment of customer service.

It also shows that wepay (through this blog rant) is not saavy in some pretty standard ways of the world. Which is a real big fucking concern for anyone who's thinking about trusting them with their money.

OP says it himself with his very first "lesson", "Don’t optimize for the edge-case." Then he violates his own first lesson.

By complaining about customer service, he just got a small set of sympathetic people to passionately agree. And accidently got a huge set of potential customers to go away.

OP had a difficult experience. He got bitten by a software bug and horrible customer service. We've all been there. We understand.

My point is not that I don't sympathize with him. My point is that he's using his corporate blog to make a small point, potentially costing him huge unanticipated problems on the other side of this. He may pick up a few raving customer service fans, but how many people will think twice before trusting their money to someone either too green or too lazy to understand a standard airline contract?

OP may win this battle, but lose the war. I imagine he, his co-founders, and his business partners have worked way too hard to risk so much for so little.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#84

Post by hvs »

jpwagner wrote: post #74
hvs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article doesn't exist.

see edit. HN trims the apostrophe from "World's". and thanks for putting in the effort to comment, but not search for the page that DOES exist.

The fact that it does exist doesn't strengthen your argument that large companies should be allowed to act like assholes to their customers.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#85

Post by jpwagner »

hvs wrote: post #84
jpwagner wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see edit. HN trims the apostrophe from "World's". and thanks for putting in the effort to comment, but not search for the page that DOES exist.

The fact that it does exist doesn't strengthen your argument that large companies should be allowed to act like assholes to their customers.

allowed???

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#86

Post by alain94040 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #69
edw519 wrote: post #60

...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…

> It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this. > But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring your ineptness to your company I think it makes WePay seem human. Furthermore, whether or not it's true, this blog post makes me feel like WePay is saying 'we value…

I think it makes WePay seem human

Human yes, but also young and inexperienced. The cool kid who hasn't been around the block yet.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#87

Post by jcmoney »

rdl wrote: post #62
edw519 wrote: post #60

...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…

I strongly agree with this. It might be appropriate for a personal blog, but it makes WePay look like it's run by people who don't understand how to navigate complex systems. Guess what industry is even more regulated, rule-bound, complex than the airline industry? Banking and payments. A startup already has a high hurdles related to people being conservative with their money; being an iconoclast isn't exactly what p…

I'm sure WePay does not dedicate as much time/effort into understanding every complex industry and in fact they obviously shouldn't. Banking and payments is core to their business. Air travel is not. I would still trust my lawyer if he/she failed to tell me how high I could jump on the moon.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#88

Post by sayrer »

edw519 wrote: post #60

...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…

It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.

I thought that was standard as well, but I fly usually fly United or other big carriers.

I flew JetBlue recently, and did something just like what this guy did. I called up expecting to have to rebook, but they said that wasn't necessary, and even refunded the money for the first leg.

I can see how someone used to Virgin, JetBlue, et al. could make this mistake.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#89

Post by URSpider94 »

My first thought, like many of you, was that everyone knows (or at least all frequent fliers know) that missing a leg will usually result in cancellation of your flight, and that you have to let the airline know BEFORE the first flight departs that you don't plan on taking it. The OP could have saved himself a lot of trouble by simply calling United before he left and canceling his departure.

After mulling it over, my second thought was that air travel is a BIG DEAL to most people -- it's stressful and expensive, and the rules are opaque. I agree that United could have made this MUCH better by sending the OP a notice within, say, 12 hours of missing his first flight explaining the situation and his future options.

Straying from the customer experience, on a systems side, airline yield management is a TERRIFIC problem to think about. By forbidding passengers from skipping flights in an itinerary, you effectively remove the restriction that the total itinerary price must be the sum of the legs that it comprises. This opens up all kinds of new possibilities to use economics to balance load across the system.

Re: Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

#90

Post by rdl »

dkersten wrote: post #71
rdl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines are one of the most economically marginal, shitty businesses out there. ("easiest way to become a millionaire in the airline industry is to start out a billionaire"). They're also not particularly good at software development. The legacy carriers are huge, and have built software over decades. I think the low hanging fruit in the airline industry is to hire staff from outside the airline industry in all cust…

Nevermind all that. My comment was purely targetted at the text I quoted. I just meant that saying " my online system sucks and you shouldn't care (or should be complacent) because its just a hack on top of some legacy system " isn't an excuse you should accept. Just because you do not feel its worthwhile to replace the underlying system (and I'm not arguing over whether it is or isn't), doesn't make it alright that…

I agree it isn't ideal, but given limited resources, there are a lot of cases where having a good manual/human exception handling procedure is a better solution than fixing the software. (And training employees to "be nice to customers, pretend your boss's mother is flying today" would improve all interactions with the airline; fixing this one particular bug wouldn't be as generally beneficial. Realistically United will do neither :)
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