This letter was written on 2/15 - after my trip to Florida was canceled due to bad weather and could not be rebooked for a cheaper fare despite UsAirways not being able to get me to my destination until 3 days after my canceled departure. I am half contemplating being an asshole who tries to take on the Airline industry the way Ralph Nader did with the Auto Industry. If Airlines (especially those that merged) are making record profits, but the consumer is miserable, then we have been taken advantage of...and it's time to fight back.
USAirways,
I can accept flight delays and cancellations. I can accept acts of god and bad weather. However, canceling a flight 4 hours before it takes off - and leaving me with no way to make other arrangements for HOURS is unacceptable. I could not reach an agent via phone, because your system would not connect me and instead would explain your operators were too busy, instruct me to use website or to call back later and then hang up. The website would not allow me to process any changes. I was stuck for hours unable to rebook my flight. My trip was to see my ailing Grandmother who is 84 years old. I had the smallest window to book this trip (Planned since last August and booked at the end of January.) My window was February Thursday 13-18. When I finally was able to speak to someone - the best they could do was get me to my destination on the 15th at 11pm. Instead of the 5.5 days I would have with my Grandmother, I could have 2.5 days - for the SAME price of my ticket? So, I cut my trip down 60% -- but you still charge me the same amount? I canceled my flight. I canceled my trip. I don't care that you refunded me....I care about the fundamental attitude towards airline customers. I have flown 10 airlines and other than United and Continental - you are tied or possibly even the worst of the lot. It seems so strange that you make us book our flights months in advance and pay over $500 to fly and then you can cancel on us and issue an offer that is inferior to what I wanted and the same price, but if I were to cancel on you 4 hours before the flight, I would be penalized. Your CEO has managed record profit margins and wants to consolidate the airline industry...not surprising - considering this would give you MORE power to screw over your customers. Your business is similar to every other business post the year 2000, you care about your stock price, your bottom line and your brand, but you could give a "FLYING F" about the real people who choose your airline. The sad truth is... we only choose your airline because we are forced to choose it. CEO's like yours have taken away choices -- I used to be able to fly CA to MI round trip for $280 before the Delta/Northwest merger.... now... I can't make it back for less than $600. Oh, they swore ticket prices would actually go down, but they didn't! Do you know Uber Cabs? Once upon a time in San Francisco, the cab situation here was awful (it still is) and you had no choices, no ability to reliable and safely use a cab in San Francisco. Then UBER came along and actually have the consumers what they wanted. The cab companies cried foul and said it wasn't fair... (translation: they didn't innovate, someone else did...and now they were losing money).... this is going to happen to you. I am saving this email for the day it does....so I can say , "Told you so"... Your fundamental inability to create a reliable product and service, while over-charging people, pocketing our money and going about your day...will be your undoing. You can get away with your behavior with this current generation of travelers, but at some point - there will be Youth in Revolt and they will figure out a way to disrupt your business, take your market share and you will cry foul.... and things will change. Things will change because the PEOPLE forced the to change, not because your CEO and executives woke up and asked themselves, "With increasing storms hitting the US for 5 years in a row...and Southern Airports/Regions being ill-equipped to deal with this, what is our contingency plan for these situations?" If your executive team really hatched the plan: "Give them this phone # to call, when they call - a recorded message will explain we are too busy -and to use website or call later" then shame on your CEO and executives. That's blatant proof that you do not care about your customers, you care about your now record profits at the expense of your customers.
When I took to twitter, the replies from your twitter folks were "Apathetic" at BEST! Check out twitter for the evening of Feb 12th, see the same issue come up and the awful replies that did NOT even answer the questions being asked. If your reply was, "We have an intern manning our twitter handle" or "we were swamped that night!" then again... I ask-- how can a company with RECORD profits that clearly cares about its brand not have a Social Media team that is ready to scale up when emergencies hit? You aren't a boot strapped startup, you are trusted with safely getting people to where they need to be... so, you can't spend extra money on communicating your offerings/status/solutions with the people who contribute to your record profits. Here's the other interesting experience with you. When booking my flight - I was given the chance to upgrade for $79.00 - which I selected. Because of using Delta, I assumed (foolishly) that this would allow me to board in Zone 1, have extra leg room, and be near front of the plane. There was NO information of what my upgrade entailed - and again, this was my fault because I assumed that it was a similar offering. I did research to find out that my $79.00 upgrade put me in Zone 2 and had no additional leg room. Then When I got to the check In page...I could upgrade to Zone #1 for $26.00? Ummmm... what the heck is the $79.00 for? Do you even take time to think about the Customer Experience? Seriously? This is the BEST you can do while making record profits? A glitchy and uninformative website? Go to your homepage... it's not even easy to check in...
So this is what I want: 1.) I want your CEO Doug to see this message 2.) I want an apology letter written to my Grandmother from Doug 3.) I'd like to be made the highest level member of your airline and flown out to see my Grandmother free of charge - first class. 4.) I would like Doug to hire me as Chief Customer Officer (don't worry, I have the experience to do this and am certain I can fix your airline) Failure to reply to my demands within 4 business days will result in taking this story to the media and starting an effective social media campaign highlighting your bad behavior. I expect to be interviewed for the Chief Customer Officer Position sometime in Mid- March, when I return from my free trip seeing my Grandma. Sure, as I read this letter over, some of it sounds petulant and very insistent on how I want things done with zero regard for any of your considerations, but tell me how my demands and tone are any different than the manner in which you offer the product/service you deliver?
At some point, the other shoe is going to drop... you can suck us dry and believe me- your executives will get rich in the process, but there will be NO USAirways for you to even have a job with once they suck Americans dry and other alternatives are available. Lastly, to the poor soul who is reading this first... No matter how they have brainwashed you, no matter how much you love your job... you are one of us.... you are an underpaid and undervalued commodity at a large corporation that has a culture of being reactionary (and poorly at that), rather than empowering and creating a process that can scale. You will be the first to be blamed, first to be scapegoated and at times - measured unfairly (how many calls you take, emails you answer, your service rating....all those BS and arbitrary statistics that MBA's insist mean something, but it's meaningless. Dear initial reader of this heartfelt letter - Fight hard to send this up the chain. Make your name advocating for the customer. Read the twitter feed on Feb 12th -see for your own eyes! Insist that your boss gets involved and then her boss and then his boss and then her boss... all the way until your CEO hears us! Advocate for me! Advocate for us! Advocate for a real change! Make your name off saying "Enough is Enough!" This wasn't about bad weather (that happens) or even a canceled flight (that happens!)....it's about charging $500 for flights to people who need to get some place and want options when there is a hiccup...they want options to resolve their issues, options to make compromises with your organization. Why couldn't my fare have been discounted 60%? You were cutting my trip down by 60%... can you not understand that the value of that ticket had changed? Do you think that if I buy a seat for $500 and a large obese person pays $500 for his seat next to me -and is spilling into my seat - let's say taking up 30% of my room...and making me have to turn inwards (yes, this has happened many times flying to/from the midwest) that my seat and experience is worth the same? Do you see what i am asking you to advocate for? A change! A change to this awful process! If USAirways is the worst (or top 3 worst!) then why not use your record profits to fundamentally change the way this is done? Why not make your airline the darling of the industry... everyone will want to fly your airline, everyone will copy you, you will be a case study for how to change and evolve! How do you fix the value of the seats and baggage fee problem? Rather than charge baggage fees or make a person sit in a seat they can't use because of a larger person next to them - you give every person a 300 lb weight limit. They come to the airport, stand on the scale with their bag (carry on or checked luggage or both!) You + Everything you want to bring. If a person is over 300 lbs alone, they are assigned their seat (a larger and more expensive seat) If a person checks in and their body weight + luggage is over 300lbs, they pay a $100 fee. This way you still make your $$, you improve the customer experience and you still have room for Shipped Cargo, which is one way airlines are making the dough! You are carrying packages across the country... being a shipping service. I am ok with this, but NOT at my expense. Not at the users expense!!! So advocate for me, for you, for us..... send this up the chain. Fight for this. Make your name on this. Steal my brilliant ideas.... I don't care, I am not doing this for ego or for recognition, I want change! I need change. We all do. If you don't advocate for change...it will happen, but not on your terms.... I look forward to hearing back and mostly look forward to being hired as Chief Customer Officer for UsAirways and getting to work changing how WE (whoa, I am already saying WE...too fast?) treat our (damn, our? did it again!!) customers! This will be fun!
Cheers,
David Marino
PS - I am going to take a screenshot of this complaint form - the user interface is awful and it hardly inspires one to actually feel like they are on a site where they are being taken seriously when offering a complaint. I know the message box can be resized, because I work in Tech, but if my Mom or Dad used this site, they would think that they had to fill everything out in the tiny box that is displayed. Also - don't create ONE web page for Compliments/Complaints. They are two very different experiences and asking people who are having a great experience and those who are having a poor experience to go to the same place shows the fundamental lack of understanding the issues you are creating. Where's the branding on this page? This page is sterile and would be portrayed in a movie as a white colored office with an annoying flickering fluorescent light with men wearing white dress shirts and black ties.... sterile, homogenous and inauthentic. If you really want to hear what is not working....then create a user experience and flow that caters to people like myself willing to take 45 minutes to create a detailed explanation of every pain point encountered. This information is SO valuable. I am outside of your echo chamber where your executives read those BS bottom-line metrics they get bonuses on... I am telling you REAL and ACTIONABLE steps you can take. You can't get this information quickly! This feedback isn't a number that is easily tracked through a survey, it's gold! The numbers your executives track are part of the problem... it leads to creating complaint pages like this one! Let's fix this!
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