…what would it take for a hotel (any and all hotels, for that matter) to send someone around to every room and put a little WD-40 on the ironing board leg extension mechanism?
Every. Single. Time. I am treated to that wonderful fingernails-on-the-blackboard screech. In every hotel.
Customer satisfaction. It’s the little, inexpensive details, folks.
Now, I know it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to point out the utter destruction airlines do to their reputations through a lackadaisical, indifferent or, occasionally, hostile approach to customer satisfaction and service.
Everybody’s got a story. Granted, a lot of frustration expressed by travellers can be the fault not of the airline, but an entire system that includes an increasingly overloaded, technologically stunted air traffic control infrastructure. And the weather. Which is nobody’s fault.
However, it’s the self-inflicted stuff that makes me shake my head.
Today, I flew to Charlotte, N.C. on U.S. Airways out of Albany, N.Y. on a flight that was overbooked. Overbooked by whom, you ask? Excellent question — by the airline, who sold all the seats on the plane. Plus one. Make a note of that: the airline.
Their solution? It started out pretty standard — looking for volunteers to surrender their seat on this flight, to be booked on another flight and compensated with a free, round-trip ticket anywhere U.S. Airways flies in the continental United States, blah, blah, blah.
And then, the kicker, straight out of what three-ring-customer-service-policy-manual-binder I’ll never know: “…and we won’t be boarding this flight until someone volunteers to give up their seat.”
And for good measure, they reminded us several times in the next fifteen minutes that they were willing to wait absolutely as long as it took for someone to step forward.
That’s right — punish your hostagescustomers for your mistake by delaying their flight, threatening them, marinating them in stress, and generally annoying them. Because you, dear airline, sold every seat on the plane. Plus one.
I haven’t encountered any other business that, when it makes an error, as a matter of policy and without a hint of irony or clarity about what they’re really doing, makes its customers uncomfortable, annoyed, and inconvenienced. You may correct me if I’m wrong.
Now, I know they can’t board a plane that is short a seat or two. I know they prefer to have volunteers. But I increasingly suspect that at the heart of why everyone loves to hate airline customer service is a lack of human sensitivity and finesse in what is at heart a hospitality business that causes these ham-fisted approaches to problem-solving to be used.
And they fail to recognize it at their own peril. Because nearly every customer on that flight recognized it today, and understood very clearly that they were being punished and stressed for the airline’s mistake.
I will say this: the gate agent was pleasant, and hard working in an often thankless job. But she didn’t seem to comprehend the message she was sending. Or, maybe she did and was just doing what she was told to do.
Nonetheless, the consequences were not small. The plane boarded late, missed its “clear time” (a departure clearance window issued by air traffic control) from Albany, causing the flight to fall victim to a “ground stop” (a halt to all departures using a particular slice of airspace) due to excessively heavy air traffic using the airspace over and adjacent to the New York metropolitan area. We departed nearly 90 minutes late, wreaking havoc with three-quarters of the passenger’s connecting travel plans in Charlotte.
As the U.S. Airways website declares, “Customers First.” Indeed.
First, she gets rained on. Now this.
My wife called me at work on Wednesday morning, and bravely pretended to need to talk to me about a few items and errands she needed to run. Then she got down to business:
“I have some really bad news,” she says. “What’s the worst thing that could happen to you?”
Okay. In an instant, I run through the options in my head:
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just tell me, okay?”
“Well, [graphic description of horrible, unspeakable act deleted].”
Pause.
”[Expletive deleted],” I mutter. “You’re kidding me, right?
“Noooo,” she says. “[Equally nauseous variation of the horrible act omitted].”
Pause.
”[Expletive deleted],” I mutter.
“You going to come home to look at it?”
“Why? I’m already having a bad day. Now I need to vomit in the front yard?”
Now, I appreciate my wife’s effort to overstate the life-and-death seriousness of the problem in the hope that breaking the news to me would allow me to immediately put it in perspective, but I’m still bummed. I’ve since understood, as I manage my grief, that others in this big world have had far more tragic and painful problems to cope with this week and that I remain, in spite of my grief, a lucky, lucky man.
But I’m still queasy. And [expletive deleted].
The bottom line: my buttercup needs some cosmetic surgery, but she’ll be just fine. Me? I hope to be taking nourishment sometime this weekend.
I stumbled across these guys one night on an HBO special a few years ago; now, they have their own HBO series that, to me, is gut-bustingly funny, but to others is a bit of an acquired taste.
Here’s, ahem, a flavor of their humor:
The premise of their series is the daily life of two Kiwi transplants trying to start a music career in New York. Try it; it’ll grow on you (Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on HBO).
OK.
Apparently, I really do possess some special powers. I’m still just not sure which in particular; I’m guessing maybe invisibility. Or maybe I’m some sort of deity. Here’s why:
Tonight was a beautiful evening here in south central Vermont — cool and clear. In short, a perfect excuse to take the blonde for a spin, breathe the crisp air and clear my head.
There’s a great stretch of road south of town, where U.S. Route 7 goes to four lanes for five or six miles before hitting Wallingford, Vermont. It has several virtues: remote, well-paved, and straight.
In a word, catnip.
So, after passing a Toyota Corolla, I settle in the left lane at 82, 83 miles per hour — you know, reasonable (and still loafy for my little buttercup), but fun.
I signal and, as I drift back to the right lane, I glance into my rear view mirror. And — bam! — out of the very tall roadside weeds about a quarter-mile back lunges a Vermont. State. Trooper.
OMG! as my daughter says, only close your eyes and imagine something a lot less polite. I don’t even bother hitting the brakes. Perhaps my best (and least expensive) option, I think, is to simply and immediately pull over. Now. So as not to annoy the nice officer any further.
I slow down. He gets closer. He passes me. He doesn’t even glance at me. He turns on his lights. And — get this — he pulls over a tan GMC Yukon a few hundred yards ahead of me.
Wha…? Wha…? I don’t get it, I don’t get it, I don’t get it, I mutter to myself. I was moo-vin’, and I’m the baddest boy on this highway.
Then I realize: I’m an invisible deity. That’s gotta be it, right?
There’s the evidence; you judge for yourself. Me? I’m still shaking my head.
