Bad United Airlines Customer Experience
Posted on May 26, 2007
Filed Under Experience Economy, Miscellany |
This post starts out describing a bad customer service experience I had, then turns my whining into five things you should think about in your library.
First, for the story:
I spoke at New York Public Library a few weeks ago. After my presentation, I decided to show up early at the airport, so I could work on some writing projects (as in a book - stay tuned for more on that one).
At the United Airlines ticket counter, I went to the self-service EASY CHECK-IN counter. One would think that by advertising the counter as EASY CHECK-IN, that it would, in fact, be EASY CHECK-IN. That was not the case.
I received my plane tickets just fine - that part actually WAS easy. But I was there 4 1/2 hours early, and the EASY CHECK-IN machine apparently didn’t like that - it wasn’t set up to check bags that far ahead. Unfortunately for me, the person behind the counter wasn’t much better than the EASY CHECK-IN machine!
I explained my problem (I wanted to check my bags early). Pretty clear, right? Instead of addressing my problem, the Counter Guy simply pointed me to the REALLY LONG LINE for normal ticketing, and said “go stand in that line, and see if they can get you on an earlier flight.” WHAT??? That’s not what I needed! So I re-explained that I already HAD my tickets (I showed him) and said again “I just need to check in my bag… ” In a “most patient” tone (you know, that “you must really be a dumb customer but I’m still supposed to be nice to you so I’ll talk louder and slower” tone), the Counter Guy restated that I needed to get in the REALLY LONG LINE to see if they could put me on an earlier flight, and that was all he could do for me!
ok…
So I headed over to the REALLY LONG LINE. 45 minutes later, when I finally reached the Counter Lady at the end of the REALLY LONG LINE, I explained my problem again (I just want to check my bag). In a very helpful voice, the Counter Lady said “you know, you didn’t need to stand in this line for that.” (admittedly, I knew she’d say that, but by this time I realized I wanted to blog about the stupid process I had to go through, so I held out).
I told her that the Counter Guy at the EASY CHECK-IN counter said I had to stand in this line to get my bag checked in early. So what did the Counter Lady do? She simply rolled her eyes in the general direction of the Counter Guy, and then helped me with my real problem (someone finally took my bag - yay!).
And now for the library part. What’s the moral of this story? I have a couple:
1. Labels are useless if they don’t match functionality. In this case, the EASY CHECK-OUT line wasn’t easy. What are your labels? What do you call your library’s self-check-out machines? How about labels on your website - do they match functionality? Ex - Advanced Search… is it really more advanced, or does it just have more options? How about “Named Areas” of your library? Do you have a reading room, or “The Nathan B. Rezznick Room for Discovery?”
2. Train your employees (or, don’t be Counter Guy)! In United’s case, two employees standing within 15 feet of each other handled one pretty standard problem two different ways. Do your reference desk staff and your circulation staff do this? How about your IT staff vs public service staff? You should all be on the same page.
3. Do something about the problem. At United, when they realize there’s a problem, they roll their eyes at each other. Hopefully, later on someone chatted with the Counter Guy about customer service, procedures, etc. At your library, when a public computer doesn’t work right… do you roll your eyes at the PC Technician, or do you work with him/her to fix the problem?
4. Make sure staff and customers use the same thing. I’ll hazard a guess that the upper management at United have never actually had to stand in their own ticket line for 45 minutes (or even used the EASY CHECK-IN counter). When customers need a book, and ask your reference staff for help, do they use the the same front-end public catalog the customer uses, or do they use the staff, back-end version? Certainly the staff version provides more options and possibly more information. But how will staff really understand the customer search experience if they don’t use what the customer uses?
5. Be the best library in the world. Seriously. Make being the best library in the world your goal, and then figure out how you can achieve that goal within your time, budget, and community. With that mindset you can’t NOT improve something, and who knows? You just might achieve it!
unitedairlines
customer service
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15 Responses to “Bad United Airlines Customer Experience”
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I feel your pain, David. What if someone wanted something from Counter Guy and didn’t have 45 minutes spare to stand in the wrong, long line?
In my library, we have “Counter Guy” IT staff located at a prominent desk. They are not employed by the library and don’t have the customer service training, culture and support to be like Counter Lady. I confess to eye-rolling in their direction - and doing what many other library staff do and trying to troubleshoot problems ourselves so that we don’t send them to the IT counter.
Students perceive the IT people as “the library”. I wonder whether Counter Guy worked for “Baggage Services” and Counter Lady worked for “Ticketing Services”. IMHO, the overall culture of the parent organisation (the university, the airline) needs to be so strong and customer focussed that pockets of the organisation can’t develop their customer service skills so disparately.
The FAA mandates that bags can not be accepted prior to 4 hours before scheduled flight.
Kim - thanks for pointing that out. Upon poking around some, here’s what I found. The FAA website doesn’t say anything about how early you can check in luggage (unless I missed it), but United’s website does - yup - four hours is the max.
My complaint is still valid. Why didn’t Counter Guy or Counter Lady simply tell me that? If Counter Guy had told me about the 4-hour thing, I would have hung around for about 15 minutes, then checked my bags again. Instead, he sent me to the wrong place and wasted my time.
David,
Thanks for showing me this post… I love how you took this bad experience and turned it into a learning experience.
I hope my readers do the same.
It’s sad, remember when flying used to be fun?
Stephanie Weaver
http://experienceology.blogspot.com/2007/05/letter-i-wish-i-could-send.html
David
Your experience is consistent with the overall lack of interest in and delivery of customer service in this country. In the airline industry, as passenger loads have increased significantly in the past year, service has gone down and airfares have gone up.
I had another “bad” reservations experience with United which I chronicled on my blog, The Brand Man Speaks, that you might enjoy reading. It was both “resolved” but “not resolved” as United offered a solution without addressing the real problem…somewhat like your experience.
Eli Portnoy
I agree - that’s one interesting story, Eli - and a bad customer experience to boot. For my readers, his story is here - http://theportnoygroup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/travel_alert_un.html
hi david,
i read ur problem i have worked with ua res in india we are getting so many call sayin that ua service is not good the customer care agents are not at all helpfull its mistake to take with ua agent on phone. i just want to say problems do happen but its not good to blame the whole company and agents for this it was a bad day for u that u met up with wrong agent so does it happen on phone
I am an employer who was trying to get my employee back to work in LA. He couldn’t make the original return flight so I called United Airlines to change it. I should have checked with my employee beforehand on the particulars but thought I understood his timetable. I made a reservation for a 4pm return on the wrong day. I called the airlines back within 5 minutes and had to pay again. Let me backtrack. The original roundtrip ticket was around $180. To make the change it cost me $234. Five minutes later it cost me another $234 because of POLICY!!!!!! So, what originally was a $180 roundtrip ticket suddenly became a $648 ticket. I felt I had no other alternative because it was the SAME flight only on a different day. I was so frustrated and would like to have cancelled the whole thing but had already paid them $414 and needed to get my employee back to work. Hindsight is definately 20/20. I realize now I should never have agreed to pay the additional $100 just to talk to an agent regarding my flight change. My point in writing this is I have atleast 12 employees working in Los Angeles and all want to come home. They will be flying home but NEVER will they be flying home on UNITED AIRLINES. It’s funny how for example SOUTHWEST AIRLINES will change your flight changes at anytime and that is who I will(am) using from now on.
AS TRAVEL AGENT I BOOKED TWO FLIGHTS FOR CLIENTS FOR WHICH I NEVER RECEIVED CONFIRMATIONS AND RECEIPTS. I CALLED 5 TIMES TO HAVE UNITED SEND THEM TO ME AND AFTER SPENDING 20 MINUTES EACH TIME TO GET THRU THE PRELIMINARY QUESTION NONSENSE, IT STILL WAS TO NO AVAIL - NO CONFIRMATIONS.
(dlk: edited out what looks like personal info…)
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Having read the bad comments about United Airlines on this web site, I was not very optimistic when I recently wrote them to explain the problems I had encountered when I was booked on one of their flights from Boston to Rapid City via Chicago last month. I thoght you should know that their Customer Relations Dept. not only apologized to me for what occurred that day but also sent me a $150.00 Discount Travel Certificate towards a future United Airlines flight. This Certificate is valid through October 8 2008.
I thought you should be informed of the excellent outcome of my complaint to United Airlines.
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My grandson, a Marine home from basic training, and I were at Detroit Metro as he was returning to San Diego. The attendant at the curb told us the airline charged $4.00 to check in the baggage, and we should also leave a tip for him. I paid a total of $5.00, but was not comfortable with the situation. I called United and found out he is a scam artist. So, travelers, beware!! He was at a desk in front of the doors that allowed you to enter the building. 1-15-08
when you try to talk to a manager in reservations about United airline tickets, you are speaking to someone in India who has a horrible command of the English language. I was in the middle of booking a ticket on line. When I went to pick my seat for the return flight at a price of $320 round trip, it kicked me out of the United web site. I logged back in with my FF number only to find that same flight had now been boosted $200 dollars more. I tried to call the 800 nmuber and the only repsonse was, I am sorry but there is nothing we can do about it. That is the price. I ried to call them 3 times and discuss the problem. United has lost me as a loyal customer. I was a Premier Gold flyer up until last year when they screwed me over then. I thought I would try them one more time. Now I use SWA for less money and no ticket hassel issues. United does not care about their customers. I was a Premier Gold flyer for several years. I will not fly them if I dont have to. That includes my overseas travel.