US Airways has set a good example of listening to customer feedback and fixing a problem. In my case, there was added criticism in a newspaper column, but instead of complaining, the airline rolled up sleeves and started working.
In March, I wrote in my Washington Times column about its website’s inability to display many itineraries, even when booked directly with US Airways. At the time, spokeswoman Valerie Wunder at the company’s headquarters in Phoenix arranged a conference call with two in-house experts, who told me that the reason for the glitch was the site’s failure to recognize some foreign airport codes.
I’m happy to report that now I can view reservations containing some of the same airport codes I wasn’t able to see before. I hope the problem has been fixed across the system. That said, there are other issues with the US Airways site, but most other airlines have them, too.
Another company that has taken my criticism constructively is RCN, the cable operator. In a May column, I wrote about a massive April 26 outage that reportedly affected not only D.C. but several states. Because most customers have “bundled” services, they lost all of them for about five hours beginning in early afternoon on a Monday — those included businesses and many people working from home, who could do little with no phone and Internet in the middle of a weekday.
I concluded that RCN hadn’t improved its customer-service policies since a previous incident, which I reported a year earlier. In that case, my entire building lost phone, TV and Internet service around 7 p.m. on a Saturday. Service was not restored for more than 18 hours. Customer-service agents in the Philippines gave me and my neighbors conflicting information about the problem and how long it would take to fix it.
After my latest column, I received a call from Richard Beville, vice president and general manager for the D.C. area, who invited me to lunch to discuss how RCN can improve its customer service.
I try to hold companies in different sectors to the same standards everyone expects from airlines, which probably get more criticism than any other industry. While some of that criticism is deserved, the high visibility of thousands of front-line employees with customers around the world every day magnifies even a mundane incident, especially if splashed on Facebook or Twitter.
Continue reading about US Airways hears feedback, fixes website
One of the biggest misconceptions about the travel industry is that it offers the worst customer service around. In fact, in the last couple of years, airline and hotel companies have achieved significant improvements, and it would be wise for other businesses to watch and learn.
Regular readers of this column can testify that I’m no apologist for the travel sector — I try to point out both good and bad practices, though the criticism may sometimes outweigh the praise. But I get angry when I read or hear in the media that airlines are synonymous with bad customer service.
As I wrote a year ago, the constant face-to-face interaction of thousands of front-line airline and hotel employees with customers around the world every day magnifies even a mundane incident, especially if splashed on Facebook or Twitter. The high visibility has taught carriers and hospitality companies valuable lessons, and many of them have learned from their mistakes…
Continue reading about Travel companies teach customer-service lessons
How many horror stories about airline customer service have you heard? There are certainly plenty in the press and many more on various travel Web sites. Still, do we apply the same standards and scrutiny to companies outside the travel industry?
The nature of the airline and hotel businesses requires constant face-to-face interaction with customers, and an employee’s every step is evaluated by a flier or a hotel guest much more often than by a supervisor. In fact, thanks to the Internet, thousands of people can learn about an incident involving a front-line employee hours — if not days — before the company’s management does.
Earlier this month, a San Francisco man complained that a United Airlines agent took a break instead of helping his girlfriend catch a flight to Portland, Ore., to visit her dying mother. That story was posted on dozens of Web sites within minutes…
