I found this other article very interesting.
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/17/united-southwest-houston/?iid=HP_River

Regards
Miguel

Firstly, it took forever just to finally get to speak to someone, a lot of nested questions. It was was really frustrating to go through all of them, especially for me who just wanted to speak to someone who can address my concern. I personally prefer to speak to someone when I call service center, I hate robo-agents!

Secondly, when I finally got to someone, the lady was obviously following a script. She was so in a hurry to drop me off the line that she almost sounded rude in the phone. At one point, she was egging me to pay by phone, she did so repeatedly. My main concern was to get a copy of my bill, so I can review and pay it the way I want to pay it. Obviously she did not understand my concern. She was following a script that will either lead me to pay by phone or drop the call.

I assume she was on a hurry to end the call to limit call time duration. The shorter the call time the more calls the center can handle. Payment done by phone could also be a performance indicator, it led the agents to repeatedly ask me to pay, even if I did not want to in the first place!

I like the Delta slogan that you shared: “Don’t let the rules over-rule common sense”. Common-sense here would have been, listen, listen, listen, ask, empathize, understand the concern, provide options/ solutions, address the concern then happy customer. That did not happen because common-sense does not follow a script, it is so variable, depending on the person and situation. So if you don’t have a process that empowers your front line to actually do something, they can’t do something. Other thing is the performance measures, it dictates how you employee behaves. If call duration is a performance indicator for agents, of course they will strive to do it, so their tendency is to hurry the call, regardless if they are addressing the customers’ concern or not.

Thanks for commenting and sharing your thoughts Ira.

Unfortunately your experience is not uncommon.Also unfortunately, customers seem to only have access to employees that are left completely un-empowered to solve problems even if they wanted to. I recently had a service issue with ATT and after getting passed to the third person (keeping in mind I had to explain my issue to the new rep each time even though they had the case notes) in frustration I asked” can you direct me to someone who has authority to address this?” and I was told, “Sir, no one can address that for you, we apologize”. Really?

Service can be a huge differentiator and value-add to all involved. And loyalty (you mentioned you had premier status) should actually stand for something. I recently saw a Delta commercial that I thought was great; the slogan was “Don’t let the rules over-rule common sense”. Let’s hope it’s not just a marketing slogan and more organizations empower their employees to move off “the srcipt” when it;s called for.

They also have celebration days, which they give out fresh baked cookies or free alcoholic beverages. Depending on what they are celebrating. It is definitely a nice treat when all the Airlines are cutting back and charging for everything under the sun.

Regards,
Miguel