United India

I had the devastating experience of going thru a whole day of cancelled flights with United Airlines. It shortens your life. Is the weather the airlines fault? No, we know it is not. The airlines are at fault because the experience stinks, and I believe the experience could be fixed thru better employee engagement at all levels. United needs to speak with all the levels of employees and they need to speak to their customers too. The airlines that deliver on this will do very well. Timing is everything and the industry is on an upswing.

The Airline business operates on razor thin margins wherein employee empowerment / engagement adversely impacts customer attitudes, and profitability itself.

I do not believe United speaks to their employees. I will not talk about this now. Instead, I will talk about United and their interacting with their customers.

I know United Airlines does not have a direct contact with the weather gods. I also know that they are not the only airline that requires a process check. The question for me is “can United turn a bad day into a positive experience for a customer”? Could they engineer an experience that would serve to create a bond between customers and the carrier?

Jet Blue - Customer Bill of Rights:

As you may know, Jet Blue recently took a disaster and tried to turn it into a positive. By offering financial incentives to customers based on delays. Will it work? If they can actually fix their issue (which is not clear) they will win over non customers. Have you ever seen the line up of volunteers when an airline offers a reward on an oversold flight? Customers will fly Jet Blue just to test the benefit of being delayed. It was great publicity and it was free thanks to the media.

Now, back the devastating experience with United which was memorable because this trip was with my family. We had to wait 10 hours at an airport hoping for a flight, we had to pay for a rental car, and after finally being told the flights would not go we had to pay for our own hotel. You see the cancellations were "weather related". I once flew US Airways to Philadelphia. When the airport was closed due to weather, we landed in Atlantic City and were put up in a hotel. This was great though I'm not sure they gave a free hotel room to everyone. I think we got lucky with the right customer service rep.

As we lined up in two separate lines, regular customers and non-regular customers were divided. I was amazed how quickly the hostility spread among the customers. Here is what happened: I was in the best customer line (Premier plus) so the observations are even more critical as those in line were the most profitable customer segment.

While in line, virtually every customer was double dipping. That is, while waiting in line at the same time while they were dialing the United Airlines call center. It was a race in time to get re-booked. It was survival of the fittest.

I could not believe how many passengers or potential passengers commented on "those Indian call centers, it is so frustrating. We hate the service"!

There was actually a series of customers making comments about the Indian experience. Please note the assumption was that the calls were answered in India – it is based on heresy.

Here are my questions.

1. Why does the contact center always disconnect at a crucial time? Don't the airlines know this? It happens all the time.

I think the call center disconnects because the rep gets flustered and because of improper training, they disconnect. This is not a technical issue. They are hanging up! Who is doing the quality monitoring at United? I heard several customers slam the phone in despair because they were disconnected at a crucial point in the conversation. I get disconnected in mid conversation all the time, does it happen to you (forget a call back)?

2. Is United speaking to their customers? Are they empowering their employees to do this? Why are the managers not helping by moving to the front of the line and showing leadership?


Does United need a customer bill of rights?

I do not think United is considering one although I think we customers deserve one. I speak to United customers all the time. When is it the Airlines fault? If you asked 3 employees the same question on compensation you would get 3 different answers. I believe that customers would rather have a consistently good experience rather than an infrequent excellent experience.

When I speak with other customers, what I hear is very consistent. United needs to create their own contract or bill of rights with customers. Especially the most loyal ones. And they need to engage their managers, supervisors and front of the line employees to get this situation fixed.

Are call centers in India allowed to use American or Anglo Saxon names?

As for my experience, ignoring the long hold time, I was received by a gentlemen who introduced themselves to Jack Johnson. I do not believe that United should allow false identifications upon greeting and salutations. I just do not think it is right. I'm not even sure it is legal. Is it better than a rep id number?

If I was the CEO of an airline, I would attempt to win customers by marketing and advertising "on shore" only call centers. I would guarantee that after the first time a traveler experienced a cancellation they would understand the basic value proposition. Maybe I do not understand the financial constraints. The airlines are doing better and they need to be investing once again. If they chose to be selective, maybe they could promise the following. "Become a frequent flyer with United and we will guarantee that you speak to a North American call center customer service rep".

This works, I believe Gateway are testing this promise now. Airline executives, this is a hot button and it could be a competitive differentiator.

Good Management:
I would suggest that United senior management read the book "The 12 Elements of Great Managing". This book conducted over 10 million workplace interviews. One takeaway from the book is that happy employees, engaged employees are more productive and that profitability is tightly correlated with employee satisfaction. Anyone that fly's United knows employee morale is very low. So how do you fix employee morale in a large scale? I will save this for another blog!