We are not parcels!

It’s a little more than 2 hours since I reached home tired after 3 days of hectic travel to Pune and Shirdi. My body calls for the hibernation mode, while the mind insits on blogging at least one of our travel experiences that ranged from disasters, disappointments to delight.

If you belong to the service industry, I am sure you would know that customers often share bitter experiences more to the world than good ones. For the moment, I will go with these statistics;

We had booked our flight tickets (Chennai-Pune-Chennai) through a popular travel website and expected everything to be smooth. The turbulence that started on the flight to Pune decided to be our travel partner. Wow – When it rains…it does POUR”.

I have to respect my body’s request and stick to writing only about the airline service today, but I promise to blog the other experiences, the delights in particular over the next week.

During the onward journey from Pune to Shirdi, my brother-in-law (BIL) got a call from the airline saying our return flight at 18:45 hrs for Sunday was cancelled due to a technical snag and that they had rebooked us on a flight leaving Pune at 13:30 hours. It did not fit our original plan according to which we were scheduled to drive down from Shirdi on Sunday morning. A five hour travel to Pune means, we were running the risk of missing the plane.

When my BIL explained the scenario and that we prefer an evening flight, he was advised that there was a flight at 17:45 hrs from Pune that will reach Chennai at 20:30 hours via Mumbai. We did not hesitate, think any further and accepted it. A little later an SMS beeps on my BIL’s phone with the message that our flight will reach Chennai at 23:35 hours. We called them back to realize that the verbal communication about the arrival time in Chennai was indeed wrong. My BIL once again patiently spoke about our situation plus my health condition to another Customer Service representative (CSR2) which does not allow such tedious travel and asked for alternative.

Here is how they handled it;

1. They said there was no other flights for that day in the evening and nothing much could be done. Our flight had unfortunately been xxld for security reasons (Now it’s not a technical snag).
   
   
2. When my BIL complained, a third CSR suggested a low cost alternative airline well known for delayed take offs & cancellations though we had paid full. We were absolutely irritated.
   
   
3. Our plea to escalate the issue brought the CSR1 back online arguing that he had conveyed 23:35 verbally with the “I am right, you’re WRONG” attitude. His atrocious tone of voice triggered my BIL’s emotions, the result of which spontaneously came the words – “We are not parcels” for you to decide our itinerary plan and send an SMS anyway you please.
   
   
4. The last straw came when this CSR asked my BIL in a seemingly frustrated tone “What do you want me to do now?”. We frankly told him that we could not tolerate him anymore and to put us on to a Manager/Supervisor.
   
   
5. We had another acting Supervisor who could not make any decision either and kept apologizing for her colleagues behavior which was not helping us. She was requested to find a solution and revert. We did not hear from them again.
   
   
6. Imagine, all this was happening at full time outgoing roaming charges applicable to my BIL.

We had to finally compromise on our travel, arrive a day earlier to Pune and then take the flight back on Sunday afternoon. Luckily, the CSR4 whom we spoke to after adjusting our itinerary was proactive, understood what we had been through, handled our call professionally, offered a tele-check in and took our preferences. This was the only person in the Customer Service of such a well known airline who reflected “Responsibility” and delivered what was promised.

Talk of Clear communication, Empowerment, Responsibility from the other CSR’s / Supervisors – It was a sheer disappointment!

The very fact that I have not mentioned the name of the airline means that my perception unlike most customers does not change by one bad experience, especially after having used their service in the past. The CSR4 and Cabin crew service still made up for the mess created by the other team members.

Let me conclude with one of my favorite quote’s by Maya Angelou’;

People will forget what you said,
People will forget what you did but,
People will never forget how you made them feel!

“Delight yourself first to delight people around you. Make your choice NOW!”