A reason for hope...? Is something in the air...?
well, in argentina anyway...
yesterday at ezeiza airport in buenos aires, while waiting in line to present my passport at immigration, i noted that the argentine "citizens only" line had cleared and that the agent at the window was checking out the long line of foreigners remaining... he stood up and left his booth... at first i thought he was going for a break, but then i noticed that he had not only left the booth door open, but had walked over to the foreigner line and was looking over the people there... he finally motioned to one couple further back in the line, opened up the restraining strap, and directed them over to his booth... i wondered what had caused him to pick out those particular people until i saw the woman cradling a small baby in her arms... accustomed as i am to uninspired and insensitive customer service, i have to admit i was both surprised and pleased... then, after taking care of the couple with their baby, he continued right on to help clear the foreigner line, definitely not the indifference i've come to expect from argentine government employees...
a few minutes later, after loading my stuff into a taxi, the driver, a pleasant older gentleman, announced that he needed to stop for gas and wanted to know if that would be ok with me... i'm always honored by a considerate request, so of course i said "no problema"... he pulled into the petrobras service station on the airport grounds where all the pumps were occupied by other cars, so he held back a bit to wait his turn... another car jumped ahead of him and, when the space at the pump had cleared, the driver pulled right in... the attendant (yes, they still have gas station attendants in argentina) had obviously made note of the situation and, when the line-jumper got out of his car, spoke to him while gesturing to my taxi driver, clearly indicating that he should give way and let my taxi driver go first... my driver simply smiled and waved for the man already at the pump to go ahead... the man, somewhat bemused at this point, graciously accepted the kindness with a nod and a smile of his own... and, as if that wasn't enough of a display of decency, when we were out on the toll road into the city, the taxi driver offered me a butterscotch toffee...! needless to say, he got a handsome tip, a tip he accepted with his own indication of bemused surprise along with a modest smile...
now that i think about it, maybe it's not just argentina...
i've learned to always check my various frequent flyer accounts online to make sure the proper mileage credits have been posted... possibly because they know i hate them passionately, it seems the airline that consistently fails in this area is united...
a couple of years ago, i carried on a running battle with united for damn near a year to get lufthansa mileage credits posted... because it involved two flight legs, one from belgrade to munich and the other from munich to jfk, it was a considerable chunk of mileage, and i was damned sure they were going to give me the proper credit which, after much hell-raising on my part, they finally did...
so, after arriving in afghanistan, i checked to see if the extremely large number of miles from buenos aires to dubai had been posted... sure enough, the leg between sao paulo and dubai was there but the leg from buenos aires to sao paulo was missing... i followed the instructions for claiming mileage credit from a partner airline by sending them the original boarding pass and all the pertinent itinerary information, and then checked regularly to see if it had been posted... nothing... when i got back to the u.s., i checked to see if the equally large number of miles from dubai to reno had been posted... sure enough, the jfk to reno legs were there but the massive chunk from dubai to jfk wasn't... shortly thereafter, i received a letter from united announcing that the buenos aires-sao paulo leg couldn't be credited for some damn reason or another...
i was now not only very pissed but also dreading another lengthy pitched battle... i girded my loins and called the customer service center where, naturally, the nested set of automated options DIDN'T include the option to speak to a live person... fortunately, i know enough to press "zero" which takes me to a live service rep... when she came on the line, i dispensed with all formalities and immediately asked to be connected with a supervisor... when she asked the nature of my call, i simply said "no," that i just wanted to speak directly to a supervisor... when the supervisor came on the line, i slowly explained the situation and made it clear that any bureaucratic nonsense would be completely unacceptable... the supervisor was looking at all the information i had sent on her computer screen, but patiently explained that they didn't have a ticket number and that, without a ticket number, they wouldn't be able to credit the mileage... i pointed out that, as a contractor, the ticket had been purchased for me, and that i didn't HAVE the ticket number... i also inquired as to why three legs of a five-leg itinerary had been posted but not the other two... much to my surprise, the supervisor told me that she would take it upon herself to get everything resolved and would call me back within a week to ten days... somewhat stunned at this offer of genuine customer service, i accepted and thanked her before ringing off...
now, in argentina at least, if ANY business or service person promises to call you back about ANYTHING, you can pretty well assume it won't happen, so let's just say, even though it was the u.s., i was dubious about ever hearing from the united customer service person again... i had basically put it out of my mind until two days ago when, son of a gun, i answered the phone and it was the very same united customer service person calling to tell me that everything had been taken care of... when i finished picking my jaw up off the floor, i thanked her profusely...i told her what i always tell everyone these days who gives me good customer service - i NEVER take good customer service for granted... what i take for granted is BAD customer service and i'm always delighted and amazed when someone treats me righteously...
do you suppose i'm seeing a trend...?
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yesterday at ezeiza airport in buenos aires, while waiting in line to present my passport at immigration, i noted that the argentine "citizens only" line had cleared and that the agent at the window was checking out the long line of foreigners remaining... he stood up and left his booth... at first i thought he was going for a break, but then i noticed that he had not only left the booth door open, but had walked over to the foreigner line and was looking over the people there... he finally motioned to one couple further back in the line, opened up the restraining strap, and directed them over to his booth... i wondered what had caused him to pick out those particular people until i saw the woman cradling a small baby in her arms... accustomed as i am to uninspired and insensitive customer service, i have to admit i was both surprised and pleased... then, after taking care of the couple with their baby, he continued right on to help clear the foreigner line, definitely not the indifference i've come to expect from argentine government employees...
a few minutes later, after loading my stuff into a taxi, the driver, a pleasant older gentleman, announced that he needed to stop for gas and wanted to know if that would be ok with me... i'm always honored by a considerate request, so of course i said "no problema"... he pulled into the petrobras service station on the airport grounds where all the pumps were occupied by other cars, so he held back a bit to wait his turn... another car jumped ahead of him and, when the space at the pump had cleared, the driver pulled right in... the attendant (yes, they still have gas station attendants in argentina) had obviously made note of the situation and, when the line-jumper got out of his car, spoke to him while gesturing to my taxi driver, clearly indicating that he should give way and let my taxi driver go first... my driver simply smiled and waved for the man already at the pump to go ahead... the man, somewhat bemused at this point, graciously accepted the kindness with a nod and a smile of his own... and, as if that wasn't enough of a display of decency, when we were out on the toll road into the city, the taxi driver offered me a butterscotch toffee...! needless to say, he got a handsome tip, a tip he accepted with his own indication of bemused surprise along with a modest smile...
now that i think about it, maybe it's not just argentina...
i've learned to always check my various frequent flyer accounts online to make sure the proper mileage credits have been posted... possibly because they know i hate them passionately, it seems the airline that consistently fails in this area is united...
a couple of years ago, i carried on a running battle with united for damn near a year to get lufthansa mileage credits posted... because it involved two flight legs, one from belgrade to munich and the other from munich to jfk, it was a considerable chunk of mileage, and i was damned sure they were going to give me the proper credit which, after much hell-raising on my part, they finally did...
so, after arriving in afghanistan, i checked to see if the extremely large number of miles from buenos aires to dubai had been posted... sure enough, the leg between sao paulo and dubai was there but the leg from buenos aires to sao paulo was missing... i followed the instructions for claiming mileage credit from a partner airline by sending them the original boarding pass and all the pertinent itinerary information, and then checked regularly to see if it had been posted... nothing... when i got back to the u.s., i checked to see if the equally large number of miles from dubai to reno had been posted... sure enough, the jfk to reno legs were there but the massive chunk from dubai to jfk wasn't... shortly thereafter, i received a letter from united announcing that the buenos aires-sao paulo leg couldn't be credited for some damn reason or another...
i was now not only very pissed but also dreading another lengthy pitched battle... i girded my loins and called the customer service center where, naturally, the nested set of automated options DIDN'T include the option to speak to a live person... fortunately, i know enough to press "zero" which takes me to a live service rep... when she came on the line, i dispensed with all formalities and immediately asked to be connected with a supervisor... when she asked the nature of my call, i simply said "no," that i just wanted to speak directly to a supervisor... when the supervisor came on the line, i slowly explained the situation and made it clear that any bureaucratic nonsense would be completely unacceptable... the supervisor was looking at all the information i had sent on her computer screen, but patiently explained that they didn't have a ticket number and that, without a ticket number, they wouldn't be able to credit the mileage... i pointed out that, as a contractor, the ticket had been purchased for me, and that i didn't HAVE the ticket number... i also inquired as to why three legs of a five-leg itinerary had been posted but not the other two... much to my surprise, the supervisor told me that she would take it upon herself to get everything resolved and would call me back within a week to ten days... somewhat stunned at this offer of genuine customer service, i accepted and thanked her before ringing off...
now, in argentina at least, if ANY business or service person promises to call you back about ANYTHING, you can pretty well assume it won't happen, so let's just say, even though it was the u.s., i was dubious about ever hearing from the united customer service person again... i had basically put it out of my mind until two days ago when, son of a gun, i answered the phone and it was the very same united customer service person calling to tell me that everything had been taken care of... when i finished picking my jaw up off the floor, i thanked her profusely...i told her what i always tell everyone these days who gives me good customer service - i NEVER take good customer service for granted... what i take for granted is BAD customer service and i'm always delighted and amazed when someone treats me righteously...
do you suppose i'm seeing a trend...?
Labels: air travel, airlines, Argentina, customer abuse, customer service, United Airlines
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posted by profmarcus at
7/12/2008
