How to Receive Better Customer Service at the Airport

May 20, 2009 at 4:11 PM | by Omri | 0 Comments

So we missed our LAX to O'Hare flight this morning. The details aren't really important. They involve the Hilton's long term self-park lot, a hotel shuttle, and the lax relationship that Italian tourists have to concepts like "not holding up a bus for 25 minutes by refusing to obey passenger limit restrictions."

Anyway, when United says that they won't let you check in if you're even 90 seconds late on their 45-minute cutoff, they mean that literally. Like we said, not really important.

What is important is that the well-known rule of customer service - "find the people who can say 'Yes'" - is as true inside airports as anywhere else.

We tried to check in, failed, and then waited in that understaffed line that airlines keep open for people who don't use kiosks. After a 40-minute wait, the United employee kindly informed us that she would be happy to put us on standby. Only problem: as of 6:30am all of United's flights, up through late afternoon, were already overbooked. Her best alternative: a $150 fee for a confirmed seat some time after 4pm, an option that would also preclude us from waiting standby on any of the earlier flights. Obviously we accepted the rolling standby and proceeded to mope our way through the metal detectors and into the terminal.

Having resigned ourselves to a day of failed standby attempts, we started wandering around in search of a restaurant that had free WiFi, an open power outlet, and vodka. Our path brought us across United's Customer Service desk. The desk had three employees serving a line of about eight passengers, giving it an employee-to-customer ratio roughly a billion times better than the check-in desk.

At this point we were desperate and - figuring that the already-mentioned vodka would wash away any latent distaste from begging - decided to try our luck. What happened next was surreal: the woman who helped us turned out to be cheerful, competent, and helpful. In an airport, of all places.

She managed to confirm us on a flight that left before 10am. She managed to charge us half of the ostensibly mandatory $150 fee. And she managed to do it all in under five minutes. And then as we were leaving, she even asked if we still wanted to wait standby on the next flight.

Moral of the Story: The people at the check-in counter have to deal with a seemingly endless stream of frustrated customers, and they pretty much want to make you go away. But inside the terminal there are employees who are less harried, less overwhelmed, and more pleasant. Like the A-Team, if you can find them they can help you.

[Photo: Wikimedia]

Related Stories:
· United Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
· Customer Service [United Airlines]

Jaunted

Select a Destination:

Tags: HOWTO / Travel Tips / Customer Service / United Airlines / → All Tags