As most of you know, I'm headed overseas early next month. So naturally I bought airline tickets to get me there. I used a search engine to find the cheapest ones available just like most people would do. Unfortunately for me, airfare.com had the cheapest tickets for what I wanted.
When I bought the tickets the website informed me that due to the highly discounted nature of this fare they would have to issue paper tickets and that would cost me an extra $15 to process and get those delivered to me. The website stated that I would receive these tickets via FedEx shortly. So I waited. And waited. I sent an email inquiry to the customer service address I had for them (I detest confrontation). Of course I received no response so I gritted my teeth this morning and called the help line. The help line is poorly set up, no direction other than "please enter the extension for the person you are trying to reach." Pressing '0' gets you nowhere, so in a desperate attempt to get a person I just punched in '111'. Ta-da! The phone rang. After being on hold for a bit I finally got a human being on the phone with me. His voice relayed the idea that he hated his job and I had probably called just to make his life more difficult. After explaining to him that I still had not received my paper tickets even 2 weeks after the purchase he informed me that they had changed the status of my tickets to 'electronic' rather than paper. I asked if that meant that, without a doubt, when I got to the counter to check in for my flight I would not have to have any paper tickets? He said of course in a way that insinuated that a. I was an idiot and b. that I was boring him. So I asked why airfare.com didn't send me a notice of this change? His response? "Uh.... they were going to send out an email about it." After I got off the phone I sent an email to them again, this time also requesting reimbursement of my $15 along with an email confirmation of the change to my tickets. I will call and email every damn day until I get my $15 back AND my email confirmation. I will also be calling the airlines directly to confirm that I am indeed booked on their flights and that I DO NOT need a paper ticket.
This brings me to my question: Whatever happened to good customer service?
Now this isn't just airfare.com that prompts this question. I have had poor customer service from GE, Best Buy, KB Home, Aveda, 3-Day Blinds, Lowes, Home Depot, my student loan company CFS Loans, Wells Fargo, ADP, Brinks, Orkin, Ryder, Jiffy Lube,etc. And those are only the ones I can think of right off-hand. Please feel free to include your own "don't use this company" words of warning in the comments. Unfortunately that may mean that there are very few companies that exist from which people have received good customer service. Neiman Marcus is one with whom I have had good interaction. That's all I can think of at the moment.
Here is an article I read regarding this issue recently.
I wonder if this poor service trend is simply due to lack of respect of other people. Lack of empathy? Lack of pride in one's work? Laziness? What do you think causes it?
3 comments:
Well, I've gotta say I am with you on this one. Though unfortunately, I think my list of good cust. service places is easier to remember, as I think the norm is to simply expect crap from people. Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack are the only places I can think of off the top of my head. Scary, huh?
yup, it's pretty sad and incredibly frustrating. Maybe it's the combination of the rise of corporations and technology and the lack of solid family homelives. I don't know. It's irritating.
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