You can file this one under stupid rules, stupid companies — or maybe, stupid customers.
I got a troubling email from UPS yesterday. A package I’d sent through a third party couldn’t be delivered. The message said I had one day to give UPS directions or it would be returned to the sender.
I called the company immediately. And that’s when the fun started.
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This slot is normally reserved for complaints, since that’s pretty much all I get on this site. But every now and then, a company will actually read a grievance and respond.
That’s what happened with FedEx last week.
On Tuesday, I wrote about the worst unsubscribe screen ever. It was actually a series of three screens that forced me to surrender all kinds of personal information before I could finally get off the FedEx mailing list.
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Will the company with the worst customer service please stand up?
When it comes to the travel industry, I have the inside track on that answer, because I run a travel blog. Last week, I surveyed my readers. And they told me.
The winners? Airlines, hands down.
More than half the respondents — 58 percent — said air carriers have the worst service. Coming in second: car rental companies (37 percent). Cruise lines and hotels trailed the pack at 6 and 5 percent, respectively. More than 500 people took the survey.
Equally interesting was what they said about the service.
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I find it incredibly self-serving when a blogger leverages his platform for personal gain. So let me say this up-front: I’m not doing this to get anything, but rather to highlight a questionable customer-service practice.
One of my sites is hosted by Bluehost.com. Its rates are affordable, and its service is generally adequate. But during the last several months, I’ve experienced some “down” time. Bluehost offers “99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee.”
Today, after the site crashed during primetime, I decided to invoke the guarantee. Here’s the transcript of our online chat.
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What kind of a complainer are you?
Maybe you’re the squeaky wheel — the guest who keeps writing back over and over, even after you’ve been told “no” in a dozen different ways. Or maybe your grievances fall into the “special circumstances” category — you’re sick, you’re broke, you’re having a bad year.
Perhaps you’re a name-dropper, copying a vice president or CEO on every customer service inquiry to ensure it receives the proper attention.
You could be the litigious type: “Give me what I want, or I’ll sue.”
At the right time, these are all perfectly reasonably ways to complain to a travel company. At the wrong time, they can doom your customer service request to failure at the hands of a dreaded form response.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals’ annual conference in Atlanta. After my speech, I witnessed a surprisingly lively and candid discussion among the participants, all of which were customer service managers in the travel industry. The topic? How to value your customer. Specifically, how do you prioritize requests from customers based on their elite status?
During our debate, the audience referred to the kinds of complaints they get, and much to my surprise, I found I had categorized them in a similar way. You need to know about these groupings, because being in one or another can make a big difference in how your grievance is handled.
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