wtm003

I'm starting to wonder. Last month on an American Airlines flight I listened as a flight attendant twisted some poor guy's word around to become a whiny victim rather than help him with his problem. I just got off the phone with a United rep who couldn't be bothered to answer my question with any more than a four word response. Her tone was rude and defensive from the beginning. I guess she was probably assuming I was after something. I had enough by the end of the call and told her I did not like her snippy tone, which of course made her nastier and it was all my fault. Geez, how hard is it to politely answer a question? I always try to treat everyone with respect and assume people have the best intentions, but I'm sick of the attitude. Sorry, but I had to rant.

WillTravel

I know this can happen, but I've had only positive interactions with UA agents, so give them another chance. I can't say about AA, because I don't fly them.

If things are going badly, I've been advised to just say something like, "Sorry, have to go, thanks!" and then phone back later.

wtm003

Thanks Will and your advice is good. I'm sure this particular agent always has a bad attitude, so she probably gets it back from her customers on a regular basis, which makes her crankier. Hopefully, I'll still have a seat tomorrow!

Andrew

When I read the title of your thread, I was sure it was about American Airlines before I read your post. I've had more than one bad experience with them and now they are at the bottom of my list of airlines to fly. Not everyone I've talked to was bad but some of the AA people I talked to were rude and condescending, not professional at all. They sure didn't act like they cared whether I ever flew the airline again.

AAFrequentFlyer

I believe the rant was more about UA, but you go ahead <b>Andrew</b> and start your own.....

JamesA

Nothing particular about this airline but in general dealing with service agents on the phone:

I agree with Will, hang up and call again ( so long as you haven't been left on hold trying to get through ).
Everyone has bad days, but if the person is not helping probably a waste continuing. I've had times when 'no ways' from one person can become ' sure, no problem' from another.
Good luck

Debi

You know, I've not had bad interactions with the airlines (neither United nor American)... I assume, though, that everyone has a bad day, and I really like the advice you were given to hang up and call again. I even had an American agent go out of their way to help me get to Mexico when my Delta flight was changed - the guy was awesome (and I really don't like American.....)... I have a feeling that with all the news about flight price increases, cancellation of flights, etc - I think the call center agents are getting some ugly calls, and if someone doesn't deal with that well, they get extremely defensive... I know it's tough, and you are the customer, but I know all of us are being affected by the increase in the price of gas, and I know people are beating up the call center agents (I know you weren't, but the 10 calls before you probably were).....

yk

I have called AA customer service quite a number of times in the last couple of years. Never had a bad or rude agent. In fact, they were all polite and friendly.

FWIW, AA has not outsourced its CS to overseas, so at least you get to speak to agents who have better handling of English.

I think Delta outsource its CS. I recall my SIL calling Delta because her flight times were changed and all her connections were messed up due to that. She is usually the most good-natured person but even she got fed up with calling Delta to get the problem fixed.

soccr

For those who are saying they've never encountered anything like this, I'd say it's just a matter of time, regardless of the airline.

(Unless you've got elite status, of course -- the people on those desks ARE trained to be very nice indeed.)

AAFrequentFlyer

Nobody says that they did not. In fact I had couple of AA EXP agents that were either totally useless or not particularly helpful. I had one that told me I can't book the trip that way. I had him pull out the rule book, read it to me. I was correct about the rule yet he insisted that it can't be done even after reading the rule. Perhaps some would think he became somewhat rude, I thought he was just stupid. Hung up. Called back, the next agent was friendly, booked the trip as I wanted. The routing was approved. Life went on.

That is going to happen with any service type industry with tens of thousands of employees.

I had experiences with few bank employees, with my telephone co., major hotel chain employees, yet I don't judge either the company or the entire industry on couple of those incidents. If the problems happened reguraly then I would have an issue and probably switch the provider.

For me, it hasn't happened yet.

SDtravelers

Ditto to AAFF's comment - all customer service industries are more challenging in these trying times. I speak from 25+ years in the banking customer service. I have always found you get what you give. A smile on your face and in your voice goes a long way. Sometimes a few positive comments can change the whole attitude of a conversation.

WTM003 - please don't pick on AA I have experienced a not so pleasant experience as well, but won't make me quit AA by any means. I'm not making any excuses for poor customer services but it happens sometimes.

SD

karens

As much as I think USAir provides indifferent customer service, I rarely have gotten a rude customer service agent on the phone.

JBHapgood

Airline customer service reps are not trained to be nasty, indifferent, defensive, or uncaring. However, the top executives of the airlines they work for are faced with deadly combination of excessively high fuel costs and the continuing inefficiency of their business. They're desperately and aggressively slashing, burning, and squeezing everything they can (except of course their own bonuses and pensions, which are a sacred entitlement that cannot be touched).

Employees providing customer service are the most expendable things of all, since that service is an expense rather than a profit center and &quot;outside the value stream.&quot; The relentless squeezing from the top has left those employees demoralized, defensive, and fearful for their jobs, even as the other consequences of cost-cutting put greater pressure on them and create more difficulties for passengers.

As the saying goes, sewage flows downhill. In an environment that devalues employees as well as customers, it is effectively unreasonable to expect employees to provide any level of service. The employees aren't rewarded for providing good service, and may even be punished for wasting too much of the shareholders' money if they somehow take the initiative to help. So lower your expectations, since the whole airline industry is in a meltdown.

Andrew

AAFrequentFlyer: <i>I had experiences with few bank employees, with my telephone co., major hotel chain employees, yet I don't judge either the company or the entire industry on couple of those incidents. If the problems happened reguraly then I would have an issue and probably switch the provider.</i>

Right. That's where I got to with American Airlines. After encounters with too many rude people (involving one incident), I have switched &quot;providers.&quot; So far, I've had zero problems with Southwest Airlines. Maybe they will turn out to be just as bad as AA but so far that has been far from the case.

Andrew

JBHapgood: <i>Airline customer service reps are not trained to be nasty, indifferent, defensive, or uncaring. However, the top executives of the airlines they work for are faced with deadly combination of excessively high fuel costs and the continuing inefficiency of their business. </i>

Actually my problems with AA happened before the most recent fuel problems. I can't imagine how bad things will become in the coming years. When your company is losing money, cutting service (and pissing off customers), and laying people off, no wonder company morale plummets.

clevelandbrown

I knew a lot of people who were customer service reps in another industry, and while anyone can have a bad day, in general they were trained and inclined to be helpful and polite. Those who were consistently not helpful and polite were removed (sometimes put into another job where contact with the public was not required).

On the other hand, there were a lot of customers who were a challenge; often due to rudeness, ignorance, and even stupidity. The employees even kept a wall of shame, and immortalized some persistently inept and rude customers on the wall. Every one would have a good laugh when someone got a call from one of these customers, as they were always a problem.

Everytime I see a posting from someone complaining about rude or inept service, I wonder to what extent the poster contributed to the problem. I suspect that if you could get all the data, you would find that some customers find ineptitude and rudeness wherever they go. Customer service people always treat them badly, waiters all ignore them, and hotels always stick them in small,dirty rooms. If you read this forum long enough, you start to identify certain posters as, to put it politely, overdemanding.

My belief is that a customer who is consistently polite, and fairly well informed, will almost never run into rude customer service representatives.

sera

Whenever I have an &quot;interaction&quot; with an airline customer service agent, I think of Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the phone operator telling a caller: &quot;We don't care. We don't have to care. We're the phone company.&quot;

soccr

Hard to keep a smile if morale among personnel is already bad and customers have come to expect things that just don't exist anymore -- lots of flights, flexibility in scheduling, fares, and regulations, embarrassment at delays and screw-ups, etc. etc. etc.

Stateside personnel know they are more likely to lose their jobs because of cutbacks than because of customer dissatisfaction -- randomly, at any minute -- and they have to represent a company that -- as sera/Tomlin put it -- doesn't have to care. Or thinks it can't afford to.

LT

As some have pointed out, ANY business that is reliant upon customer service can have employees who range from less-than-helpful, to surly, to downright nasty.

But also remember -- as JBhapgood points out -- try working for a company this is constantly losing money, due in large part to the ineptitude and greed of the executives, your job is constantly being threatened of being eliminated, and you've probably had to take a serious pay cut and do the work of three people just to keep your job, while the same inept execs get excessive pay, abundant perks and golden parachutes . . . Would you be happy to be there?

But, as even AAFF admits, if the service you experience at a business is CONSISTENTLY poor, then it's only natural that you're going to a) form an opinion that they stink; b) not use them in the future. I've done a fair amount of flying in my day, and I've experienced both good and bad service from just about every U.S. carrier . . . The exceptions for me are US and AA, where they have been consistently lousy. But, I also understand that others may have had great experiences with these carriers.

Bottom line is that all of the chickens of our unrealistic desires are coming home to roost . . . our desire to have Neiman-Marcus quality at Wal-Mart prices, our desire to drive a Hummer and expect to pay $2/gallon for gas, our desire to get a free meal and attentive service at a WN fare . .. Thus, the first person to blame is OURSELVES.

sera

LT: For the current mess, I blame George Bush...and Ronald Reagan.