March 27, 2007
Why is this so hard?
I am on the phone tonight with a ticketing agent at United Airlines. Let me preface the following comments with the fact that I actually like United and fly with them A LOT.
Ok, so I am desperately trying to get a flight home tomorrow night from San Francisco to Burlington, VT. I was supposed to go to San Diego for two days before heading home, but that got cancelled at the last minute. I have been on the phone now....(checking my time)...16 minutes and she has so far been successful in only pulling up my current records. Who knows how long it will take to make the changes, rebill them and collect the new information.
Do they want my money? Do they really want to spend this much time on each call? This isn't something complicated, it's this:
- Cancel one ticket
- Book another (plenty of flights to choose from)
- Bill me
I am frankly shocked that a company would run their business like this. Let's take this call as a baseline and assume that each call takes 30 minutes, because that's how long this looks like it will take. I know that some will be fast, but at this rate all of her complicated calls must take at least an hour so it balances out.
This means that she is only speaking to approximately 15-20 customers a day. It is costing United in her salary alone close to $10.00 to talk to me. It's no wonder they can't maintain a profitable bottom line. Not to mention my current satisfaction level. This is painful.
I always say that I trust a company more that makes mistakes and then fixes them well, as opposed to working with a company that never falters. With the first company, I know that they will stand behind me and get things fixed fast. With the second company the possibility of a catastrophe is looming around the corner and I have no idea how they will handle it. This seems to be no exception to this rule. Until now, ticketing (I emphasize ticketing because United has messed up other aspects of my flights in the past) has been fine. Now I know, if I need to rebook a ticket with United, then I should be prepared to sit for a long time.
22:16 she still hasn't booked the new ticket....
25:00 still waiting...
35:03...getting closer.....
37:04....done. So inefficient.
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