When the customer needs service
Aer Lingus are my airline of choice to travel to the USA; well they were; now I’m not too sure! As a Gold Circle member, supposedly one of their better customers, I was appalled by a recent interaction with the company.
I’ve already travelled 3 times to the US with Aer Lingus this year. I have to book my tickets through my travel agent for every trip, because the journeys are too complex for the Aer Lingus system! What does that tell you? Every time I check in 24 hours before departure to allow me to move my seat forward. This time I tried to check in and the system wouldn’t let me! I called reservations thinking there must be a problem and was told there was nothing they could do. I asked Paul, the reservation agent to put me through to his supervisor as I wasn’t happy with his blank refusal, which was effectively saying go away, and was told “he’ll only tell you the same thing”. This proved to be true, but not what Paul should be saying!
The supervisor was worse if anything. He told me that I could not check in because “I had booked my ticket through a travel agent and not Aer Lingus,” he made it sound like I was a second class citizen! When I told him I regularly check in online when booking tickets this way, was a Gold Circle member and had paid over 1,200 Euros for my ticket, I could almost feel him shrug over the phone. I told him I was not happy with the service and he replied “there was nothing he could do”. I asked him to put me through to customer services and he replied “they do not receive phone calls”. A customer service department without a phone number, surely not. Finally, I told him that I was going to document this interaction and asked him for his surname, only to be told “I am not obliged to give you that!” In the words of J McEnroe “You cannot be serious.”
I went onto the Aer Lingus website to look for a customer services number and found sure enough all they take is written correspondence. I guess this is because most people don’t bother to follow up with their complaints and so they don’t have to do much. I wonder if they think they actually have good customer service because they receive few complaints. They don’t even have an email address!
At this point I remembered when I called the reservations line earlier that there was an option for customer service and complaints. Ah ha, I thought, I’ve beaten the system. WRONG, when you take this option they tell you to……… write to them!
So due to this encounter I was in a ‘great’ mood when I trekked to Dublin the following morning. To my surprise, the service with the check-in staff at Dublin was wonderful and they couldn’t have been more helpful. Unfortunately, all the forward seats had gone by now and there wasn’t much they could do for me. They told me to ask at the gate, which I did, and managed to get a forward seat. What an experience to get it, surely there must be an easier way?
The flight over was also great, yet the whole experience had now been spoiled for me, this was reinforced in Boston. After checking in with two of the nicest girls ever, hello to the girl from Armagh, and having been directed to the Gold Circle lounge, I went there to find it locked. Strange I thought, because the flight was in 3 hours. A young lady turned up with the keys, but would not grant me access because “she had to set the lounge up”. She made me stand outside the door until she was happy the lounge was ready. By now there was only 2 hours 25mins before the flight. Was it better to let me into a lounge with a few bottles to be put away, or lock me outside the door for 25 minutes? I think you know the answer.
The flight once again was great and the cabin staff really looked after me. They even moved my seat to make me more comfortable.
So Aer Lingus, it isn’t enough to have good check-in staff, pleasant air crew and on time flights. You need to understand the whole customer process and start improving the bits where you are currently creatively responsive and problematic, (crap)! You could be an A++ airline rather than a B+ with a little bit of thought and not too much cost.
By the way, I posted my frustration on Facebook and Twitter thinking that Aer Lingus would pick up my message. I should have guessed they would not! Interestingly when I went to Geevor Mine in Cornwall and tweeted about my visit - they responded in hours. It isn’t difficult Aer Lingus, even small enterprises do it, we can show you how if you like at no charge!
Still, my experience with the national airline of Ireland has got my thinking about the end to end customer process in the beer market and what we have to do to improve our performance. I guess something good did come out of this episode! As for Aer Lingus, I’ll keep you posted.
