A Tale of Excellent Service
On our trip, we booked with Southwest and ended up on an AirTran flight for the last leg of our trip.
Upon arrival in the terminal in Baltimore, everything seemed okay. But apparently there were mechanical problems with the airplane. It could have been a very, very bad experience but it wasn’t… aside from the people who missed their cruise ship… AirTran did a great job making things right.
Here’s the Friday Five of what how they won at customer service:
1. They kept us all informed about delays and when they were going to give another update.
2. They gave an update when they said they would. At one point they came to give an update and the lady said, “The update I have for you all is that there is no update, they are still inspecting the plane.”
3. They gave us vouchers for lunch ($10 a passenger). Since we already ate lunch, we went over to the Mexican restaurant got a drink and some chips and queso dip for an afternoon snack.
4. Because of the delay, AirTran gave all of the passengers a credit toward their next flights.
5. They kept a good attitude. When we got on the new, fully functional plane the captain greeted us and said he was happy to finally welcome us to the flight and that, “we thought it best for the high-speed tricycle to have brakes.”
I’ve heard horror stories from people who’ve had flights cancelled with no aspect of customer service.
Kudos to Southwest/AirTran for making up for a stinky situation the best ways that they could.
Since you’re recognizing excellent service (and since you mentioned cruises), let me give you my tale of excellent service from Carnival Cruise Lines.
I was on a cruise on September 11, 2001 — the day that America was attacked by terrorists. When the ship returned to Florida a few days later, all airline flights were still cancelled. Carnival put us all up at local hotels, checked up on everyone’s flight status (even if they weren’t booked as a package with the cruise), and overall did a fabulous job keeping us informed, calm, and accomodated for our unexpectedly extended “vacation”. None of what happened was their fault, of course, but they went above and beyond what I believe was necessary.
Customer service is so important. Mostly, people point out bad customer service but good for you for giving credit where credit is due ((:
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