How Airline Workers Learn to Deal with Passengers
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
A lot of public-facing professions seem to have this problem, including emergency medicine doctors, cops, retail workers, and public school teachers. Because that bottom 5% is so noisy and time-consuming, a kind of misanthropy can set in, as one begins to think the bottom represents the whole, even if intellectually one knows it does not.
EDIT: I wrote more about related issues here: https://jakeseliger.com/2014/12/22/how-do-you-know-when-your...
An odd corollary (to my point) is that I have noticed that a customer that gives you 10 orders of $1000 seems like a better customer than one that gives you a $10,000 order, all else equal. The increased amount of interactions creates a closer bond at least with people that you deal with personally.
Yeah. I mean, I haven't done a specific study and suspect one would be impossible, but I think it's under 10% and maybe even as low as 2%. But there seems to be something about the human mind that makes one negative interaction stand out more than 10 positive or normal interactions. So there's a kind of crowding out effect going on.
To take one recent example, a lot of people have seen crazy social justice warrior stuff in the news, like the Middlebury College thing: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/middleb... or the Halloween costumes at Yale: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/us/yale-lecturer-resigns-.... This stuff is in fact outrageous, but, again, it's salient because it's unusual and because it's unusual one sees it in the news (and it does represent a real problem: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod...). People will ask me about whether I see this kind of stuff. I do, a little. The vast majority of college students, however, seem to want what college students have always wanted: to learn something; to get by; to get a job when they're done; to get laid; to learn something about themselves and the societies they live in; to make friends; to individuate from their families. To be sure, this is an incomplete list. Most, if they've thought about free-speech issues at all, vaguely support it. But a minority of well-organized and angry activists can make a lot more noise and news than the silent majority!
I think similar issues play out in many fields. One angry, unreasonable, or irrational customer or client drowns out a lot of generically happy or satisfied ones: https://sivers.org/real.
Oh man you have hit on a point that I am always complaining about. Pretty much as a result of social media's ability to blow thing entirely out of proportion. It's like everyone gets to vote on everything but it's not about the most votes but noise.
For what it's worth, I do notice and pay attention when I see your posts and comments around the web (HN, Twitter, SO, and elsewhere). I'm sure that some of the asinine questions you've deigned to answer on SO or IRC have helped me before. :)
* Customer calls in angry about a legitimate problem they're having, but their anger is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than the actual severity of the problem.
* Customer attacks and berates the CSR, often to the point of tears, before demanding a supervisor.
* Supervisor takes over the call, apologizes profusely for the "incompetent" employee, showers the customer with account credits and so on, and maybe (but often not) fixes the actual problem
I'm not necessarily blaming the supervisor. If they pretended to have a backbone and the customer managed to escalate beyond them, then they'd be the one thrown under the bus while their manager verbally fellates the customer. It's very clear at basically all levels: the employee is 100% expendable, while any risk of the losing the customer's business is unacceptable.
99% of the time the person answering the call is there as a buffer, cheap fodder infront of the more expensive people who can do things. You either have a very expensive resource manning the phones and working inefficiently with long wait times or you have the meat shield filtering for you.
I've been on both sides of this (meat shield and technical fixer) it's driven by about 30 layers of management so it's always a mess, the alternative is the Google/Valve model where there is zero support.
(Yes i know support is good on paid Google products. It's not on the free ones)
If it takes too long (this usually happens around the 60th minute) I tend to escalate to asking to terminate my contract right then and there.
Sometimes I do, but most often it suddenly is possible to fix the problem or to make some reasonable accomodation.
Worked like a charm.
These managers need to show some backbone and consequences to angry assholes with poor impulse control, and throw them off the service if they treat the staff poorly.
i remember one time i was getting berated, and i straight up told the guy "do you want me to listen to you yell at me, or do you want me to try to fix the problem? it's your call." right then and there he realized he was dealing with an adult, and not a child, and changed his tune real quick. reality check.
i've lost a bit of business because i and my team weren't supplicants. but those customers were the worst of the worst - nobody on earth would want to deal with their shit. they tend to be the kind of person who thinks in order to run a company you have to be a dickhead.
i've also just hung up on people, and have instructed all of my employees to immediately hang up if anyone ever gets out of line.
i wish more of that happened in normal lines of business.
I try not to have a short trigger, but for example, the second or third chewing out for something UPS did, and that I gave a full refund for. At that point it's easy to push back.
Or maybe I'm making bad judgement calls sometimes? In any case, life is too short to take excessive crap just to make a living.
Often they are also the kinds of people who will cost you long-term: in legal fees and so on.
Sounds like HN. I'm actually surprised anecdotes haven't popped up where people describe why they're justified in treating people like trash.
It's such a breath of fresh air to see someone saying this :) I'm not sure how any company can promote morale by allowing customers to take out their unrelated frustrations on employees.
He treated his girlfriend the same way, too, and I'm surprised she didn't dump him for it.
many women, like many men, actually want to be abused.
On the other hand, in communist easter-bloc countries, the opposite culture existed. Employees didn't care much about customers, the jobs were provided by the government. It was also terrible.. corrupt and probably worse.
I think moderation is needed, but I am not sure how such culture can be sustained.
The customer service people at , for example, a courthouse, or government vehicle registration service. They know they can't be fired. They also know there is no competitor you can go to. So, the balance of power is inverted.
One time I got caught in bureaucratic hell. I had recently bought a house and took my closing documents in to get my address changed. The clerk informed me that all the closing documents represent "one document" since they all come from a single source (the closing) even though they came from several different agencies. I had to go to my bank, change my address there (using the closing documents as proof), have them print an statement that I now live at my new address, and take that back to the DMV as a "second document."
I'm not sure if that clerk was being a prick, over-zealously applying the rules, or acting in a capacious matter. Or if he was following clear direction from above about closing documents. So I'm not sure if I need to blame him or not.
But every other interaction I've had with the DMV has been smooth and pleasant. Quite frankly, my interactions with the IRS have been smooth and pleasant, even when I legitimately screwed up my taxes and had to get that sorted-out.
I have to say, navigating customer service phone trees seems like performing a ritual designed to magnify anger. About a minute and a half into picking between various vague options, some of which dead-end at reading me a FAQ that is already available on the webpage I got the number from, I've used up all my patience quota for that particular issue.
Not saying that's what was happening with your customers, but it certainly may skew your sample.
I'm not happy with that evolution, but that's the reality that we're living in. Now when I'm dealing with customer service I start with being myself, nice and reasonable, but as soon that I notice that they're trying to brush me off, I switch to full assertive mode. I will not yell or berate the employee, I know most of the time they are just following standard scripts or procedures, but being really persistent and not letting go is more and more the only way to get a fair treatment.
That's really unfortunate, but I guess it's the logical conclusion of outsourcing to the cheapest call centers, viewing customer service as a cost only or paying customer support employees minimum wages. It forces genuine nice people to act a certain way they wouldn't normally do and don't feel comfortable with. For me personally, I know it's just an act, it's not personal, but it takes more energy than it should be. And it helps to have worked in customer service before to put things in perspective.
This kicks off a self-reinforcing downward spiral where people with innocuous intent are misclassified and treated tersely, that party responds by iterating to a less polite/more direct posture the next time, which reinforces the original party's assumptions, which eventually degrade into general hostility, which loops back around to inform the other party that he needs to be even less polite to get what he wants the next time...
However, it is probably the case that those lower 5% actually are so potentially damaging that imposing strict preventative policies to inhibit them is legitimately worthwhile, despite the negative impact on everyone else.
Airport security is a potentially good example. Yes, there are many ways to bypass it. Yes, it is very annoying. Yes, it creates other liabilities that are arguably more exploitable in the absolute sense. But the bottom rung of civilization is not sophisticated. They are looking for the path of least resistance, and putting some basic barriers in the way may well put disruptive/negative behaviors outside of their reach.
Most people who are smart enough to bypass airport security would not see the incentive in doing so. From the policy/standard perspective, that's the barrier that has to be established; the cost has to be sufficient to exclude people who would be doing it out of insanity or other generalized anti-social malice.
It'd be interesting to see some discussion of methods to limit human "interaction fatigue" in the context of the modern service professional, and how we can simultaneously implement policies and protocols to protect ourselves from the insane, unstable, and truly incompetent.
i) The rule of "The Most Intolerant Wins", coined by gadfly Nassim Taleb
> The minority rule will show us how it all it takes is a small number of intolerant virtuous people with skin in the game, in the form of courage, for society to function properly.
Also works in the inverse.
ii) Mishandled Bags Rate vs. Bag Complaints Levied Against Airlines
On "Why do more passengers complain about United than Southwest even when the service is the same?"
> So why does United generate a higher rate of complaints than Southwest? I think it has to do with basic training and empowerment of frontline workers. When your bag doesn’t show up, your immediate recourse is not calling the FAA; it is speaking with an airline employee. If that employee can show a little empathy and try to help, no one will be rushing to call the Feds. Said another way, well designed recovery processes matter and that is true independent of niches the firm targets or how it prices.
If you look at the dataset, Frontier actually has one of the lowest mishandled bag rates of the bunch, but the highest complaint rate. That sucks.
---
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
https://operationsroom.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/why-do-more-...
If you're paying specifically for the service, and it is mishandled, you're more likely to complain.
It's a fairly busy Saturday and the owner and I are busy helping customers and maning the checkout. In comes this angry looking guy with his daughter and immediately throws a pair of pants on the counter. He's so furious that he can't even explain what his problem is, just shouts something about the product being garbage. As he starts walking towards the exit - he has been in the store for less than 30 seconds - the owner picks up the pants from the counter and casually remarks that he couldn't have had bought the pants in our store as we've never carried that brand, that he must have bought the pants at a competitor nearby. Angry "customer" suddenly bursts into laughter, takes the pants from the counter and leaves the store without an apology or explanation, having spent maybe less than a minute in the store.
I am sure that there are lessons to be learnt here, but working in retail can expose you to all kinds of sudden bullshit with no closure or deeper meaning to be had. Shit just happens and you have to shrug it off. But the negative experiences do add up and they come to shape you in some way.
That's why I believe that entrepreneurs should work in retail. You get to understand the nature of business under challenging circumstances and learn how to (not) handle difficult customers.
You also have to factor in the vagaries of human beings dealing with human beings.
I guess you can say I paid my dues working in customer service (actually, "Guest Relations") at Disneyland for a stint in the late 90's. A couple episodes stand out:
1) Middle-aged father, clearly angry, storms into City Hall one weekday morning around Spring Break and says, "I'm ready to blow this damn place up."
I happen to be in an especially good mood that morning so I just laugh and say, "Well, sir, you can't do that but maybe I can help solve your problem." He vents a bit, calms down. Turns out it some silly misunderstanding (I don't remember exactly, but something on the order of nobody warned him that Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be closed for refurbishment that day.) I apologize, give him a couple freebies we keep just for this occasion, and peace is preserved in the happiest place on earth.
It was an otherwise unremarkable encounter, one among thousands fitting the pattern. Still, I guess I remember it but I do see a lesson to be learnt. I often think how easily it could have gone a different direction. If I'm in not so great a mood, or someone else is in my place that morning, or even if it's a couple years later post-9/11, oh the possibilities...
2) "Gypsies." Not the most politic phrase but that's what we called them and working the closing shift, you came to recognize them as a distinct category of obnoxious professional. People, families, who make a living off of scamming businesses. Here's one of the more infamous cases:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-10-06/news/93100601...
Every once in a while, when confronted by one of this class, if I was particularly grumpy or bored and things weren't too hectic, I might play Columbo and, after patiently and sympathetically listening to their tale of woe in all its sloppy details and taking notes on a notepad of the pertinent facts, point out the obvious plot holes and call them on their bullshit. If management had ever caught wind of one of these incidents, I probably would have been written up. They preferred to just pay the negligible cost-of-doing-business tax and keep things humming. I don't disagree with that approach.
So I can sympathize with airline workers perhaps to a slightly greater degree perhaps than most. What caught my ear in the case of United CEO's first response to the passenger being dragged off the plane was not so much the tone-deaf off-note of an out-of-touch executive impervious to the miseries of the schmucks who are his customers but rather the echo of a decent boss who understands the kind of shit his employees have to put up with and is trying to stick up for them.
I agree that his response was a disaster. But I suspect those who act like this was an obvious blunder and Munoz should have just accepted blame profusely and unconditionally for his staff's incompetence and promised the obligatory additional training to avoid issues like this in the future may be underestimating the importance of staff morale, in both the soft and hard (as in dollars and profits) sense, for the airline industry.
From my experience (simple SaaS) it is like this:
1) There is about 5% to 8% of customers who might be very hostile at very beginning of interaction
2) However, 60% to 80% of these people can be calm down with a few nice words. Put yourself in their shoes - it might be something else completely unrelated to your product or service made them angry.
3) If the above does not help, we politely close conversation and fire the customer so that we can focus on other customers. Easy for us. The problem is that it is much much harder do "fire customer" if you are a flight attended, if you are teacher, cop, etc.
For example, I just had a parent-teacher conference and my son's teacher was crying because the parent before me was one of "unreasonable ones". Next time, I bet the teacher will just call the police so he does not need to talk with that parent any more.
So this is a conundrum... 3% of pathological customers will make us all suffer.
It reminds me that day when I was sitting in an emergency exit row, and the seat next to mine was empty. The stewardess got upset that I left my jumper on that empty seat, arguing that it was blocking the exit (I didn't see how it could) and that it had to be placed in the overhead bin. Instead I slipped the jumper on, which she perceived as a challenge to her authority and threatened to take me off the plane...
(I saw something like this 3 times on a Delta flight in which there were empty seats and the passengers were asked to not move from their assigned seats until after takeoff due to weight/balance concerns. They asked a passenger to move back, and as soon as the flight attendant turned his head the passenger moved back into the empty seat...this happened 3 times before the flight left the gate. I would have gotten pretty pissed as the flight attendant and was actually pretty impressed by how calmly he handled it.
Everything about the checkpoint screams "WE CONTROL YOU", from the forced removal of clothing (shoes, hats, jackets) to the submission pose in the scanner (hands up over the head).
I have mixed feelings about this: one the one hand it is quite humiliating, but on the other, if it makes a potentially difficult traveller more humble and easier to deal with it's probably worth it.
One day I might stop flying altogether.
Also, it seems like in recent years that people in positions of authority in America ( like cops obviously) like to escalate rather than deescalate problematic situations.
United wanted four seats for their airline staff who had to cover an unstaffed flight at another location. And then decided to remove some of their customers, that had paid for the fly.
To add Dr. David Dao case to the others is a misclassification of the situation, and it assumes as true the narrative of the company that "they didn't have any other option than to remove this passenger".
The article is interesting anyway, and worth the read.
> Not everyone wants a free drink for the trouble, however, and airlines have typically had little else to offer angry people in the moment.
Sometimes United Airlines is not even able to act after the flight: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/08/what_...
I hope they go belly-up, as a company that is.
Edit: actually, I don't know how much worse they are compared to their competitors. I don't really care, I strongly dislike flying because of the authoritarian border checks anyway.
But on the other hand - I really love to surprise the airport staff with exceptional friendliness and respectfulness. The look on their faces when encountering a friendly human being cannot be described.
I think that suprises most people :)
Hard to do on a Ryanair/Easyjet flight though, where your legs slowly merge with the chair in front of you...
Flying used to be far less complicated. In the 1970s, you could park next to the terminal at SJC, and pay about $15 in cash to fly to LA. The cash register receipt was your boarding pass. There was a plane every hour. No reservations. Every hour, a 727 would roll up outside the waiting area, the built-in rear staircase would lower, and people would get off and on.
Also, here's the PSA stewardess class graduation picture of June 1974.[1]
Get out!
It is very noticeable trend everywhere - instead of learning the mindset of how to help people they serve, private and public organizations' employees are trained to "deal with" the subjects of their authority.
Anyway, what I don't understand is why dont the airlines simply inform an unruly passenger that (we) Will prevent you from flying our airlines for xxx months, starting after this flight. It is a safety issue. If you comply with our direction then you can continue to fly with us.
So the lady that brought her own drink will be denied future boarding or purchasing.
I work in a craft which I am the final and only decider of my safety. And if some jerk screws with me I refuse service.
They probably don't want to lose her business, nor should they: she's not likely to be a safety problem or cost the airline money in the future. The rule against her drinking her own wine is fairly arbitrary, and imposed by the FAA, not the airline.
Airlines do ban passengers who are disruptive enough, or who create a safety hazard.
In fact, they should probably just pour it for her. 14 CFR 121.575 seems to allow for that and IME it's a fairly common practice in F anyway.
Just like drunk driving. Before you lost your license 1st offence, people were not as careful. Now, one drink can suspend your license with potentially dire consequences (not being able to drive to work, e.g.)
Flying is a privilege not a right.
I fly several times a year, and that does not match my experience. If I've stated your position correctly, why do you believe a crackdown is a good idea?
Deny future service.
Instead of arguing or physical action, one path that imo would be effective is denial of service.
It isn't the act of denying the person it is the threat (real) to do so that is one a verbal arsenal.
Not necessarily only for airlines but other situations in general.
The goal is to change a person's action or behavior AT THAT MOMENT. By stating flat out their future service with your company is in jeopardy and it won't be tolerated IN THE FUTURE.
Use the pregnant pause after stating the consequences. Then ask a few minutes later.
On planes, there are times when a flight attendant’s commands are critical to follow. It is extremely stupid for airlines to use blunt authority for every little thing, because passengers will start to see every request as another abuse of power instead of something with a good reason behind it.
And frankly, we’re already there. How many stupid little rules are there? Which rules really matter, and which ones were just dreamed up to exert more authority? What about rules that can’t really be rooted in safety because they would rely on perfect enforcement that doesn’t exist today?
There should be just a handful of “real rules”. The language should be cleaned up, too (no long-winded sentences full of unnecessarily-complex words that probably confuse foreign speakers the most; use Grade 8 language, get to the point). Abolish pretty much every TSA rule and about half of the “safety lecture” (we understand seat belts, thanks). This just isn’t hard.
Disney has it right. Their property is considered a stage, and their customer's experience is part of the value they deliver. It works.
Flying once was an incredible experience. As a child, you could expect special treatment, a coloring book, a visit to the cabin, and a special smile from the flight attendants. As an adult, you could ask for a pillow or a blanket and get it with a smile - anything to make you comfortable. All the while, you got to experience the magical world of flying above and in the clouds. Pilots would announce sights as you flew by them.
Now, you get treated with suspicion before you arrive. Cameras and security guards abound. Anybody who needs any sort of special treatment - be it a need for a reprinted ticket, a schedule change, or heaven forbid you have more luggage than you expected - is subjected to long lines, additional fees, and interaction with people who are unwilling to offer more assistance than is required to provide you with a 15 second verbal response. You are expected to provide the airline with 1-2 hours of your time ahead of flight so you can get through their lines while smiling and being friendly lest you be cordoned off, frisked, and reviewed for having a dangerous attitude. You are expected to submit to x-ray scans, remove your shoes, unpack your electronics, have the contents of your travel belongings reviewed, and explain anything and everything abnormal.
Why? Because 15 years ago the Vice President did a fantastic job of making every little old lady from clearwater to phoenix afraid that her fellow passengers were carrying bombs in their underwear, and this charade of a security check would stop them.
We went from the friendly skies, to a strained relationship, to fearful flying, to what we have today, which is bat-shit crazy.
What happened to bringing the kids to the airport to watch Daddy's plane take off and land? The kids are a security risk, so they are sectioned off before the security checkpoint where they can buy a $12 coffee for refreshment and that's about it.
How can FedEx tell me where my package is taking it from depot to depot all around the world, but the airline can't? They tag and scan everything, but still manage to completely lose things more regularly than an Alzheimer's patient. If you've been lucky enough to experience it, you know that there's a number for you to call that may or may not be manned during it's limited hours, their is one to two people working it, and they never have any idea about anything. No idea how you submit an insurance claim. No idea where your luggage was last seen. No idea when they will learn anything. No idea who you can call to complain. But if you show up at the terminal, you can meet the guy and look through his office and find your own damn luggage that was less than 10 feet away from him the whole time.
The airlines train their employees to make you compliant with their rules. They need to train their employees to help their customers get from point a to point b as quickly and as comfortably as possible. Help people through the system. Don't make it harder for them.
People today travel in spite of the airlines. It's a necessary part of their vacation experience. They are losing money because of this perception, and so are many other people.
If you do this and fly enough your experience will be much better. You can arrive to the airport later because you can use the elite/first class line at security. If you need to check bags there will be a priority line and finally if you need to change something you will have access to a priority phone line that is answered in a timely manner and the customer service agents in the lounges will help you quickly and effectively. Also, many change fees will be eliminated and you will occasionally be upgraded to first class.
Edit: they will also put special tags on your luggage that will cause it to come out first and get lost less.
Edit2: They will also treat you better on the plane. They have a list of where everyone with status is sitting and they make an effort to be nice. It helps if you are also nice to them.