PR Nightmare: Charging passengers of Hudson plane crash a cancellation fee | Hacker News Reader

PR Nightmare: Charging passengers of Hudson plane crash a cancellation fee

consumerist.com

44 pointsvaksel39 comments

There's a chapter in "The Knack" about this: beware of rules you create in your company, because even though they're well-intentioned, they rob your frontline support staff of the ability to exercise common sense. The book's example is an auto dealership repair shop not allowing a $1MM+ customer to test drive his just-repaired car before paying; this is another case in point.

A more personal example: AT&T won't sell me FTTN DSL service, which they offer in my neighborhood and in fact push aggressively, because I have "conflicting" DSL service. I'm happy to cancel my old service, but they won't schedule an install date (3+ weeks out) until I've actually canceled it; their order entry screens won't even enable the "Next" button until they've verified that I have. Dumb rule!

Probably, every time you see some crazy customer service story like this, the culprit is an ill-considered rule pushed down on service staff.

did you try asking to speak to a manager?

Very yes.

Good support staff ignore the rules in situations like these, and good managers let them.

Good support staff eventually move out of support roles. Very few companies value support employees and consequently, very few support employees feel obliged to help the company and their customers.

Good support staff ignore the rules. Somebody dumber figures out that rules are being circumvented, and before you know it it's exactly as the parent poster described: lock out the "Next" button until all rules are followed!

[edit] Might as well relate an anecdote:

When I got my MacBook Pro about 2 years ago I had it built with some custom options (glossy screen and bigger HDD, FYI), which made it a "custom order" in Apple's system. It took a little longer to ship, but anyways.

So over Xmas the MBP bit the dust, and I had to get a replacement from Apple. They offered up a new unibody MacBook Pro, and since the stock model matched the specs on my custom-built one, I was to get a stock, new, MBP.

This was going to take about a week, they told me. I had an Apple Store some 20 minutes away from my home, and I asked if I could just bring in my broken laptop and walk home with a new one. Less hassle for everyone. Nope. According to my support rep, this is allowed if my machine was a standard config to begin with, but their system would not allow a replacement order to be placed if the system was custom!

Rules sometimes suck.

Good level 1 support staff are trained to follow scripts to reduce the cost of customer service. Their job is not to think or get creative.

Ideally their script should have an exception or a way to bump to a supervisor who has the ability to make decisions themselves.

Probably, every time you see some crazy customer service story like this, the culprit is an ill-considered rule pushed down on service staff.

Telemarketing (outbound sales or inbound sales or support) is the standard I-don't-want-to-bag-groceries job for kids and young adults in a lot of midwest cities, and I did my time. The truth of this is not to be underestimated. It varies from company to company (and number to number within a company), but very often the call center employees are given rigid, obsolete support systems, scripts, and no latitude to do anything to help. In fact, it's also common for the care reps to not be employed by the company you're intending to call for support, rather a telemarketing firm that specializes in grinding out phone calls. I worked for one agency, representing three or four big name companies (names anyone in tech would recognize) and I don't think I ever met an employee of the companies we were representing.

I also don't get too wound up about international support for this reason. If these companies wouldn't give any power to people three states away with no language barrier (upstream or downstream) there's no reason whatsoever to expect that a company has given someone in another hemisphere the ability to flex in any way at all.

You know, I think, if I ever became a millionaire, I might pay myself into a tech support job and do it the "right way," telling people what they actually need to know to help them, and ignoring my superiors (because I was paying their superiors.) That would be quite fun.

Actually, rethinking that, is there a company right now doing phone support the "right way?" Might be lucrative.

I think the rigid support is a symptom and the malady is corporate bureaucracy. In order to fix this I think you'd have to find a company worth fixing and attack it from the top down.

If someone was really passionate about this it might be possible to fix it in one large company and use that as a halo case to sell their services to additional companies.

Zappos' support staff have a very good reputation.

Slicehost too, but I don't think they do phone support.

Zappos has amazing phone support. They require all employees from all departments to spend time talking to real customers. Even Tony, the CEO, does customer support calls.

The counterexample for bad rules in "The Knack" was the CEO of JetBlue, who served as the author's flight attendant on one of his flights; apparently, he used to do that a lot.

We use slicehost, and their phone support has been fantastic.

This is totally unfair. Things like this just happen. Information gets mixed up, rules don't get changed fast enough, beauracracies don't work fast enough.

This same scenario has happened countless times in the past.

This incident was a tragedy for everyone involved. For the pilots and crew, the passengers and all of their friends and family -- many of whom were other spirit employees.

Cut them some slack.

Running a big company like that and reacting to a plane crash, which -- come on now, it doesn't happen often and look, they got everyone out. Everyone from Spirit /on/ the plane did exactly what they were trained to do perfectly and it saved lives.

And now, someone at the front line does what they were trained to do perfectly and you raise a fuss.

I would agree with you if this was about any other company. Spirit is widely considered the worst airline in the industry for many reasons.

A couple years ago, the CEO accidentally replied all to a customer complaint when he meant to forward it to a customer care manager. All it said was "get this bitchy asshole off my hands."

It does not surprise me that a company run by a guy with that philosophy would make such an error.

From what I can tell, Spirit hasn't done one thing right in this whole situation for these passengers.

Spirit cancelled their original flight, booked them on USAir.

USAir is the carrier that employed the pilots and cabin crew that got everyone out, saved lives, etc.

Spirit then said "That'll be $90 cancellation fee, please."

(Spirit has since gone back on the very last point.)

That last point is merely the reversal of a wrong, which doesn't make it worthy of an "Atta boy, Spirit!" IMO.

This isn't an inefficiency. It's a clear-cut case of a CSR being prevented from accessing their common sense. When someone calls up and says "I just survived a crash on a flight you booked me on", common sense says you don't ask for money.

I'm disinclined to cut them slack for this.

And now, someone at the front line does what they were trained to do perfectly and you raise a fuss

That IS the problem. They shouldn't be trained to blindly follow "rules," they should be trained to help customers. That means knowing when the rules shouldn't apply!

Have you ever used Spirit?

They are hilariously low budget. Being a cheap man I used their service from Detroit->Vegas (it was about 100$ round trip). They have one of the lowest level of services of any airline in north america (but thats why the prices are so cheap).

They also are the only airline I have been on that offered bulk discounts for beers.

Can you elaborate on how 'hilarious' the low-budgetry is? I have flown with RyanAir many a time, and found it to be rather charming despite the low-budget nature.

I don't find RyanAir charming. I was turned away from my flight for trying to collect a boarding pass 35 minutes before departure at Hahn Airport. Their policy is show up 40 minutes before or no boarding pass. Security wasn't an issue, seats were available etc.

Or... my favorite... I remember when they stranded me in Bratislava due to fog at Hahn with no way to get home. That was really charming too. I got lucky and booked a flight on another carrier to another city a few hours from my car. sigh

Of course they were so cheap I put up with it. But I don't have any love for them at all.

They have the 40 minutes rule for reasons of efficiency, the policy is clearly stated so I don't see why you were upset - you should arrive earlier. As for the fog, not much Ryanair can do about that I'm afraid.

I'll agree with you on the fog, a little. In the US, if a flight gets delayed for Weather, the airline still gets you home somehow. Ryan Air offered to refund my airfare only.

As for leaving earlier, I read this statement as "it was your fault you were late, you should have left earlier, and you deserve what you got."

I've flown Ryan Air many many times and I knew the airport well. I also knew when to leave to get there on time. Unfortunately the parking lot was torn up from construction, making the nearby spaces filled, and it took me a long time to find the poorly labeled alternate lot.

At the time I was annoyed because I felt I had done what I was supposed to do and there was nothing stopping them from providing the service. i.e. the security line was non-existent and I was there 35 minutes before take off.

The policy is what it is, but I think what really got to me the most then (and thanks to you reminding me) is the presumption that I did something wrong by not anticipating the construction and that I deserved to be punished by strict adherence to the policy.

In the US, we consider this very poor customer service.

They have newish planes that are already horribly shabby (torn seats, worn carpets). They don't clean the plane between flights. There is very little legroom. They provide zero food/beverages on even 5+ hour flights without a large cost. They overbook. They charge for every piece of luggage. No video screens or audio system in the plane. Very little carry-on space.

I have heard great things about RyanAir, they just tack on the charges after you take off for every service.

With the exception of not cleaning the plane, that sounds exactly like RyanAir.

When I said RyanAir is 'charming', I meant for leisurely travel around Europe. There is no way I'd put up with them if I had to absolutely be somewhere at a pre-planned time and feel like doing business when I landed.

A friend of mine recently got a #1 offer from Ryanair, which turned out to be #80 once taxes and fees where added on, and that's before even paying #5 for a sandwich on-board. It would have been cheaper to fly BA, and much more pleasant.

All the arguments are good. Automated system, stuff happens, out of their control, etc. The result is still absurd.

I need to cancel my return trip because the plane you put me on crashed. A human being looked at a computer screen and said, "I'm sorry sir, there's a $90 cancellation fee for not returning on the scheduled flight."

But, but it crashed. I had to swim to a ferry boat in the frikkin' Hudson!

If I really felt like I had to say that to this man on the phone, I'd just hang it up, get my stuff and walk out. The cognitive dissonance generated by that level of absurdity would seriously threaten my grip on sanity. If I was lucky, I'd make it before collapsing into a quivering heap, reciting Dr. Suess books endlessly...

Oh come on - this is just automated systems gone nuts. Happens all the time - people are used to it but it releases all sorts of stimulants in the brain to get upset and worked over something.

the post isn't about getting upset, its about something, the actual company has no real control over, causing a huge PR problem.

My comment was (mis) directed at the general public and their reaction to this.

Yes, its probably silly software and rules behind it. Just like angry tax office bills for $0 etc ;)

Anyone who bitches about this is NEVER going to be a good entrepreneur.

Good entrepreneurs know that they've screwed up in the past and they WILL screw up again, so they don't throw the first stone.

It's the same way that Lance Armstrong won't laugh at a cyclist who falls off his bike on the Tour de France.

Why don't you get anything when the airline cancels your flight and puts you on another airline? On the way home from my business trips, I used to volunteer to get bumped when planes were overbooked- I always got something out of it.

If the airlines compensated people for that sort of thing, they would have to charge more for the tickets in the first place. At which point, another player would come in, not compensate people, and offer lower air fares. Most customers buy airline tickets based on price, and would choose the airline which did not offer cancellation compensation. Thus, the "nice" airline is undercut out of the marketplace.

They do compensate people for that. I was just on an overbooked flight that was offering volunteers, who would drop out, $400+ in credit and a hotel room if they couldn't be placed on another flight that night.

EDIT: I was referring to the overbooking policy, not cancellation :)

Canceling is different from overbooking. Generally now if a flight is canceled due to weather or whatever, they don't offer compensation.

That's been my experience. This winter the weather has been horrible in the northwest, and so several of my flights have been cancelled. And the airlines wouldn't give me anything since it was weather related. Whereas recently I volunteered to skip an overbooked flight, and ended up getting a free roundtrip ticket, meal vouchers, and a ticket on the next flight out.

Yeah, but why would Spirit's flight have been cancelled? It wasn't weather. I think they cancel due to underbooking. I guess they figure they'll pay for your ticket on a nicer airline, which should be worth something.

I wonder how long they can continue to do that. With all of the varying fees for baggage, 2 extra inches of legroom, early boarding, a sandwich, excessive fatness, excessive flatulence, etc.-- it's getting difficult to figure out how much the fare is going to be.

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