Delta Airlines Customer Service:
This is the third
trip on Delta this year and my last ever.
I would like to tell you about my 360 customer experience on this round
trip flight from Seattle to Minneapolis.
What I tell people now when they ask about my vacation is the same as I
told them about my last vacation. It was
a wonderful time bookended by 2 crap flights on the worst airline in America.
I always know that
the lousy Delta customer experience begins right upon arrival at the airport
and Delta did not disappoint. I was
asked to check my duffle bag, so that Delta could collect the $25 bag fee, even
though it was smaller than the ten people who had not checked their rolling
luggage. When I complained to the Delta
employee at check in, she said and I quote "I just work here". The other Delta employee told me that if I
continued to complain about the bag check fee, that he would get TSA and get
them to kick me off the flight. It is
nice to see that Delta now utilizes the government for customer service
complaints. This is quite possibly the
most shameful customer service behavior I have EVER experienced. I almost forgot to mention that I paid $400
for the airfare and that the next day I saw the airfare advertised for
$270. Delta, of course, would not refund
the difference.
I then spent 3
hours crammed in a seat designed for someone 5 feet tall. My six foot-two thin frame would not fit in the
seat, even remotely. One day I am going
to consider suing Delta for the long health risk that flying in a cramped
position causes me and the 2-3 days of pain in my legs and back that follow
every flight. But you do have the
shareholders to consider and those fat executive compensation packages to
consider. I get it, I am a CFO. You see, choosing and rating customer service
on airlines is like picking the better looking pile of dog crap. They all suck, some just suck worse.
On my flight home,
I was scheduled for a 7:30 pm flight from MSP.
I asked Delta if I could fly on one of the 5 earlier flights to Seattle
that day. I was charged a $50 stand by
fee to fly on the same day on a plane with plenty of available seating. When I complained about this to the gate
agent, she told me to "get medallion status so you won’t be charged or sit
in the airport for 4 more hours to take your original flight". Stellar customer service there. My solution is to continue having awful
flight experiences until I have flown enough that my flight experiences can
become just a little less awful. I
naturally had to pay another $25 to check my duffle bag.
I rejoiced in the
fact that this was the last $50 that I was giving to Delta in my lifetime. I also am rejoicing in the fact that I am
changing the travel policy where I work, and manage a $2 M annual travel budget
to exclude Delta Airlines from an option on our travel site. I estimated that in 2012 we spent $400,000 on
Delta Airlines, and given that we are a consulting firm with people constantly
travelling, I will not ask our consultants to continue to experience the
customer service that I have experienced on 3 Delta flights in 2013. I might add that the Delta flight to and from
China in 2012 wasn't much better.
Regards
Gary R. Beebe Jr.
Former Customer
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