rjw242

Have you called the EXP line lately? It gets you to an agent even more quickly than the old system now, without the long spiel on bleach and household cleaners. I suspect that's one instance where a surge in complaints actually did make a difference.

arollins

Not recently, but thanks for pointing that out. Will give it a try this AM on my way to work. I actually do call from time to time to check on my flight schedules and upgrades via the automated process.

rjw242

I called last night (for the first time in a few months) and was pleasantly surprised. Got a prompt along the lines of "in a few words, tell me what you're looking for," answered "Agent", and was transferred immediately.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Most EXPs are travel savvy. When they call the EXP line they need a real human being. Having a plethora of prompts just makes the process too longwinded. If its something I could have resolved online, I would have. Now if AA wants to make improvements online, like online rebooking in the case of irregular ops or misconnects I'm all for it.

tkelvin69

While I agree many complaints receive canned responses I don't think all are and testing this is really unnecessary. I remember when AA started flying ORD-China and many of the agents were confused about TWOV and demanded visas. I contacted AA who addressed this with the station manager and provided additional training.

inpd

I'm glad you got a successful resolution, but I think that's a special case where a new product was introduced and they were probably looking for feedback.

In my case I'm referring to a problem in an exiting product/system. The interlining of planes via LAX has diminished over the last year. The AA staff/reps at TBIT are horrendous. I flew AA code share flights (but flown by QF) from Australia and then with an AA flight from terminal 4 and the staff refused to put them on the conveyor belt to interline! When I pointed out it was all AA code share she started complaining that we all buy these 3 hour connection tickets and then complain when our bags are lost.

Sure enough my bags were delayed two days in this case.

Now before some you start saying well the TBIT staff are not AA staff I don't care. I'm paying AA my ticket price and they are responsible for my bags getting to me.

Catbert10

It's possible to receive a canned response even if AA is listening. For instance, I received a canned response to my complaints about the phone system. But obviously AA was listening and the volume of complaints brought about changes.

david55

So my question to you is what test can I design to determine if AA actually read their complaints and do something about them?

Creating unnecessary " test complaints" is probably exactly why the rest of us get generic canned answers.....

JonNYC

That's utterly ridiculous.

Not that the OP's "test complaint" idea isn't as well, but let's not combat nonsense with nonsense.

Often1

Simply a misunderstanding of the entire system. Whether the complaint is initially scanned and categorized by software or a human being is irrelevant. Whether the response is canned is irrelevant.

AA, just like other large organizations, does pay a great deal of attention to complaint volume. But, it's metrics based.

Fixing the TWOV issue for China flights is binary. The ORD agents either had it right or wrong. If one person raised the issue, that was enough. No investment beyond the cost of a call/WebEx explaining the issue. OTOH. whether AA invests $1 Mill. in transfer baggage at one station or puts that money into better cookies in the AC, is not binary.

Similarly, "testing" the system is a waste of time. It's a certainty that AA uses software to scan and matches that to the PNR information it already has as well as the CRM data it has on the complainer.

rjw242

Indeed, and there have been a few cases where I think it's fairly evident that AA responded to customer feedback/backlash (new phone system, meal windows/quality, maybe even some progress on PDBs). But this thread seems to be more along the lines of, "AA didn't bend over backwards to PROVE that they took action in response to my extremely specific complaint," in the thin guise of an intellectual proposal.

inpd

Of course its not irrelevant. The overwhelming advice given on this board is under the assumption that a human reads the complaint.

If a human doesn't and a machine just scans it for keywords and generates an automated response then don't waste your time writing careful prose just write a few keywords done and be done with it.

inpd

So if you weren't all so preoccupied with defending AA you would have realized the answer to my question is in my original post.

Can anyone reason the answer to my question and why given my first post?

rjw242

Agree 100%, regardless of whether it's a human or a machine. Just get your point across and be done with it. Same goes for this thread.

DWFI

AAG flies 500m pax per year.

If 2.5% of those people write in (which is not an altogether high number based on my experiences - and frankly, if people here are writing in 3 times a year they would need to be flying 120 segments annually to hit that ratio, which seems reasonable), you're looking at 35k messages daily and 12.5million annually.

You would need an army to be able to handle that kind of volume without computerized help.

When I have had significant feedback that I wanted heard regarding the LAX station, I emailed the LAX Premium Services manager, who I know personally.

He called me back the next day, apologized, and let me know the issue would be addressed.