Often1

The US Postal Service will appreciate the extra $0.49 help in reducing its deficit. All that happens with that extraneous snail mail is that it gets routed to the same CRM database which you access by webform online. It just gets delayed by a couple of weeks from the mail room to the scanner.

What does happen is that somewhere, somebody notes that the # of complaints about UG's has taken a jump and looks at the metrics of who is complaining (what do those people spend).

You will get some miles and a cut & paste response even if you say that's not what you want (evidence that nobody really reads these things), be even more infuriated, and DL will continue so long as its shareholders are happy. They are currently very, very happy.

Slow learner

The primary purpose of a complaint letter to Delta is to get it off your chest and move on with your life. Expect nothing and you may be surprised if you get some miles in return. Delta's current profitability and market share is proof positive that generally they get it right from a business perspective and they expect to generate a few casualties along the way.

In my recent crushing disappointment, I already had the e-mail waiting for me when I got home saying 'Sorry, here's some miles...". I still sent the appropriate "you're all a bunch of .......s" e-mail anyway, felt better and moved on with my life.

They like your business, but they don't need it.

pbiflyer

Yep, Delta these days makes Spirit look like customer service gurus.
I am at Delta HQ fairly often. While most workers are dismayed at the corporate attitude, they have even grown to accept it.

Basically, their attitude is they are making a ton of cash. Nothing else matters. And if demand falls off, they park some planes and still make a ton of cash. Just a bit less.

SCEflyer

"Snapping" probably accomplished nothing to enhance your case, in fact it most likely caused the agent to turn you off.

As with many of these cases, it would be interesting to hear the other side, but that will never happen.

CJKatl

You seem to misunderstand the order of what happened. I explained my issue. Since it seems to be happening so often now, I thought she might want to let the ground handlers' management know so that it could be corrected. I made no demands, asking nothing more than for them to give a heads up to the right people. She handed me a card and dismissed me without even asking my flight number or name, making it clear she thought I was fishing for SMs. By snapping time, we were done. In fact, I turned around to walk out, but decided she needed to know what she said was horrible. She was clueless that accusing me of fishing for SMs was insulting. She now realizes this. While it won't change her thinking, she will likely watch what she says going forward.

And by snapping, I don't mean loud or angry. I mean precise, clipped speech. No cursing or histrionics, just a few well place words letting her know she just insulted a customer, her assumptions are flat out wrong and she should watch how she treats customers. Her reply was that she was saying what she was told to say, so I asked if she was told to tell us we would get SMs and, if so, I wanted to talk to her supervisor to let him/her know that is rude. She apologized and asked that we not get her supervisor.

FWIW, I'm not forwarding the complaint because I don't want SMs and I know the underlying issue will not be addressed.

fivenue

appreciate all the insights folks!

just curious, when you already at moot point with delta, which alternative airlines would you take?
(this assumes the route has some alternatives)

BOSTransplant

I would actually disagree with this. I know DL customer service isn't perfect, but in my experience, it's still much better than UA or AA (and I presume most other airlines as well, though I have heard very good things about AS's customer service). I obviously only have my own experiences and what I see at airports, but I've never seen anything particularly egregious. In hundreds of DL flights in the past few years, the only thing that sticks out was a grumpy gate agent at LAS who sassed me a little bit, but maybe she had just big at the poker tables.

One thing to remember is that air travel seems to make people very emotional for some reason. I've seen so many adults throwing childish tantrums over things that are clearly out of the airline's control that I now take every complaint I read with a grain of salt. There are certainly valid complaints, but there are nine silly, overblown complaints floating around on the internet for every real one.

BOSTransplant

Snapping at a customer service rep is a bad move 100% of the time. There is literally nothing that can be gained from it. I guarantee you that the actual outcome of what happens is that she was annoyed, and she probably went out for a drink after work and told her friends that she dealt with a jerk at work. If you wanted her to actually listen to what you said, then you shouldn't have snapped at her.

rucksack

I hope you're being sarcastic. If you were the executive, how would you react to having your already brimming inbox littered with customer complaints?

CJKatl

And I hope that's the case. I hope she was thinking about it after work. I don't care if she thinks I'm a jerk: she couldn't be bothered to ask my name or flight number, so she doesn't know who I am. Hopefully next time she stops before indicating we only complain for points and tempers her words, thinking it may be another jerk standing there and she does not want to go through that again.

She had already dismissed me. She was not interested in anything I had to say. Snapping at her at that point was no harm, no foul.

sethb

It depends on the purpose of the complaint and your desired result.

Snail mail gets more attention than anything else. (Well, OK, a lawsuit gets the most attention, but . . .)

sethb

A good executive might learn something. If nothing else, the volume of complaints will say a lot.

rucksack

I'm not saying that executives shouldn't read or handle customer complaints. I'm saying that you're not likely to get the desired response blasting an executive through an inappropriate channel.

sethb

Many top executives have a department to handle complaints that are sent to them. This department is generally a lot more effective than the standard customer service department.

LaserSailor

Executives dont manage Inboxes quite the same way that you or I might.