Originally Posted by lincolnjkc

This is something that various UA employees I've talked to seem to have trouble understanding. I had one mid-senior-ish type ("Regional Manager") try convincing me that AOD is "the same" as or even "better than" having a staffed CSC or agents in club.
They may be able to preform the same actions, and they may be as qualified -- indeed the "same" but it feels wildly impersonal to try talking to someone on a mobile device rather than being in the same place breathing the same oxygen and able to flip a monitor around and show what they're seeing and -- more importantly -- knowing you have their full and undivided attention, that the call won't drop, your battery won't die, etc.

Maybe part of this is the horrendous taste the "chat" feature left in my mouth when a simple request to fix a reservation that was out of sync due to an upgrade took several 'agents' over 4 hours in two different chat sessions (with at least 2 of the agents just ghosting me mid-chat leaving me to start over with a new agent because apparently they can't see the history) -- part of that time delay was undoubtedly because they were serving multiple chats at the same time. (After the first chat failed I should have just called reservations but I really wanted to see if that was a one-off or if what I wanted could actually be accomplished via chat.)

I can see one potential benefit this has is in IROPS balancing demand and availability. Without AOD if you have a situation in, say, ORD and 5 agents in the CSC... you have 5 overwhelmed agents and that's all you have to work with. With AOD, you might have 5 agents in ORD but also 5 agents in LAX who are bored because it's a sunny day and all is going to plan, so you've doubled service throughput without any actual changes in staffing or cost. There are also potential advantages for non-English or limited-English speakers being matched with agents who can more effectively communicate with them in a preferred language. But AOD should be a customer option from a menu of options, not a replacement for in-person service from a local human.

Without staffed CSCs or club service desks, UA may think there going to force AOD but rather it means I just have to roam the concourse/club to find and ambush a random CSR if something goes wrong. I don't like doing that, UA shouldn't want me doing that, and it's certainly not why I pay for a club membership.