I sent this e-mail to customer sevice last week, I decided to post this to see if anyone has had a similar experience.



Sept 15, 2005

Larry Kellner
CEO, Continental Airlines

Dear Larry:

I just want to let you know how disappointed I am with the service I received, from your gate agent (did not get her name) and one of your flight attendants (Allison) on Continental Flight 1635, EWR to PHX on September 15th.

After boarding the plane, myself and another passenger were asked to press our call buttons for an upgrade (this has been a rare occurrence lately), so I was pleasantly surprised. The gate agent did not come, but another passenger who was also assigned my seat (14D) said that the gate agent told him that I was upgraded and he wanted to sit down, so I went to the front of the plane. The gate agent told me that first was full, but she had my boarding pass in her hand with my name and seat assignment (4F) and I asked her for it (I will keep this in my office as reminder of how I was treated, every time I have to book a flight in the future). I asked her why she called me up front if there were no seats available, she said something about an international flight not showing up on her computer and that there was nothing that she could do about it. Allison (the FA) then told me "sir you need to return to your seat" unfortunately my seat was taken but luckily for me 14A was available.

The first mistake your people made, was to offer something that was not available. First rule of sales is to: Never over-promises a customer. I would have been perfectly content with my exit row seat, but now I'm an unhappy customer.

The second mistake was for the FA to curtly tell me to return to my seat. The second rule of sales: It's not what you say, but how you say it. There was no "we're very sorry for the mix-up" just, sir return to your seat. If this is the way you treat your elite customers, I would hate to see how you treat a non elite.

I can understand that there could have been a mix up in the seats, mistakes happen. What is inexcusable is the way your employees handled the issue.

Since I'm on a roll now, I have a few suggestions for you, to save the company some money and stop pissing off customers.

Please discontinue your elite access tags that you put on checked baggage, I don't think that your baggage handlers have gotten the memo yet, on what they are supposed to do with those bags. My bag has been the first one on the carousel, in the middle and last bag out, basically the same level of service before you started this program. The money you save, could be put towards a Dale Carnegie course for your most of your Newark gate and ticket agents (you have some of the most obnoxious gate &ticket agents at EWR), and your flight attendant Allison, on how to win friends and influence people.

I also suggest you change one part of your speech that you give at the beginning of each flight. You state that, we fly one of the most modern and most comfortable fleets in the industry (something like that), well you got half of it right. You do have one of the most modern fleets, but it is laughable to claim that it is one of the most comfortable The reason I can say that is because I'm sitting in one of those comfortable seats, writing this e-mail. When was the last time you sat in one on a transcontinental flight? I guess you have never heard of Jet Blue, Song, Frontier even Southwest has a more comfortable seat than Continental coach.

I read on Flyer talk, you made the claim at your meeting in Houston, that Platinum's are being upgraded 90% of the time. This has to be the new math. You may have been accurate, saying that was happening last year, but it is certainly not true this year. So do everyone a favor take the unlimited FC upgrades off of your elite section of your website and replace it with limited FC upgrades (remember the first rule of sales). I was glad to see that you finally stopped embarrassing yourself and took the ads down in the jet-ways, now its time for some truth in advertising on your web site.

Please let me know who came up with the bright idea, of partnering with the Mickey Mouse airline, Colgan Air. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when this plan was hatched. After building your beautiful new terminal (E) and getting the monorail extended, you guys decide to transport customers on small dirty little busses, and send them to a terminal (A) with no PC, so they can get on even smaller and dirtier little busses to prop planes that look like they are 30-40 years old. I had the pleasure of waiting almost 5 hours a few weeks ago, while they tried to tape one of these relics together. I'm still waiting for the mileage credit for that flight and one I took in July. I did talk to a very nice lady at OnePass and she is going to look into it for me. I have to take another trip to Monroe LA in December and I guarantee you, it will not be on Continental.

In closing, Continental does do allot of things right and most of your people (especially the flight attendants) are extremely courteous and professional. I have gone out of my way to support you. Now that your planes are full, your customer service level is slipping (there was a time after 9/11 that they were not so full) The more I fly your airline the more I realize you are that having elite status on Continental is not what it used to be and I will plan my future travel accordingly.

Sincerely,

Andy B

Wharton, NJ

OP # XXXXXXX

reading between the lines, my honest opinion is that your anger seems mostly driven by your embarassment that you had to return from F to Y. if that is the case perhaps it is unreasonable to hold CO completely responsible for your feelings.

Problem is, this letter started out with one unfortunate, yet understandable event, then turned into a rambling, unfocused rant about everything CO does wrong.

Since this complaint letter has so little focus, I don't see anything for Kellner to respond to except to say "Sorry you find 157 things wrong with our airline. It's quite clear that we can't seem to do much of anything to your statisfaction and that, according to your letter, JetBlue, Frontier and Southwest have a superior product. Better luck on them - Regards, Larry".

I think CO should compensate you 13 miles

Yup. You should have used this forum to vent, like runaway truck bumps for your bruised ego. Then, after you settled down, you could have written CO a focused letter requesting a specific remedy.

Wow.. you got an exit-row seat w/ plenty of room and that upset you so much that you write that letter?

Maybe after that letter, Andy, they'll put a 777 on the Monroe flight just for you! hahahaha

Some people are amazing...

double post

As I stated in the letter it was not the fact that a mistake was made, it was the way it was handled.

As to the other issues that I brought up, I have seen many of these mentioned in other posts, so I don't think I'm the only person that been unhappy with some of the changes and decisions CO has made.

I'm not looking for CO to compensate me, I would hope that the CEO of a company would want to know about how his employees handle issues like this. I don't believe there are very many One Pass customers that feel the program has not gone down hill in the past few years.

Sorry to hear about your experience with CO. From my read of the letter it sounds like your chief complaint was the way you were asked to return to coach. Many people here have echoed complaints against EWR staff for being abrasive - so don't feel out of place as you are not the first to voice such concerns.

As far as CO offering you the upgrade then taking it back - that seems like poor form on their part. You'd think they'd have their stuff together enough so that an event such as yours would not happen.

All in all, I personally do think you have a valid complaint (the way you were treated) but I don't see much that CO can do other than putting some bonus miles into your account. Might just be best to chalk this one up in the ever growing rude EWR agent column.

I have to agree with you about the Elite luggage tags. I've never seen them make a difference. I really liked the suggestion about a Dale Carnegie course. Well done!

As to your main cause for complaint, I wasn't there, so I can only comment about my experiences. I have had a few poor experiences on CO, but they pale in comparison with my experiences on AA, the only other major carrier that covers AUS to any substantial degree.

I would hope that Larry appreciates the feedback. At the top of the pile, all you tend to hear is the worst of what's going on and after a while, it all starts to sound the same. Real constructive criticism is rare and should be appreciated.

I have to totally agree with you here. People who work in customer service shouldn't have to be reminded that attitude is 99.9% of the job. A humble remark, such as I am so sorry sir I made a bit of an error and gave away seat promised to a passenger transfering from another flight. Followed by a mere thanks for being so understanding would have probably resulted in the OP having a 100% different view of the situation and CO. You should expect no less than an honest account of the stutaion, a smile and thanks. The OP lucked out that there was still a decent seat available when there was no effort by the GA or FA to be sure that the customer was taken care of after their mistake. What if only middle seats had been left?

What happens after an incident like this is that customers tend to see the warts everywhere. Co as a customer service organization ( yes, that is what airlines have become as flying has become a commodity) should no and understand how crappy it feels to have FC seat withdrawn even if the reason is legitimate.I think there are plenty of FA ( the one's who get it) who would have picked upon this and made sure he got a decent Y seat and hey maybe
even a free drink!

[QUOTE=ANDYBNJ]I
I can understand that there could have been a mix up in the seats, mistakes happen. What is inexcusable is the way your employees handled the issue.

Since I'm on a roll now, [B] <<Well, that's where you messed up!

Had you stopped right after making your point about the poor attitide, something might have gotten done. But as any good trial lawyer knows, knowing when to shut up is better than prattling on ad nauseum and watering down your main point.

Since your letter turned into a "AND ANOTHER THING" rant as mentioned above, I think CO is just going to send out the form letter response thanking you for taking the time to make them "better" and looking forward to seeing you soon on another CO flight.

Too bad. Probably could have gotten some miles or an upgrade certificate had you simply hammered CO on the attitude issue. You just didn't know when to make your point and then shut up, so the main reason for your ire - and the main reason CO could make a decision to compensate you - gets lost among the criticism of "taping up planes" or whatever.

Sorta like how my mother-in-law argues.

I have to agree with you about the Elite luggage tags. I've never seen them make a difference.

The times that I have checked luggage (which I admit isn't often) it has had the elite tag put on it and my bags have come out at the beginning of baggage delivery. I suggest that if you find the tags to be detrimental to the timely delivery of your luggage, ask the GA to remove them during check-in. I don't plan on using that strategy anytime soon.

I guess that's why i'm not a trial lawyer.

Not trying to get into an argument with anyone and I will state again, I didn't send the e-mail to see how many free drink coupons I could get. If you were to take this one incident by itself, I would agree that it was not the end of the world, but for me it was the last straw.

With all of the legitimate problems people have, this is not one of them.

Quit your whining!