Robotic replies from Delta
 

I often write to Delta regarding either a complaint OR a compliment on their service. I usually notice that the email responses I get seem very formulaic, but this one is downright robotic:
"Thank you for your email to Delta sharing your positive feedback about
our representative. It is so nice to hear about your positive experience. Your kind words will be forwarded to Kathy's immediate supervisor and become part of his
permanent record. Thank you for taking the time to let us know."
Kathy was definitely a woman.
Do they just have a computer generating these replies? Kind of depressing. Still--at least I still have hope that Kathy may benefit from having my note in "his" permanent record.

Yes, alot of replies are from a template. Similar to tech support responses. I guess it standard in many customer service areas when dealing with the volume that they get.

In particular, "Heidi Gould" is their facsimiled personification of an authority figure that you'll find 'signing' allot of responses:

Regards,
<her sig here>
Heidi Gould
General Manager
Customer Care

Good luck on getting a real human at DL to listen. Not worth the hassle when things go sideways. I've been ignored by DL to the point where I'm "comfortably numb". Que sera sera. The robots have won as far as I'm concerned.

They most likely use stock letters and personalize them. This time somebody might have been a little short on time ;).
Its get the job done in a timely manner and normally the responses are more detailed with a personal touch:

Hello Grouchy,

RE: Case Number 1x

Thanks for your email letting us know about our staff working in Business Class. I see you were pleased with our Purser, Dan, and flight attendant, Kristen, for making you feel at home with the kind service they provided on Flight 164. They work hard every day to make travel as pleasant as possible. We’re thrilled that you noticed and this experience exceeded your expectations. I will be sure to forward your comments on to our In-Flight Service team.

Your feedback - especially a note like this - means the world to all of us at Delta. We appreciate your business as a Diamond Medallion member and look forward to seeing you on your next Delta flight.

Regards,

Norman X


Hello Grouchy,

RE: Case Number 1x

Thanks for Your Kind Words!

Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know about our flight attendants on DL163 AMS-MSP and specifically Theresa. They work hard every day to make travel as pleasant as possible. We’re happy this was your experience and it exceeded your expectations. I will be sure to forward your comments on to our In-Flight Services Team, so we can make sure to recognize this crew and to make sure each of them knows how they are appreciated by our customers!

Thank you for choosing to fly with us since 200x! We appreciate your loyalty to Delta as a Diamond Medallion member and look forward to continuing to be your airline of choice.

Regards,

Matthew X
You Share, We Care


Hello Grouchy,

RE: Case Number 194x

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us. I tried to reach you this afternoon by phone but, unfortunately, no success. Our goal is to provide a personalized and enjoyable experience each time you fly. It's pleasing to hear of the outstanding service you received during your recent travel with us.

Our goal is to consistently provide outstanding service to our customers. I'm happy to hear that Robyn went out of her way to make your experience exceptional. I have forwarded your comments to leaders in In-Flight Services to ensure she receives the recognition she deserve for a job well done.

Grouchy, as a Diamond Medallion member you spend a lot of time with us and we want that time to be excellent from start to finish. We appreciate our relationship with you and we hope it lasts for many years to come. We look forward to providing another enjoyable experience on you upcoming flight to Israel.

Regards,

Shirrie X

Hello Grouchy,

RE: Case Number 195x

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us. I tried to reach you this afternoon by phone but, unfortunately, no success. Our goal is to provide a personalized and enjoyable experience each time you fly. It's pleasing to hear of the outstanding service you received during your recent travel with us from our Atlanta based crew.

Our goal is to consistently provide outstanding service to our customers. I'm happy to hear that Dell, Paul, Marty and Jan went out of their way to make your experience exceptional. I have forwarded your comments to leaders in In-Flight Services to ensure these agents receive the recognition they deserve for a job well done.

Grouchy, as a Diamond Medallion member you spend a lot of time with us and we want that time to be excellent from start to finish. We appreciate our relationship with you and we hope it lasts for many years to come. We look forward to providing another enjoyable experience on you upcoming flight to Israel.

Regards,

Shirrie x

excerpt from my latest:

hovering over the flight number in search results no longer shows the equipment type ... lower left corner of the screen says "javascript:void(0)" and you have to click on the flight number to bring up the info popup

this is a serious degradation of website utility: equipment influences a lot of my flight decisions, and the more time it takes to find out important information, the less likely I am to continue using DL

** PLEASE ** avoid the standard canned "I'm sorry you had difficulty navigating delta.com" response ... that gives me absolutely no confidence that anyone is actually reading, understanding, and thinking about this comment

excerpt from DL response:

Thank you for your email to Delta. I'm sorry to hear navigating delta.com was a challenge and that you did not have the seamless customer experience we aim for.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your comments with us and assure you that we will share them with the appropriate leadership team to be reviewed. As a Million Miler and Platinum Medallion member, I know your time is valuable and it must be frustrating to start the process all over again. Please contact our 24-hour Online Customer Support Desk at 888-750-3284 so that we may assist you with web-related needs.

:rolleyes: :confused:

Feedback might not be read before an automated reply is sent out, but I'm positive that all feedback is read by people. While the first reply generated might be a stock letter, the feedback itself isn't ignored.

I recently sent in a compliment for a purser and FA. The canned response said that the person had tried to call me (why? plus, I can't find any evidence that this was done) but didn't have a phone number for me to call them. It doesn't seem logical.

Then I got a second email asking me to evaluate their response to the compliment.

I'm waiting for a thank you response followed by the opportunity to evaluate their response to my evaluation. <giggle>

BTW, it's sneaky the way the emails seem to suggest a quick one question survey (like at the end of calls to the DM line) but then lead to a series of webpages that ask more questions and obviously require more time than expected, yet if you don't do the rest of it, I'm not sure the first response counts.

We may have grown to having the female version used. However it's still acceptable to use the male form for both male/female.

Same experience here. No metadata available that showed that they tried calling & also followed by a second email to evaluate their response to the compliment :)

I sent in a compliment for outstanding cabin service and did receive and answer the phone call from someone at Delta, practically gushing with happiness over the positive feedback and that they would definitely relay it to the FA's supervisor, etc. It was almost slightly embarrassing. (I really wish I'd had a JWD handy on that flight though, I keep hoping I'll run into the FA again)

They also said something like "it's so nice to receive positive comments amongst all the negative complaints we get" and I said "I've sent in a few of those too :p"

And then like MSPe I got the "how did we do" survey...

No robot for me. I had sent a compliment regarding a crew action as well as an overall JWD and received a live phone call one week later -- thanking me and asking if there was anything to add to my original email before they contacted the supervisor. NICE job Delta! I really appreciated that the compliment was read and will be passed on.

Anyone having longer than normal response times? I assume the outage is still causing a backlog but I sent in two emails without response:

1. EU261 Compensation - sent 8/29
2. C+ Upgrade Issue - sent 9/17

I'm still waiting on 20k miles from the outage. A few weeks ago I got an email saying t expect them in 7-10 days. I heard nothing, so I replied to that email this past Saturday. The response to that email said they were indeed backed up, and that I should wait another 10 or so days.

Yeah,

'Compliment-Inflight' (no not to CarmenOM ;) )24/8 sent, response 17/9. Normally it's way faster.

Delta's Computer outage in August might be the reason???

On Friday I emailed DL about a strange situation with our luggage. They got back to me on Monday so I thought that was pretty good response time.