FlyFromDTW

I received a voicemail from Delta on Friday regarding a complaint and the agent apologized for the service provided and said that it was not "Delta Standard"

This echoes the comments made by Ed Bastian in the past several days that the impacts of the outage are "not what Delta is"

Putting aside comments about how high level elites are treated relative to other airlines, I do think that Delta really is trying to overall provide service at a "Delta Standard" while balancing the effort to stay highly profitable and cash flow positive throughout an economic cycle. I think that is a good way to have and a good way to market. To me, the truth is that Delta is particularly good at meeting "Delta Standard" - particularly in light of the fact that it operates about 1 million mainline flights a year

Though many on FlyerTalk may disagree with the "Delta Standard" that is set for many things, there are plenty of operational aspects that truly could be called world class

vincentharris

Interesting that someone actually picked up the phone to call and apologize. Definitely better then just hiding behind stock emails.

Wonder if this is a new thing, or just temporary from the outages? If they are going to start picking up the phone going forward, I see this as a VERY large positive to public perception.

securesmaskfirst

Yes this is new. I thinks it's just for elites, but not sure about that. Got a phone call for a delayed bag left in the rain in my driveway. I got an apology. Nothing else. Not even points, or replacing the book that was ruined. The lady was very nice and the apology was sincere.

pgh234

I too got a personalized call from someone regarding a relatively small service failure (downgraded on a 1 hr flight with no explanation...this was three days before the meltdown). I wrote in about it and this lady called, apologized profusely, an gave me a substantial amount of miles as compensation. Color me impressed...especially the fact that she called me this week after there are plenty of people more PO'ed than me for sure.

PowerFlyer

I got a phone call for a letter of phrase from a 404 number and then got a follow up email from that same person that was definitely not boilerplate (although i am sure it was tailored off some template). I think its part of an attempt to improve customer service, particularly to higher level elites.

Dieuwer

Phone calls are cheap.

djp98374

This is making the rounds on facebook....

https://www.facebook.com/devinsiebol...5971302461007/

TTT

The time to make them isn't though. I think it is a nice gesture and one that, as shown in this thread, leaves a positive impression.

I received a couple of calls earlier this year for some minor service failures. At the time, I thought it was a nice touch!

Dieuwer

So you will be happy being stranded on an atoll in the Pacific as long as Delta calls you and wishes you the best? Got it.

orca15

I got a call, and compensation, for a very long delay RIC-BOS, follow up from a complaint. Clearly the person had looked through my flight records at the several other delays (in a row) I had mentioned. Nice, but I'd rather the flight was on time (pre-IT).

pvn

lol wut? that seems like the most bad faith interpretation of his post that you could possibly make.

TTT

Yup - that is exactly the scenario I envisioned.

Seriously!^ But that poster has a history of extrapolating FT posts beyond any sense of reason.

FlyFromDTW

Back to original topic, on which I now see I was unclear. Delta's call actually had nothing to do with this week's problems. Yet they used the term "Delta Standard"

On another note, I emailed Ed Bastian over the weekend to complement him on handling the post-fallout disaster.... And got a genuine response within minutes. I don't think Delta senior execs got any positive feedback this week. Most may not agree, but in light of the triage situation they were in, regardless of why it happened, I did feel they handled it well