ajeleonard

I'm sympathetic to any person who has to deal with the public as part of their job, even more so for people in aviation. There has been a total breakdown of common sense, personal responsibility, humility and respect in the past two decades.

Ber2dca

The main difference in the standards for customers and employees - beyond legal standards of course - is that employees are paid to be there and to represent their employer in the way the employer wants to be represented and customers are simply paying to be there and thus have an expectation of a service being provided. From a business perspective, you want your customer-facing staff to show (1) they care (2) the customer is more than a number (3) they will make every effort to assist the customer within their scope. If the problem cannot be resolved within their scope, it is up to them to position that, explain how the issue could be resolved and direct the customer that way.

A lot of customers misbehave, of course, and have unreasonable expectations. But that's neither surprising nor abnormal. The reality is that the people in airports and airplanes that require assistance often are dealing with issues of utmost importance to them, things weighing severely on them - a traveling person is always a vulnerable person. Vulnerable people get frustrated and emotional quickly. Again, none of this should be news to anyone, least of all people working on the customer service side of an airport or airline. The relationship between airlines and customers is often so problematic because staff quite typically do not appreciate the significance of what's happening to the customer. They routinely fail on all 3 counts I mentioned above. Out of my countless interactions with staff at airports, I'd say that only 1 or 2 U.S.-based staffers I have encountered would meet the customer service standard I articulated. You would see a lot less abusive passengers if staff used common industry techniques to defuse situations yet I see zero evidence that staff are aware of such techniques never mind try to implement them. Training, coaching and evaluation are employer responsibilities, and I think the airlines - and their legion of subcontractors - are falling well short of gold standard on those fronts. So while the employees carry some responsibility there, I think the true culprit is the race to the bottom in terms of cost in an industry where finance dominates leadership decision-making.

EBiafore99

What happened in inexcusable. However, I will give Delta credit for addressing the situation by suspending the employee. Unlike other airlines who consistently blame the passenger no matter what, Delta owned up to it.

BTW...We all are quick to condemn employees who do not act appropriately, but the situations where employees go above and beyond seems to get lost. As no customer should put up with what happened, neither should an employee. Here's a link to an article where a lady was kicked off a plane for shouting obscenities and harassing a young mother. The young mother indicates more than once how professional the flight attendant was...Flyer thrown off Delta flight for bullying mom and baby | Daily Mail Online.

pt flyer

There are many, many jobs where one simply can't respond to abusive behavior in kind. It is definitely a professional lapse and should be dealt with, as Delta is doing. However, all employees are still human. Maybe its time to stop posting videos of a momentary lapse and escalating situations. There isn't any one on this forum that hasn't said or done something that they regretted later. Thankfully, no one has recorded mine and posted them online.......

When there is a problem and it is kept between the people or the company and the customer, there is an opportunity for apologies and for forgiveness. Both would be beneficial in this situation.

DCP2016

Completely agree, I've had more pleasant experiences with airline employees over negative ones. In fact, I can count the negative experiences I've had in my lifetime on one hand. The good stories though always get buried by the bad ones though because it sells better.

OHDL1

I get and know that...but, I would give the customer the option to stop recording...or just record me walking away.

MSPeconomist

Why is it acceptable to just walk away from a customer who's talking to you and is entitled to assistance as part of your job?

DiverDave

There are some people who simply should not be in a job dealing with the general public and I am one of those. I worked as a doorman in a movie theatre some years back (OK a LOT of years back) and I had the bad habit of telling customers what they needed to be told. The manager was tolerant in general, but I did get a minor scolding on occasion.

We do not have the whole story on this video, but the customer does not seem to be abusive or angry. His luggage was transported on Delta, and it looks like he is trying to get the agent to see if Delta has it. I understand that Hawaiian is responsible, but does it really make sense for him to go to Hawaiian to have them call Delta and see if Delta's BSO at PDX has the bag? Which in fact I expect they did as it seems his bag flew on the Delta flight. Did the agent ever call for a supervisor as requested on the video?

The rule about baggage responsibility is not intuitive though it makes sense. Even some airline employees are not aware of it. I was flying LAX-HSV on AA during the flight attendant strike in the 90s. AA finally rebooked me onto Delta, but told me the bag likely would fly on American since many flights were operating empty without FAs. I got to HSV and no bag, so I filed a claim with AA. I told the agent the whole story, but at no time did the agent direct me to Delta to file the claim.

The next day I got a call from AA scolding me for filing with the wrong airline. My answer was their agent that took the claim should have told me to file with Delta. As a passenger I had no reason to know this rule, and expected that AA was responsible as Delta never touched my bag. When it finally showed up, all the tags were from AA flights.

^ ^ And I think that is perfectly reasonable.

David

jeet

Wow! this started yesterday and already 4 pages long... looks ripe to lock.
In fact should have been locked right when posters started attacking each other.

But reading 3 pages was fun. Now I understand mind set of few more FTers

flyerslc

We can't see or know what led up to this. But what I do see is a persistent customer who does not raise his voice or use abusive language, keeps repeating the same thing, and asks for a supervisor repeatedly. At one point he implies, although the recording is not clear, that he already went to Hawaiian. I also see a condescending, dismissive, clearly hostile employee who threatens the customer with police action. As far as the workplace not being particularly receptive to older people out of a job, as a previous poster indicated, it is particularly against older employees who have "reached the point in their career where they won't take "guff" from customers", call them aholes and use the f word against them. I'm personally glad he was suspended. I hope he retires.

OHDL1

- Deleted -

SpinOn2

When you are going in circles, it very much is. It's clear from this video they spoke prior and we know the agent had told him they needed to go to Hawaiian. That is providing the service, he explained exactly where he needed to go and who he needed to talk to. This guy simply didn't want to listen and continued to double done arguing. At this point, is it better to walk away, or better to curse at this passenger? Nothing this passenger says is going to change the situation, but he refuses that. It's not even that big of deal for the pax, his bag is not there whether he continues to harp on the Delta guy, or whether he does what he is supposed to do which is make a claim with Hawaiian.

CALlegacy

We don't know what the initial conversation was, but in my viewing of the earlier parts we can see the Delta agent is taking a condescending and not very polite approach to the conversation which communicates that the customer is at fault rather than patiently explaining what is going on. What is needed is a polite and patient explanation that the passenger arrived on Hawaiian and that they will have his bag. Maybe that occurred early on. But, you can't curse at passengers even if they are stupid and are not listening. When do we hear the Delta rep state "Your bag is not here. It is at the Hawaiian bag claim/CS and you have to go over there to get it. We would be glad to help you if we could, but we can't get the bag back here for you as much as we would like to help you." But maybe they did say that. Probably they did say that.

Ber2dca

If the agent has to choose between walking away or getting abusive toward the customer, he isn't cut out for that job and/or hasn't been properly trained and coached. There are ways of framing things to avoid escalation of situations like this. Airport staff are often reacting like they would as individuals on a street corner rather than *trained professionals*. Sure, there's exceptions where customers are aggressive & belligerent/under the influence and can't be talked to anymore, but I've also seen many situations where customers have legitimate questions and what escalates the situation is the tone and demeanor of the agent involved.

One of the main objectives in customer service is letting the customer know that you understand the impact of the situation for the customer i.e. expressing "empathy". On a forum such as this you can lecture people and be as condescending as you want, but if you're in a uniform representing a company you should never lecture customers. You should take their concerns seriously, explain the situation and do what you can for them. Even if the problem isn't in your scope, even if you can't do anything, it's the *way* you communicate that decides how the situation goes. A warm, sympathetic approach that takes the customer seriously and indicates eagerness to assist can lead to a totally different customer reaction even if the objective outcome is identical. This is customer service 101. (sorry I work in customer service quality management and training so this is basically bread and butter stuff).

Proudelitist

Oh no! Four letter words! My porcelain ears shatter at the violence of a few syllables. Heaven's to Bestsy! Cheese and crackers...people need to grow a spine.