ORD4R

Well I have seen the training materials and was involved in the training. A key element of the training is compliance with process and procedure. What is missing is empowerment for employees to satisfy customers. They want to limit what the customer facing staff do and create a standardized response in all situations.

The metrics are focused on operational items, not customer satisfaction and certainly not on making exceptions in unusual situations to achieve customer satisfaction.

fly18725

Isn't consistency important to people too? How do you find the right balance between creating a consistent experience and empowering employees?

ORD4R

I agree it is a balance. The current training is totally focused on consistency and has no elements of empowerment. They should be training for both and giving examples of good judgment and bad judgment when empowering employees.

You have to have a consistent base process, but you need to train and trust employees to make exceptions to the process when it is warranted. The current training does not show a trust for employees to make those exceptions.

fastair

/agree page 6 of the investor day pdf http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...RJRD01MjYwODI=

lists "invetsing in tools and recurring training for our employees, creating customer service standards, measuring employee service against standards to increase accountability, empowering and listening to our employees, and reaching responsible joint collect bargaining agreements."

Most of the training is automated, not interactive, basicly clicking thru a pdf (not a good way to learn,) the "accountability" part is true, the number of employees called in for making empowerment decisions to solve a problem quickly has resulted in magnituteds of increases in employee discipline. I've seen no new empowerment or feedback channels where an employee can feed ideas up the chain of command, rather, I've seen less front line ideas being listened to. The collective bargaining agreements are very responsible. Take a cost neutral contract or we will outsource you to the least costly bidder.

That is the "working together culture"?

Superguy

Jeffy values his "coworkers" greatly.

Baze

A few years ago I worked for a few weeks in a call center between jobs. The main thing they stressed was that we always answered "I can help you with that". And if you couldn't you went up the chain to find someone who could help them.

Based on a lot of the threads in this forum UA's response seems to be "Sorry, can't help you with that". Yes, there are gems who go out of their way to help but more and more it seems this "standardized" method just does not work for an airline. The minimum standard should always be at least "let me see what I can do to help you". Maybe the individual employee won't have the power to take care of a situation but they should have the power to escalate if it is beyond what they can do, not just say sorry, can't help and hang up.

And this should be for every customer, not just GS/1K. You never know who might become the next Tom Stuker funneling all their money and miles onto UA. If you turn them off at the beginning of their flying career you have lost them for good.

tryathlete

Personally I stopped completing these surveys awhile ago. Why use my valuable time to critique an airline that ought to know how to run itself by now? If I have an issue worthy of compliment or criticism, I'll take the time to write a note to customer care.

star_world

Since I said I'd follow up on this, here are some screenshots from the survey following a flight yesterday (where WiFi remained "unavailable" for the whole flight )







This leads to a fairly specific categorization of issues, IMO. Certainly is a long way from just a generic "did you have any problems?" question.

sbm12

I've had similar, but only if you rate the overall experience lower than some level. I believe '7' is the cutoff but I'm not certain.

exerda

Interesting; I've never gotten this format survey, including as recently as a couple of weeks ago when I filled one out with a problem.

spin88

Interesting to see this, and I am not surprised. When people are called to task for not exactly following procedure, and doing what the computer tells them to so, you get 90 yo pearl harbor survivors bumped (PR fiasco) and find yourself listed as the third worst company in America for "customer loyalty" with TV presenters on CNBC talking about how they are trying to avoid flying United as its so horrible.

Basically Jeff has taken procedures that work in a company with low transaction costs and captive markets (e.g. an electric utility, the cable company) and tried to use them in a world where there is competition for 90% of sales, and heavy competition for the high value sales you really want. And the 10% where there is no competition are either hub captive or tied into the FF program, which by the way UAL is slashing allowing some of those folks to move on.

Expect a further drop in yield relative to AA/DL in Jan-March, and worse financial results.

Fly, since you think these type of policies (tying employee hands and punishing them for fixing issues outside of the set policies) are working, I would wonder what support you have for this view. Note that Anderson over a year ago set a goal of reducing complaints to DOT by half, and got there (and much better customer satisfaction scores) by expressly giving agents the ability to fix problems and make exceptions without fear of getting in trouble. Basically UAL is doing the opposite of what DAL did...

halls120

Thanks for posting, and this is something I've never seen before. I'll make sure to click the "I had a problem box" next time just to see if I get the same thing.

username

I am finding myself paraniod that the next e-mail I get from UA is going to announce more MilagePlus "enhancements" or service reductions. Definitely not a good thing...

spin88

since this thread got bumped, I HAVE gotten several surveys, and I always put UAL low.

What I find interesting is that they now have (perhaps always did, and I just missed it) a "net promoter" question. Its right after "how happy were you with this flight" they ask in essence "based upon this experience how willing are you to recommend United to other"

I assume they are getting some very bad numbers.

I think a more open ended follow up question not about that flight, but the entire package UAL is offering, might be useful, but I can't really say that they survey is useless. I'm sure they are getting a useful net promoter scale and identifying the number of complaints by areas (such as IFE, food, etc).

halls120

On my last flight I clicked the I had a problem box and I still didn't get the more detailed questionnaire.