UA: The Mickey Mouse Airline?

 
Old Jun 23, 2008, 10:20 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by FlyingNone
I'm a CSR for United.

Example of a Disney Experience (scenario):
Parents and children are AT THEIR DESTINATION at DisneyWorld after a good night's rest. They are there during Mid-Winter break when thousands of kids are out of school so the lines are long. While waiting in line they are entertained by smiling, dancing, singing Disney characters and a nearby parade. They have opportunity to share their wonderful holiday experiences with other families in line. Snack bars, cotton candy, ice cream, etc. are close at hand and even though the wait is long they don't mind because of all the fun they are having and anticipating the next ride.

Example of a UAL experience that happened a few days ago:
Two flights (in a row) cancelled to Denver.
Over two hundred people had to be reaccomodated. At least 75 percent of them were on connections. Chicago flights were full or became full immediately to protect passengers that needed to connect systemwide. Up walks Mrs. Million-Miler with her teenage daughter. She was traveling to Denver but had booked a connection (not a nonstop). She insisted with her status that we should find a way to accomodate her on the last nonstop flight to Denver. We advised she could stand by but that the flight was overbooked, we had to accomodate passengers from the two previously cancelled flights and that we were actually soliciting VDBs. While being totally honest with her (another agent and myself), she then reacted with the following demanding statement ....."You are not helping me, get me someone higher". We continued to reassure her (and apologize that the two cancellations were lessening her chances) but that with her status she still might have a chance on the nonstop. Tenaciously she insisted we were "not helping" her and to get someone else, that we were being "less than truthful" about the situation. Our Service Director was called in who then explained everything EXACTLY the same way. None of us were smiling at this point. She also insisted she should be upgraded to F class.
She continued to berate all three of us, taking all names, claiming we were all not giving good customer service because we were not smiling ! She was put on a DM list for standby on the nonstop and as it turns out (I guess she is just lucky or perhaps made a complete fuss at the gate), she and her daughter cleared seats on the nonstop. Unfortunately they were not seated together nor did they get E+ seats.

Will someone please tell me how these two experiences can be compared ?? Can Mrs. Million-Miler who came up to the counter totally demanding, angry and unreasonable be dealt with in Disney Style ??? She still got what she wanted in the end, took our names and will be writing a scathing letter to United Airlines, at which time United will probably give her free tickets or thousands of miles in her account.

Does anyone agree here that the dynamics of an airport on irregular ops days - time constraints, people late for flights, going to miss connections, are standing in line with cell-phones in their ears not wanting to talk to ICC's - is entirely different than having a jolly good time at DisneyWorld !!!!!!
Our heads are down, noses to the grindstone, each of us trying to help dozens of people and I'm to do what - just smile and joke, dance and sing ???
While I appreciate and sympathize with your job, the two scenarios are two totally different things altogether.
No one is expecting you to 'smile and joke, dance and sing' during IRROPS or CXs. We would, however, appreciate a smile as we are waiting in cue and you say politely 'Next guest in line!'. Something so simple as empathy can help melt away frustrations. A welcoming smile goes such a long way and costs nothing, as does an apology for the situation.

Conversely, many a time I have been beckoned to a customer service or ticket counter with a surly 'Next!', along with a cocked eyebrow. Making a guest feel welcomed and not an imposition goes a long way. And when your welcoming attitude becomes part of your routine, it becomes very disarming in confrontational situations.
I no longer expect to see smiles at UA ticket counters or gates. Nor do I expect anyone to 'go the extra mile'. When someone at UA does go out of their way to help me, sadly I find it to be the exception, not the rule.
I would LOVE to say 'It's the people who keep me loyal to United'. Sadly, most would agree that it's tangibles like Economy + and 1K status perks that keep us here.

FlyingNone, you are on the front line of your company, representing them as well as the brand itself. Your demeanor and attitude, whether positive or negative towards any of your customers, will directly effect their decision whether to patronize your business again or not. As with any customer contact employee, you are expected to put on a game face, regardless of the situation. No disrespect meant, but if this is difficult for you to do, perhaps you should reconsider your career path at UA to non customer contact.
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Old Jun 23, 2008, 10:23 pm
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by das
You know better than we do that many customers are unreasonable, but there are many times where I notice that just a bit of empathy on the CSR's part can go a long way to defusing an angry customer, or potentially avoiding a poor customer experience altogether. Certainly you agree that passengers with reasonable concerns shouldn't be treated poorly because there are some prima-donnas who expect everything to go their way.
We're channeling each other this evening. Read my post below yours.
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Old Jun 23, 2008, 11:15 pm
  #33  
 
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For a moment, I thought United had become the official airline of Disneyland like JAL had for the Japanese park.

Anyway, I think United only need to look to its *A partner ANA for a little advice on customer service.
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Old Jun 23, 2008, 11:31 pm
  #34  
 
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Wink

Before my 17 year stint with Disney we had to go through a similar program through Disney plus of course we had to learned about Walt and the history of Disney.

What REALLY helps Disney to be so good/happy/guest oriented is that monthly we had mystery guests and these guest would go through about 50 aspects of their encounter in a particular area. From how they were greeted, being attentive to your appearance and if your management got a bad report on you you would be called on it and if it happened multiple times you would be disciplined. Not only that but my manager would get in trouble too if it were happening a lot in his/her area and these reports went pretty high up.

Honestly I never got 100% but I always received good reports...and I DO know how to diffuse people that are unhappy too.

Yeah...I know...I am not THAT nice but that's what happens after smiling all the time for upteen years.

Originally Posted by TA
for an entertaining insider's look on what it was like to be an Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow actor in Disneyland:

http://www.lamag.com/featuredarticle.aspx?id=7016
That guy use to come to the Wine Cellar where I worked www.yelp.com/biz/wine-cellar-anaheim now and then with another guy that also was a Jack Sparrow character. Both were very nice.

Last edited by wingless; Jun 23, 2008 at 11:46 pm
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 12:29 am
  #35  
 
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I suppose I am in a unique position to comment since I have worked for both United Airlines and Disneyland...in fact teaching some of the same "Disney University" classes (as they were called back then) that the Disney Institute charges thousands of dollars to teach you now.

I'll try to keep this simple:

1. Disney Theme Park & Resort employees are heavily unionized. Whoever said that Disney Theme Park employees are easier to fire has no clue what they were talking about. You think it's difficult firing a FA or CSR? Try terminating a Teamster folks.

2. The UA CSR who made that comparison was not being fair. Try working at Guest Relations (aka "City Hall) even on a "good" day where attendance at the park was low (think low load factors) and there were no breakdowns of major attractions (no cancellations or delays). There is no such thing at United. Nor is their at a Disney theme park.

3. As Barbara Higgins has said, the one advantage Disney has over the airline industry is that profit margins in the theme parks and resorts are much higher than the razor thin margins of air carriers. This leaves a lot less to compensate with for smaller issues.

4. United would do well to learn how to treat its customers as welcome guests instead of self loading cargo (aka passengers). I teach a class just on this topic alone nowadays. Bottom line is that employees can relate to "guest service" far better than they will ever relate to "customer service." The reason is that everyone has a different definition of what good customer service is. But when you frame things in the concept of, "imagine you were throwing a party at your home and wanted people to come, have a great time, want to come back to your next party, and recommend your party to everyone who hasn't been to one yet" that's when the light bulbs of commonality start to turn on.

5. The comment about the Mystery Guest shopper program is spot on for the most part (as long as there are positive and negative consequences associated with it).

I can post more later if you want.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 12:35 am
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by John26
I suppose I am in a unique position to comment since I have worked for both United Airlines and Disneyland...in fact teaching some of the same "Disney University" classes (as they were called back then) that the Disney Institute charges thousands of dollars to teach you now.

I'll try to keep this simple:

1. Disney Theme Park & Resort employees are heavily unionized. Whoever said that Disney Theme Park employees are easier to fire has no clue what they were talking about. You think it's difficult firing a FA or CSR? Try terminating a Teamster folks.

2. The UA CSR who made that comparison was not being fair. Try working at Guest Relations (aka "City Hall) even on a "good" day where attendance at the park was low (think low load factors) and there were no breakdowns of major attractions (no cancellations or delays). There is no such thing at United. Nor is their at a Disney theme park.

3. As Barbara Higgins has said, the one advantage Disney has over the airline industry is that profit margins in the theme parks and resorts are much higher than the razor thin margins of air carriers. This leaves a lot less to compensate with for smaller issues.

4. United would do well to learn how to treat its customers as welcome guests instead of self loading cargo (aka passengers). I teach a class just on this topic alone nowadays. Bottom line is that employees can relate to "guest service" far better than they will ever relate to "customer service." The reason is that everyone has a different definition of what good customer service is. But when you frame things in the concept of, "imagine you were throwing a party at your home and wanted people to come, have a great time, want to come back to your next party, and recommend your party to everyone who hasn't been to one yet" that's when the light bulbs of commonality start to turn on.

5. The comment about the Mystery Guest shopper program is spot on for the most part (as long as there are positive and negative consequences associated with it).

I can post more later if you want.
YEAH!!! I am "graduate of the Disney University" I thought it was so much fun learning about all of the ins and outs of Disney

On #5 I did get good positive feedback for my good reviews. A couple times they bought me dinner for having a great shoppers report and I HAVE a couple that were signed by my boss, my bosses boss and my bosses, bosses boss for doing a great job.

Oh yeah...I was unionized....I hate unions and it is hard to fire someone...usually the people that loved the unions were the ones that should have been fired. Here is my review of the stupid union http://www.yelp.com/biz/h-e-r-e-loca...IQ/query:union Read my review [I am Cheri A. then read the letter that I posted as the photo]

Please do post more...I would like to read it.

Last edited by wingless; Jun 24, 2008 at 12:57 am
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 12:46 am
  #37  
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UA certainly is such.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:08 am
  #38  
 
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I will give you an example of how Disney can be related to Airline or possibly even worse.

Few years ago I went to Disney on a land+sea vacation package, 6 people went, each person costs around $3000/person. Upon arrival at Orlando, we were informed a very big hurrican is on its way to Florida, and the park might be shutdown and cruise might all cancelled.

Disney made a safe but bad decision to close the park early the day before hurrican hit, as well as closing it on the day hurrican arrived. Hotel guests AND EMPLOYEES (yes, employees stayed) must remain indoor inside the hotel

Base on number of visitor in a year, they would have to explain to >100K visitor that day on why fireworks were cancelled, why the park has the close, why after paying thousands of dollar you are stranged at a hotel even though the weather wasn't that bad.

Could you imagine ORD shutdowns entirely on a lighted snow day and everyone is questioning you why their flight is cancelled while you were asked to remain at the airport servicing customers instead of heading home?

My 3 days cruise got cancelled due to hurrican, the people on 7 day cruise were shorten to 4 days. Disney gave all passengers multiple options on what they can do (Partial refund - cruise portion, rebook later within 1 year, or travel on the 4 day + compensation for 7 days cruisers). The amount of complaints went thru the roof, and each cruise is probably equivalent to ~5-6 widebodies.

Yes, I am very delighted to say, Disney definitely showed their top notch customer service, and most people were satisfied the way Disney handle their customer. However, as of today, I would say United will probably failed the test if similar situation happened.

I am not trying to pick on you, but I am trying to prove the point that United can learn a lot from Disney. Imagine yourself, being a Global Service running late, 40 min. before an international flight, standing in a long line at SFO red carpet waiting to check-in. Even if a service director just stop for 1 min, come out, greet everyone with a smile, apologize for the delay, that would make people in line more patient about waiting. If the SD went a little beyond and identify that GS who is in urgent need of help, wouldn't it made the day for that GS and possibly bring in more revenue?

Just my 2 cent, and sorry for my bad English.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:14 am
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by beanex
Just my 2 cent, and sorry for my bad English.
Your English was fine.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:20 am
  #40  
 
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Having worked in the training area IN the airline industry, and having worked with a lot of global airlines for training and actually running courses for them, a few thoughts...

1/Training is often the first thing to get cut from budgets when there are financial hard times. For UA to do invest in this now, there are a few messages being sent... both internally and externally:

To the internal folks, it indicates that there's a problem, it's important enough to devote a lot of resources to it (e.g. time, money, logistics, etc), something is being done about it, and that the company wants to get the employees involved in the process to fix the problem. Otherwise they would just send out bulletins and publish updates or briefings in the res systems, for example. It also indicates that the employee is a valued link in this chain of the core business somewhere.

To the external customers (think: letting NBC run a story and draw such attention to this), the message is that UA is acknowledging a severe, yet basic problem, spending money to fix it and wants past/current/future customers (guests) to have the impression that things will be better for them. (read: give us another try if we've dis-serviced you, don't go to a competitor and make us lose more money)

2/Training is used as a moral booster. Yes it's not fun to sit in a classroom all day, and it's not 100% effective, especially when courses have simple multiple choice or true false questions as an "exam" that are too easy and you just memorize and then forget the material tomorrow. This type of training, although expensive, can be viewed as a way to boost morale and hope a culture shift subsequently follows. It's going to take a lot for that to happen, and to reach all stations, but the gossip grapevine is a powerful source of information - fact and/or fiction - and when other stations find out what is happening, perhaps it could help the low morale issues.

That said, however, and without knowing the financial details of this training arrangement, perhaps UA could implement this quicker and faster by bringing Disney folks to UA to conduct this on-site.

This is definitely a good start for UA... my opinons of course.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:20 am
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by John26
I can post more later if you want.
Yes, please!
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:26 am
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by AirlineDork
That said, however, and without knowing the financial details of this training arrangement, perhaps UA could implement this quicker and faster by bringing Disney folks to UA to conduct this on-site.

This is definitely a good start for UA... my opinons of course.
I would love to be a consultant to UA...just kidding...well not kidding that much.
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:32 am
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by wingless
I would love to be a consultant to UA...just kidding...well not kidding that much.
HAHA... I don't work for them and in my former job I was referring to, they (UA) weren't one of our customers. Actually, there weren't many US-based customers. Wonder what message that sends when Asian and Middle East carriers invest in lots of training and development programmes.

Sure, I'd be happy to be a consultant to them... but I think they've got Disney taking care of their training needs now. :-)
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:34 am
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Originally Posted by AirlineDork
HAHA... I don't work for them and in my former job I was referring to, they (UA) weren't one of our customers. Actually, there weren't many US-based customers. Wonder what message that sends when Asian and Middle East carriers invest in lots of training and development programmes.

Sure, I'd be happy to be a consultant to them... but I think they've got Disney taking care of their training needs now. :-)
Damn...I could use the extra $$$
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Old Jun 24, 2008, 1:36 am
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by wingless
Damn...I could use the extra $$$

Oh we all could.... especially to subsidize our travels. :-) :-) :-)
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