Heather Harvey is the manager of customer relations at Spirit Airlines. A few days ago, she posted an interesting comment on my site, saying that she had been “tasked with turning our customer perception around.” Spirit gets more than its fair share of complaints, so I wanted to give her an opportunity to explain. Here’s our interview.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Air Canada’s customer service reputation is somewhere between “OK” and “fine,” according to passengers. There are few horror stories to report, and the ones that I hear are usually addressed quickly and to the customer’s satisfaction. Nevertheless, these contacts may be useful, in the event that your horror story gets overlooked.
JetBlue’s customer service reputation trends toward the extremes. It’s either really good, with friendly flight attendants, superior onboard amenities, generous legroom and many other customer-friendly practices. Or it’s really bad (think passengers stranded on the tarmac during an ice storm or grandmothers being threatened with arrest for videotaping other passengers). More often than not, though, JetBlue does right. Hopefully you won’t have to use these names.
Hertz has a better-than-average reputation for customer service, although recent efforts to collect new fees from its drivers have made a dent in it. Still, the company does far better than many other car rental companies.
You’d think reports of superior customer service from an airline like United would be random — a one-off for a carrier that consistently gets inferior scores. Maybe not.
When it comes to customer service, Disney is often held to high — some would say unreasonably high — standards. As someone who lives in Orlando, I’ve seen it firsthand. People come here expecting everything about their theme park experience to be absolutely perfect. When it isn’t, I hear about it.
Frontier draws relatively few complaints, and the ones that come its way tend to get fixed fast. One major drawback: There doesn’t appear to be an obvious place on its Web site that accepts emails from customers, meaning that your only real choice is a phone call or a letter. That can sometimes be problematic.
AirTran has a fairly decent reputation for customer service, even for a discount airline that charges for almost everything (including seat reservations). Complaints tend to get resolved quickly, and to the customer’s satisfaction. And when it doesn’t? Here are a few helpful resources.
Hawaiian Airlines doesn’t get a lot of complaints compared with some of its competitors on the mainland. But when it does, they are typically serious in nature. Serious — and intractable — enough to merit their own entry on this site.
Mark Mitchell, American Airlines’ managing director of customer experience, is the point man for customer service at the airline. With the summer travel season now underway, I asked him how air travelers could have the best possible experience, and what airlines like American are doing to make it better.
John Romantic’s title is director of customer relations and central baggage resolution at US Airways. But he’d prefer you simply think of him as your advocate at the airline. For the last nine months, he’s had the unenviable job of improving the carrier’s iffy reputation for customer service. I asked him how he’s doing it.
The ticket agent just threw the book in your face. The hotel clerk gave you a firm “no.” The rental agent shook his head when you asked for a car. Paging Edward R. Murrow.
In his new memoir, “Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy,” Isadore Sharp describes how he built one of the hotel industry’s most successful and respected brands. But the book ends just as things start to get interesting: with a historic downturn in the lodging industry. I asked Sharp to pick up where the book left off.
Southwest Airlines, the only major domestic carrier that doesn’t accept customer feedback by e-mail, says it’s on the verge of allowing passengers to send it questions and comments electronically. Until now, the airline has preferred contact with its customers by phone or postal letter, saying it does “not currently have the resources to accept customer e-mail.”
When David Ennis checked in for a recent Spirit Airlines flight from Detroit to Fort Myers, Fla., an agent told him the flight was oversold. When he tried to fly the next day, Spirit told him he was a “no show” for his flight and was holding a worthless ticket. Here we go again.
Had a problem with your last trip? Fire up your PC and post something online. Go on. You just might change the travel industry like Carl Larson did.
That’s the question Donna Passentino and Yaakov Sheinfeld must be asking themselves about Spirit Airlines this morning. How is it possible for an airline with a truly awful reputation for customer service to do the right thing? And it leaves me wondering if their experiences signal some kind of turning point in Miramar.
One of the presumed silver linings on the dark cloud of airline fees is that if a company charges for a service, it’s responsible for a higher level of care. But at least one airline doesn’t feel that way.
Here’s an inspiring story about a ticket agent going far above and beyond the call of duty to help American soldiers in need. It came to me by way of Sgt. Ron Hutchins, who was traveling to Germany with nine other servicemembers from the 912th Adjutant General Postal Company in Tallahassee, Fla.
Here’s a bit of good news on what is likely to be another Black Friday: Customer service isn’t a lost art in the travel industry. At least not at one hotel.
