the Web Chef's e-Bytes

United Airlines - Customer Service & Technology Incompetence (not guitars but lost bags)

Here's my tale of United Airlines technical incompetence and lack of customer service.  While it doesn't have the visual attraction or word of mouth potency of the "United Breaks Guitars" YouTube video, it reflects an equally frustrating experience with the airline. 

We made plans to travel to Porto Portugal for a 10 day vacation earlier this month.  When we arrived at O'Hare (ORD) for our flight from ORD -  Newark (EWR) with a connection in Newark (EWR) on TAP to Porto (OPO), we were told that the United flight to Newark had been canceled for mechanical reasons and that even though we were there two hours before the flight departure time and had an hour and a half transfer time in Newark that there were no possible flight connections to Newark on any airline that would match up with the TAP flight schedule. 

We assumed that United and their code share partner TAP (Portuguese Airlines) would have automatically re-booked us on flights to Porto, but this wasn't the case.  In fact, initially United International Check-In personnel said that since TAP wasn't a Star Alliance partner, that our only recourse was to take a flight the next day to Newark connecting to the daily TAP flight from EWR to OPO (if they had any seats available).  We corrected the harried agent and told him that TAP was a Star Alliance partner and after much work on the computer they finally re-booked us on a United flight from ORD to Frankfurt, connecting with a code share Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to OPO arriving 10 hours after our scheduled arrival time.  We finally arrived and had a great time in Porto.  United had other flights that would have left earlier, but was unable to get us on them.

Our return flight was on TAP from OPO - EWR, connecting with United Airlines on a flight from EWR - ORD.  All went relatively smoothly on the return, or so we thought.  We arrived in Newark about 45 minutes late, but still had plenty of time for our connecting flight to Chicago.  We made it through customs and took our bags with their TAP baggage tags with our United Flight 651 final destination of ORD still attached to the interline domestic transfer station, assuming there would be no problems with our bags.  Little did we know how wrong this assumption was to be.

When we got to ORD, we looked on the announcement board for what carousel had our bags, but couldn't find any mention of the flight.  Finally after looking at the screens at individual carousels we found the appropriate one with our Flight 651 from Newark.  We waited and waited for our baggage to show up, but nothing showed up. 

United Airlines apparently has decided to not only charge you for bags, but to eliminate people in its baggage services area, so now requires you to go to a baggage service kiosk to report missing or delayed bags.  I proceeded to the kiosk to fill out all my information on the three missing bags - a blue duffel bag, black garment bag and gray mid-size roller bag.  I assumed that I would be shown a confirming screen about my claim information or would be given a print out of my claim, but this was not the way United had programmed its kiosks.  I did receive a single short print-out with a United claim number that I could enter at United.com/bagtrack,  Needless to say I've been trying to locate my 3 lost bags since Monday with greater and greater frustration mounting all week long. 

The United Airlines bagtrack system stated:

"At this time, we have not received confirmation that your baggage has been located. We assure you we are doing all possible to search for your property and will provide an updated status as soon as we receive it. Meanwhile, please know most of our delayed bags are located and returned within the first 24 hours.

Once your baggage arrives and is available, we will contact you to arrange a convenient delivery time. If the address provided is a hotel, we will instead arrange to leave the bag(s) with the hotel front desk. It would be helpful to notify the front desk you are expecting a baggage delivery.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience." (emphasis added)

Given this statement of 24 hours being typical, I decided to try talking to a real person on day 2.  After getting through the Interactive Voice Response system, I finally located a real person, who told me that they would put a track on the bags at Newark and would call me back when they were found.  Needless to say United never called back.

I continued to check the United Airlines Bagtrack Baggage Claim Tracking website for updates and it still didn't say anything differently.  I called again and got the same answer after going through the IVR tree.  Meantime on Thursday night, someone from Newark Baggage Handling (not United mind you), called me to say they had found one of the bags, the blue duffel bag.  I explained the whole itinerary routing and gave him the United Baggage report number, but was told that they used numeric numbers not alpha-numeric like United.  He did say that he would deliver the bag to United in Newark. 

I assumed that my trusty little Baggage Claim Tracking System would show that United now had this bag and it was en route to its final destination in Madison, but obviously my assumptions were wrong.

Friday afternoon, we received a call from Lufthansa at Newark telling us that they had found our bags at Lufthansa, but didn't know where to send them since there were no airline claim tags on them.  We explained the whole story to the very helpful Anita at Lufthansa and she said she'd call us back and would get them to United.  She called us back later that afternoon and said she was transferring them to United for delivery to us.

One would assume that once United received these bags that the Baggage Claim Tracking System would be updated with the new information, but obviously my assumptions were wrong.

I continued to log on to the Baggage Claim Tracking System with no new information found on the system, so I decided to call United Airlines yet again.  I got to their call center which I assume is in India given the language skills of the agent.  I told him the story yet again and he still had no records of the 3 suitcases that have been found at Newark and at Lufthansa at Newark.  He put me on hold and did some further searching and finally found that two bags had flown out on United to O'Hare, but didn't know anything about the third bag.  He also couldn't tell me which of the three distinctly different bags in both form and color (blue duffel, black garment or grey roller)  were supposedly en route to O'Hare. 

Once again, I assumed that the United Baggage Claim Tracking System would be updated, but obviously my assumptions were wrong, since I still don't have any further information and am not any closer to knowing when or if these bags will be delivered here in Madison.

Not only have I now written this lengthy blog posting about my experience with United Airlines, I've tweeted about this incident multiple times @thewebchef all week long.  I would have assumed that United Airlines would have some sort of social media monitoring team to track and respond to these tweets, but obviously I'm wrong given that no feedback has been received.

I also would assume that their baggage claim tracking system would be continuously updated as new information was found but obviously I'm wrong about this too.

Now at 11:21, I got a call from the local delivery service confirming they were delivering two bags to my home and yet the baggage claim tracking system still hasn't been updated!  Needless to say, I still don't know where the 3rd bag is or when it will be delivered.

Viral Video Takes on United Airlines

Companies often don't get it when it comes to customer service. Airlines are big culprits in this regard. From fees for bags to snacks to possibly even using the toilet (one proposed revenue generator) they fail to remember that they are in the service business. In a video that has gone viral, the Sons of Maxwell, a band traveling on United Airlines to Nebraska, takes on the airline for breaking their Taylor guitar and for the lack of responsible customer service. The video is catchy and is not what you want to have happen to your brand.

Brands that Probably Won't Transfer....BARF Ad Clip

WPP in the Know and on the Grow, MSFT not too Slow

Today's news brings interesting information on the WPP Group's growing interest in the Internet.  Two items of interest demonstrating their strategy were reviewed in the mainstream media today.  The first and larger of the two is that WPP has agreed to purchase Internet Ad distributor 24/7 Real Media (TFSM) for $637 million in cash according to the Financial Times and interesting $649 million according to the New York Times.  I wonder where that extra $12 million came from and why the discrepancy in reporting from these two media powerhouses?  (Note: It was explained by the WPP website press release announcement on the acquisition explaining the purchase price as being $649 million based on $637 million to shareholders and "Unvested stock and options are valued at US$49 million and net cash is expected be approximately US$37 million to value TFSM at US$649 million.")

24/7 Real Media will continue to be run as an independent entity within WPP to allow for it to service a broad range of competing ad agencies and clients according to the reports.  The New York-based company had sales of around $200 million and provides services in 12 countries according to the press release.

In other WPP news today, The Wall Street Journal reports on the WPP Group's agency Kansas City-based VML and their brand monitoring software SEER that is "Monitoring thousands of web sites for key phrases, SEER tracks how criticism or praise of a company spreads from one blog site to another."  The brand monitoring technology is reportedly similar to that of Nielsen's Buzz Metrics* and NameProtect a Madison-based company acquired earlier this Spring by Corporation Services Company that I discussed in my article on Brand Protection in the Age of Digital Engagement that was published a couple of months ago on Wisconsin Technology Network.

Meanwhile in an even bigger deal showing the projected growth and belief in the advertising market, Microsoft (MSFT) announced the $6 billion purchase of aQuantive (AQNT) a leading Internet Advertising player.  It was interesting to see that while the deal was announced on the Microsoft website, I didn't see it on the aQuantive home page. The only indication of the action was in the significant increase in the share price on their investor relations page.

These purchases follow Google's acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this spring.

*(Aside - Interesting to see Nielsen Buzz Metrics branding strategy of an endorsed brand, while VML is kept in WPP's portfolio as part of a house of brands.)

Brand Building and Destruction in the Web 2.0 Era

As a follow-up to my two most recent articles on Wisconsin Technology Network - "Brand protection in the age of customer engagement" and "On the case: web lessons for connecting with customers" you might find that the following two articles provide supplementary insights.  The first from Knowledge @ Wharton is titled "Brand Building in the Digital Age: A Dizzying Array of Choices" and the other from Business Week is titled "Web Attack".  An interesting contrast of stories looking at building and destroying brands online. 

The Knowledge @ Wharton article reviews suggestions generated from a panel discussion framed around a central premise that in Web 2.0 era "any media offering has to be true to the established brand name -- taking that brand's strengths and then figuring out which technology platforms are most compatible with its core mission".   

The Business Week article has a listing of 5 Best Practice Ideas for managing your brand given the potential nastiness online.  Among the five steps they suggest that you follow are the following:

1. Engage critics
2. Be vigilant - (See tips in my article on Brand Protection on the importance of brand monitoring.  Although they don't mention NameProtect, they do reference BuzzLogic and ReputationDefender.com in the article.)
3. Jump in and Open Up
4. Don't Overreact
5. Stay Professional

Is your brand protected?

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Did you enjoy my article on branding? 

If you haven't read it yet, the article - "Brand Protection in a Content-Rich Web 2.0 Era" was just published by Wisconsin Technology Network.

I'd be happy to talk to you about my services auditing brands or presenting on "whole brands".  I look at a brand from every single touchpoint in the consumer relationship. 

Among the items I review include:

·       Web site and e-marketing communications

·       Sales reps

·       Customer service

·       Sales collateral and traditional marketing communications

·       Facility

·       Packaging

·       Phone Service

·       Technical documentation

My presentation "Brand Great or Grate?" will give your company or organization tips on how to create a Whole Brand.
 

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New Colum in Wisconsin Technology Network - Brand Protection in the Content-Rich Web 2.0 Era

Brands of all sorts are under attack!  This attack has led for the requirement that Marketing and Corporate Communications Managers be on top of strategies and techniques to maximize their brand's protection. 

To help you gain insights on this topic, I've written a new article Brand Protection in the Content Rich Web 2.0 Era for Wisconsin Technology Network. 

You might also be interested in looking at BrandChannel for additional insights on brand management.

Bad to Best Brand Blogging

Brand Channel author Adam Sauer has an interesting review of how brand managers/customer evangelists should handle negative and positive blog commentary. 

The first step is to be sure that you are monitoring your brand's temperature online either through free tools like Technorati, Google Alerts  He fails to mention, but I'd add hiring brand monitoring companies like Nielsen Buzzmetrics or NameProtect or independent consultancies like mine, CONNECTINGDOTS, to monitor and keep you apprised of your brand's status.  For example if you were on the marketing team at Starbucks, you'd probably want to monitor Starbucks Gossip or if you were at IKEA, you'd want to track OHIKEA, from a brand evanglist in Ohio..

As the review states the next steps in dealing with brand attacks are to:

1. Determine if the attack is against a campaign or your core brand
2. Don't immediately reply
3. Determine if it is a customer facing a single issue of disgruntlement and if so consider directly contacting them to solve the problem

There are various other suggestions in the article including these items he calls No-No's:

1. No black ops
2. No assumed name postings
3. No shady offers for good blog postings

Usability and Brand Loyalty

Frank Spillers at Demystifying Usability, has an excellent post about the Usability Poster, a visual representation of key factors in building a positive user experience.  The poster references the elements in the user experience that have a significant impact on your brand.  The article provides links to resources and research associated with each element of the user experience. 

The poster is based on research supporting the factors that he defines as "elements that contribute to a positive user experience - Loyalty, Trust,  Perceived Credibility, Profitability, Intent to Return, Intent to Purchase, User Satisfaction and Word of Mouth". 

Among the links to research studies provided that I found particularly interesting, was one to work compiled by Stanford University's B.J. Fogg - "Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility." A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab.  This resource provides a list of 10 guidelines for boosting web credibility that is similar to points that I make during many of my presentations on enhancing your brand through your web site strategy..

All of the information in this posting ties in nicely with a quote that I like to reference and elaborate on about the user experience -

"Whether their web site visit results in a brand building or brand eroding opportunity depends on your visitor's experience on your site"

Winning on the Web: The Executive Pocket Guide to Smarter Marketing

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Looking for help with making sure your brand and web site connects with prospects and customers?

Why not hire Paul Gibler, the Web Chef, for a third party strategic review or audit of your site.

Paul evaluates sites based on a methodology of looking at the 7 C's - content, commerce, community, creative, collaboration, customer service, connectivity.

Informative on Conversational Marketing

Informative has an interesting posting about Consumer Generated Brands or what they refer to as conversational marketing.  In this era of engagment marketing, marketers need to create a conversation with their customers and as Informative says recognize that "consumers get a chance to not merely be the brand judge, but the brand designer, the brand marketer, the brand manager". 

This ceding of control from the marketer to the consumer is creating discomfort among marketers and communicators used to the traditional marketing rules and dogma.  Astute marketers are expanding their conversations and connecting with customers in defining and refining their brands.