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.

New Posting on IBMadison "Advancing by Retweeting"

Are you interested in learning how to use Twitter as part of your social media strategy?

If so, you might find my new blog posting at IBMadison -"Advancing by Retweeting" interesting.  The posting gives you 12 key steps to get going with Twitter.  It also analyzes some of the local, national and international businesses in Madison, Wisconsin that are using Twitter and briefly looks at some of the credit unions around the United States that are using Twitter.

Still confused about Twitter terminology? 

See this very informative post "The Non-Fanatical Guide to Twitter" from Deanna Zandt, that defines a tweet, retweet, #hashtags, followers, following, direct messaging, etc.  For additional resources related to Twitter see Scott Williams' blog posting "105 Twitter Tools".on BigIsTheNewSmall and for ideas on how to use Twitter in business, see Meryl Evans posting "62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business" at Web Worker Daily.

Happy tweeting!

Paul J Gibler, MBA
the Web Chef
@thewebchef

Off Topic - Celebrity Dancers...

I was sent this one and thought it was funny enough to share.  I'm not sure where it originally came from.

Political Humor and effective use of the Internet - Palin Attacks

It has been interesting to see how the web is being used to create an alternative narrative or to support the accepted narrative about a candidate.  It also continues to have significant viral effect as these two anti-Palin items make their way around the Internet.  The first uses the power of online video, while the second is a great example of an interactive web site - PalinAsPresident,  that encourages viewers to play with the site while generating a message supporting the producers intent.

Web Tidbits - Web 2.0, Photo Sharing

I've been remiss in posting to this blog. 

Here are a couple of links to articles and resources that I thing you'll find interesting.

State of the Blogosphere - Technorati, Day 1 of their 5 part series on the status of blogs.  Today's report covers "Who are the Bloggers?", with the next 4 days expanding on the topic.  Among the findings are that North American bloggers are 57% male, 59% above 38 years old and 74% college graduates (yeah!  I fit in).

Beyond Blogs - Business Week writers and bloggers Heather Green and Stephen Baker refresh their popular 2005 cover story "Blogs Will Change Your Business" with "Beyond Blogs", a refreshing look at some of the many tools of social computing that are having an impact within the enterprise and among consumers.

Photo Sharing Sites - Looking for photo sharing sites beyond Flickr?  Check out this listing and evaluation on Photography Bay of 45 sites.

The Disgruntled Employee, PowerPoint and Viral Marketing

Philebrity and The Globe and Mail have coverage of a PowerPoint presentation that was put together by a Comcast Customer Service agent explaining the "What doe CQE (Comcast Quality Experience) Really Mean" that highlights some of the significant problems that are being experienced by Comcast customers.  Philebrity actually posts the PowerPoint show, while Toronto's Globe & Mail comments on it.  While the presentation doesn't follow guidelines I'd suggest for an effective live presentation, it certainly serves as a tool for creating a story that you can read about CQE.

This story reminds me of other ways that PowerPoint and YouTube are being used to spread a message of dissatisfaction not only by employees, but even more importantly by customers.  One example of this that I saw several years ago was in a PowerPoint presentation ("Yours is a Very Bad Hotel")that a disgruntled customer created trashing their experience at a specific hotel that was part of a big chain in 2001.  Given that this PowerPoint presentation was created before the days of slide sharing tools like Slide Share and Authorstream the distribution occurred through e-mail and viral marketing of the slide show as it was re-mailed over and over again. 

Two points of interest - 1.) you can still find this PowerPoint presentation by doing an Internet search and 2.) when I gave a presentation in early 2002, I referenced this as an example of "negative viral marketing" and asked if anyone had seen or heard of this presentation.  In that audience of around 100 people 4 - 5 people had heard or seen the presentation.

Do you have examples of how PowerPoint has been used in this fashion that you'd like to share?

New Article published on Wisconsin Technology Network - "Nowhere to hide"

I've written another article for Wisconsin Technology Network in the ongoing series in the Buzz Networks series of columns.  The article "Nowhere to hide: buyer behavior in a connected world" discusses the impact of the Internet on buyer behavior.

Paul Gibler

Web Tidbits - Miscellaneous

Sorry for not posting for awhile.  I'm ready to get back in the blogging saddle...

Here are a few web tidbits and sites for your pleasure and exploration.

Wiki of obsolete skills - A to Z contributions of skills we no longer need.  A - Adjusting rabbit ears on top of a tv, Z - zmodem to transfer a file.  Perusing the list brought back some memories like eight tracks, formatting a floppy or rewinding an audio-casette using a Bic pen.

BusinessWeek talks about the TED conference introduction of Kluster (beta), a social network for product invention and creation.  The concept is that through the "wisdom of crowds" ideas will be converted into protottypes and solutions.  Also referenced in the article is Inkling, a Chicago based company that is creating a "prediction market platform" for generating results from groups.

Meanwhile Information Week, showcases the start-up HiveLive, a Boulder based enterprise social networking vendor that markets LiveConnect "a user-configurable building block for networking with people and sharing information.  Hives can incorporate forums, polls, blogs, wikis, and more."

Consumer Behvior - Retail Showrooms, Online Purchases and the Rise of Disintermediation

The Internet Changes Everything! 

We heard this cry for a number of years since the launch of a commercial Internet over ten years ago. 

How true is this when it comes to purchases of big ticket items? 

Are consumers ditching the local, regional or big box retailer for purchases online through channel participants with lower costs and hence lower total prices for acquisition?  If this is the case, the brick and mortar retailers will increasingly become the "free showrooms" where consumers armed with online review information can go and check out the plasma or LCD HDTV they are coveting.  This process is what academics and others call disintermediation or cutting players out of the supply chain when making your purchase.

For example we're in the market for an HDTV this year.  Thanks to a generous retirement gift, my partner can select a television within a certain dollar range.

So what has the purchase process entailed so far?  Like many consumers the purchase follows a range of steps. 

Step 1 - Research HDTVs on Consumer Reports, CNET and through word-of-mouth discussions with current owners

Step 2 - With the selection narrowed down to plasma's in our case, the second step was to go to the regional and big box retail showrooms to see the models that seemed to meet our viewing and budget criteria.  In our market, this meant visits to the the big box stores, Best Buy and Circuit City, along with regional chain American TV. 

Step 3 - We wanted to hear what the sales people had to say about the televisions.  In and of itself this was interesting, given the range of performance, knowledge and selling styles that we encountered.  Our first stop was American TV, a company I've blogged about before.  The first sales rep we encountered there appeared to be knowledgeable telling us that the model we were looking for, a Panasonic Plasma 50, had been replaced by a newer one that they had available.  He knew that the Panasonic we came in to see was a Consumer Reports best buy, so appeared to know his stuff,  He wasn't pushy, condescending or difficult to talk to.  The second stop was Best Buy where we found a nice sales guy in home electronics, who said "let me turn you over to the expert sales person for plasma televisions".  He did so and the guy was very knowledgeable and was even willing to offer us a deal on the television we had decided on.  The television was the original one we had looked for at American TV.  Best Buy had both models and said they were both available, making us question the American TV sales rep's knowledge or "truthiness".  Next stop was a visit to Circuit City.  The store had a noticeable lack of customers compared to either of the other two stores we had visited.  (Maybe their firing of all their top earning sales people is having repercusions after all!)  We found ourselves wandering among the televisions trying to find the Panasonic model we now knew existed without any help.  For a potential puchase of almost $3,000, you'd think there'd be some attention.  We finally found a sales rep, who took us over to the television we were interested and said "here you go, I have to go do some other things" and left us there.  If we had wanted to make a purchase it would have been difficult.  The price was $100 more then the deal Best Buy was willing to give us.  The way the unit was displayed allowed us to compare it to a Hitachi, Toshiba and LG units that were next to it and below it.  This led us to feel confident that the model was a good one that had a more life like color rendition to that of the competitive offerings.  A good thing, since the unit has a price premium.  We decided to return to American TV to see if the model was there and if a different sales rep would take us to it.  We thought this could be a way to support a regional chain that had started in Madison, WI our hometown and had done pretty well for itself.  We ended up with a real jerk of a sales person, who proceeded to demean us by saying that Consumer Reports and CNET reviews are useless and that only audiophile publications are worth following.  He said that the Consumer Report reviews were biased because the reviewers got to keep the televisions at the end, a fact we know to be false given the number of years we've subscribed to Consumer Reports.  His style and approach were extremely off-putting and offensive.  If I had been a secret shopper, I'd have put him on notice with his management team. 

Step 4 - This step actually happened between store visits.  I went online to the Panasonic web site to find the specifications for the model we were considering.  The set was there and was available directly from Panasonic for their list price of $2999.  The specifications confirmed that the unit had the features we wanted and that it would fit in the new piece of furniture we were buying to house it (another shopping tale in itself).

Step 5 - Although the television is a gift and the final price was within the acceptable range, it was at the high end of the range and I wasn't convinced that Best Buy or Circuit City were offering anything more for the money then I could get by shopping online.  I proceeded to three of my favorite shopping comparison sites (PriceGrabber, Mysimon, Shopping) with the model name and number at hand to see what the online retailers had to offer.  Not too surprisingly I was able to find a range of prices for the television including significantly better prices from sites where we had previously made and been happy with big purchases - Buy.com and NewEgg.  The prices ranged from a low of $2209 to a high of $3200.  The Best Buy price would have been $2749, plus tax.  Some online prices included free shipping, some from the national online retailers with brick and mortar locations included the state sales tax.

Step 6 - The purchase decision.  This hasn't been made yet, but for the retail showrooms there is a big red flag, if their business model doesn'f offer some sort of advantage to the online retailers.  If all they are going to do is go to their warehouse load up the tv and drop it in our family room, why should we pay them more than for an online retailer that loads up the television in a remote warehouse, delivers it to our family room and leaves?  The brief conversation with the sales rep isn't enough of a value added differentiator to make the product purchase swing their way. 

My Recommendations
What the local, regional or big box brick and mortar retailers need to do to clench the sale is offer some sort of added incentive to swing the deal their way.  They could offer something like the following:

• Free in home service for a year
• Removal of your old television for free (you now pay for this in Madison)
• Installation for free
• Customer workshops - getting the most out of your HDTV, understanding the home theater
• Purchase from us, we'll donate $xxx to a local charity of your choice    

Needless to say, the process has been interesting and one that offers a lesson for both shopper and retailer as they think through the best ways to connect with their target market.

New Column in Wisconsin Technology Network - Widgets

I've written a new column in the monthly series of articles, Buzz Networks, recently published in Wisconsin Technology Network.  The article "Widgets - web components for plug, play and pay" reviews the evolving and expanding world of widgets or gadgets and the benefits they can provide companies looking to connect and distribute their messages widely. 

With Facebook, Microsoft and the major blog platforms endorsing these portable applications, they will only be growing in the future.

If you'd like me to come and speak to your group on the latest developments in e-marketing, I'd be happy to discuss your budget, needs and schedule.  Please contact me in the United States at 608 255 4092 or via e-mail.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Paul J Gibler