Why Track All Customer Interactions? Ask United Airlines.

Are customer queries ending up unattended because they get lost or misdirected?

It can be a hugely expensive error to let customer support channels go unanswered, as United Airlines are learning these days.

Recently, Armando Alvarez, a vice president at Best Buy, was flying from Dulles International to Connecticut, when he was denied a frequent flyer upgrade to First Class. A gate agent revoked Alvarez' upgrade when he went to board the plane because the agent deemed his Puma track suit 'too causal' for seating in First Class. 

In an interview with MyFoxAtlanta.com, it sounds like Alvarez' (well founded) grievances could have been addressed early on when he reached out to the company by phone and letter.

There's no way of knowing why United Airlines didn't respond to Alvarez' initial outreach to the company, but we do know the end result - we read about his story in Huffington Post and watched the video on MyFoxAtlanta.com.

Having a customer service protocol in place that tracks every customer interaction in an open and accessible system, helps ensure customer service issues are dealt with in a timely and effective manner. Perhaps if Alvarez' complaint had been visible to more United Airlines people, and promptly and adequately dealt with, we wouldn't be writing this post.

In the meanwhile, United Airlines, if you're reading this, we'd be happy to set you up with a Zendesk trial account and walk you through a roll out ;-)

Comments

[Adam]

American Airlines doesn't fly from IAD to Connecticut. This passenger would have been flying from IAD to Dallas or maybe Chicago and then back to Hartford (the only place AA flies in Connecticut). I would almost bet that this was ACTUALLY United Airlines - the airline that operates a hub at Washington-Dulles.

That may be the reason that AA hasn't responded...he wasn't their passenger.

[Mikkel]

You're absolutely right, Adam. My mistake hereby corrected. Embarrassing. Apologies to AA.