This winter has been a challenging one for air travel. Hopefully, you haven't found yourself on a cancelled flight. I wasn't so lucky and while waiting on standby, I was frustrated by the lack of customer service from the airline. But then, I met one ticket agent (let's call her, "Grace") who "got it" and I salute three principles she used that made many stranded travelers feel better about their experience. These lessons can apply to any business.
Information is priceless. People get frustrated very quickly when they have no idea what's going on. The panic that comes with cancelled travel plans is multiplied when you can't get a straight answer from airline staff. Too often it seems like you're purposely sent into a long line only to find out that the agent at the front has no idea what's going on. Grace got on the loudspeaker and admitted that she didn't have all the answers for the hundreds of people who were waiting to catch a standby flight. But she did explain the process of getting everyone to his or her destination. Grace also let people know that once they were in the standby system, they were in it until they got on a plane. This kept many from worrying about whether they'd have to re-register every time they tried to catch a new flight on standby.
Listen to concerns but don't forget your needs. While Grace was willing to listen to traveler questions and concerns, she noticed that she was being asked the same questions again and again. This kept her from doing her other duties, which included getting as many standby customers on the next flight. So she gave out all the information one more time and asked that people leave her alone. And she asked for those of us who had been waiting for a while to let any newcomers know what was going on. By enlisting the crowd, she gave us something do to and allowed her to serve us better.
Humor never hurts. There's a lot of tension in an airport when it's packed with unhappy people. Grace would use humor in her announcements and that brought a smile to even the most tired traveler. "Trust me," she said with a sarcastic smile, "We want to get you out of here as much as you do." That sentence let everyone know that this was a tough day for those with tickets as well as the airlines. By using humor to acknowledge this point, an unpleasant situation became less adversarial.
My only regret from that day was that I forget to get Grace's full name or employee number. I would have sent a letter of recommendation to her airline about her excellent customer service. For now, let me just say, Grace, you were amazing!
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