Easyjet show how not to do Customer Service

[pward]

gem makes a good point; high percentages of airline flights depart and arrive roughly on time and are uneventful. The Airline TV documentary mentioned by another poster would be very boring if it showed the reality of things working correctly most of the time. The problems can start when things occasionally do go awry.

The UK seems to have a love-hate relationship with low-cost airlines. We love the low fares but hate the lack of customer service, charging for everything above and beyond a seat etc etc. However, we cannot have it both ways and, like it or not, it's the cost-cutting measures which enable the low fares; running an airline is expensive.

Some people (no-one on this thread!) also have a sense of 'entitlement' and get demanding when dealing with airlines and should understand that an airline ticket is just a vague promise to get you from A to B at some point. If you are going to some really, really important event then you should at least think about a backup plan to get you there. Also, with the exception of some of the recent Euro compensation laws, airlines aren't obliged to do very much for you when things go wrong. Most will help, but they don't have to.

Having said all that, what Mike went through sounds horrible and could have been made better by EasyJet communicating with its customers. The outcome may not have changed, but many customer service situations can be helped by good communication.

[MaFt]

i've personally not had any issue with easyjet and have found them very helpful particularly when i was rather suddenly ill as we boarded one time last year!!

however, regardless of what you pay it should be easy to contact a company either by phone or email (preferably NOT automated!!) and it would only be courteous to explain what is happening when 2,000 passengers are left sat around waiting to take off!

imagine the uproar if it got to a normal wednesday and there was no camera database release (there isn't one today, by the way, but this has been previously published!) and the 4 of us didn't reply to any forum queries or support requests about it? this would be a tiny team of 4 failing to deal with a few thousand users compared to how ever many hundreds of easyjet support team not dealing with with 2,000 users...

there's a big difference here! in my opinion the 'budget' part of budget airlines refers to the flight experience itself i.e. no free meal, pay extra for hold luggage - literally just a flight. whether it's an airline, a bus company or a local restaurant then customer service should always be priority and anything that is 'not normal' in the proceedings (such as 9 flights sat about waiting for something to happen with all the passengers none-the-wiser after already being delayed 6 or so hours) should be explained to the paying customers who have a right to know why the service paid for is not being provided!

MaFt

[Allan_whoops]

Try the train and I'm not joking! Some friends were going down to Aix en Provence from Kent (though this may apply from other places) and it was going to be quicker (door to door) and cheaper to go Eurostar to Paris and TGV onwards plus they arrived in Aix not Marseilles.

[jeta1]

I’ve worked in UK aviation for nearly 20 years, as a service provider my job depends on the airlines being successful, it is cause of great concern (though not in anyway surprising) to read this account. Mike talks about the ripple effect of an incident like this, taking a wider view then those ripples impact me because this can put people off flying! No passengers, means no flights means no service required … and it is hitting this industry hard

The lack of lines of communication to businesses these days is getting worse, the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair have a very high profile so attract lots of comment but there is a general trend by lots of customer facing businesses to make it as difficult as possible to contact a real person.

Reading the account of this event one thing that springs to mind is that it just got too late to despatch the flight from the UK. If they were relying on having the plane back in the UK for an early morning departure the following day and it looked like it wasn’t going to get back then they may well hold it back so the plane is in the right place for the start of schedules the next day. This will not be admitted officially but you can find people in the industry who will admit that it goes.

I love flying but hate the airport experience as a passenger. My job takes me to some 25 airports around the UK, my preferred mode of transport … the car (with my trusty satnav + pocketGPS database)

The only way to get things changed with regards to customer service is to do exactly what Mike has done which is publicise, in very factual and unemotional way, exactly what went on and let others make up their own mind. If you just happen to have access to a high profile website seen by 1000’s of people then so much the better.

As an example of good customer service from my own experience I would say that Tesco Mobile seem to have got it right. An easily contactable UK based (North Manchester) call centre staffed by people who appear to want to help…

[razak]

I WONDER WHO STELIOS FLIES WITH.

[razak]

JUST TO ADD OIL TO THE FIRE .. HAS ANYONE TRIED TO CLAIM FOR DAMAGED LUGGAGE.

I DID, FILLED OUT ALL OF THE FORMS ON THE DAY ... AND THEN ... SSILLLEEEENNNCCCEEEEE.

WHEN I RANG THEM I WAS TOLD " I WAS LATE IN CONTACTING THEM TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO MY CLAIM".

I BET SOME ONE CAN BEAT THAT.

RAZAK

[Skippy]

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