When the Customer is Upset, Things Are NOT Fine

Reinforced by clichêd television shows, movies and any relationship that has hit the slightest of rough patches, saying "I’m fine" is one’s surest option for confirming he is not fine.

When one cannot even construct enough of a faèade to declare he is okay, things, therefore, must be exceedingly bleak.

Someone forgot to pass that message along to American Airlines.

Hoping to connected with old friends and new acquaintances with whom I spent the past week in Las Vegas, I searched the #callcenterweek hashtag on Twitter. Amid the thank-yous, event photos and pithy summaries of the conference content was a post from TMCNet’s Rachel Ramsey, who wrote, "Pretty ironic I'm having the worst customer experience ever on my way home from #callcenterweek. @AmericanAir...I'm looking at you."

In continuing her dialogue with American Airlines (who, to its credit, did at least acknowledge and respond to her Tweet), Ramsey explained that she was required to wait two hours to reclaim a wallet she accidentally left on the plane.

"They found it within 10 mins of calling, but took about 2 hrs to deliver it to me at baggage services," explained the disgruntled customer.

The reunion with her wallet was not enough to account for the poor experience. Likely tired from the long event (and her flight), waiting—especially with the knowledge that the wallet was located so quickly—was not at the top of her to-do list, and American Airlines’ utter refusal to ignore that reality exacerbated the situation. In showing little regard for the value of her time and the importance of quickly reclaiming her wallet, American emphasized how low her needs were on its proverbial totem pole.

That anyone could grasp that the wait time and accompanying disrespect—not the mere act of losing her wallet—was the source of frustration makes American Airlines’ response all-the-more baffling:

We're sorry for the delay in getting you your wallet, Rachel. We're happy you're reunited with it. Have a great weekend.

Though it did include an apology for the delay, American’s response quickly worked to shift focus on the fact that the wallet was returned. As such, American felt comfortable drawing the conversation to a close with the "have a great weekend" sign-off. The issue, as far as American was concerned, was put to bed. Yes, the delay was unfortunate, but hey, she got her wallet back! What else matters?

Tone-deaf, the troubling response vividly demonstrates why so many brands struggle to consistently satisfy their customers. Like American, far too many brands overlook experiential challenges in resolving an issue, forgetting that, in many cases, those experiential matters are the issue.

Just as one’s cable service should work properly, one’s book shipment should arrive on time and one’s hotel room should be billed correctly, one should never doubt that an airline will return lost items to their rightful owners. It would signal an absurd, major service breakdown if American, for some reason, refused to return Rachel’s wallet, but failure to return the wallet is not the only potential breakdown. How it goes about locating (and communicating that it did) and actually returning the wallet contribute to the customer’s experience and they can therefore play a significant role in determining customer sentiment.

If Rachel viewed the two-hour delay as a mere hiccup or footnote in the process, she would not have been so quick—and direct—in Tweeting her frustration. To Rachel, what seemed to matter most about the experience was not that she had her wallet back (because why wouldn’t she get it back) but that American put her through an unnecessary, taxing waiting period (of course – since I cannot read her mind – I would be sure to question her more deeply if I were responsible for providing her with service).

In serving the customer, American’s response should correspond perfectly with that of the customer. If Rachel’s priority structure ranks the wait time ahead of the wallet retrieval, so too must the organization’s response.

It, therefore, should have focused on the fact that the customer was still upset about waiting and figure out what it could do to transform that situation. Instead of brushing the source of her anger under the rug, it should have embraced her feedback as an opportunity to get closer to the customer (both this specific one and the abstract, collective "customer") and determine the most worthwhile path to resolution.

From offering a deeper apology, to explaining the situation, to providing a make-good, to vowing to remove such a delay from the process (and explaining how), American Airlines had a host of opportunities for better connecting with Rachel and, insofar as the response was public, better demonstrating its customer-centricity.

A customer’s silence is not the same as his satisfaction, and it is for that reason that organizations are urged to be proactive in recognizing—and responding—to potential customer service issues. In properly serving customers, it is the organization’s job to dig deeper into silence and determine whether things are truly going right or wrong.

The ambiguity of silence is, in itself, enough reason for organizations to continually question whether they are doing right by customers. It is enough reason to question whether "first call resolution" can be evaluated by anyone but an active-speaking sample of the customer base.

Here, however, American did not even have a silent customer—it had a communicative customer that was quite clear in its dissatisfaction. Yet it still operated without regard for that customer’s sentiment or interpretation of the situation. It focused on its own value system and priorities, rather than those of the customer, and thus demonstrated the superficiality of its customer satisfaction effort.

Since the service experience is created for the customer, only the customer can be the judge of its success. And it is only the customer whose sentiment should have any impact on the situation.

I do not desire to speak for Rachel; for all I know, she was fine with how American Airlines responded to the situation. But for my money, I see a customer complaining about a wait time and an organization downplaying that complaint in emphasizing that another element of the experience—returning the wallet—was successful. For my money, I consider experiences I have faced in which organizations saw their obligation not as meeting my needs and resolving my issues but in doing what they deemed most appropriate.

For my money, I see an organization that failed to truly connect with its customer.