Class on Demand Report Card

News, views, and information from COD | March 2009

Paul Holtz Fires Back

Is it just me or is this recession making people nuts! I was on a flight last week and sitting in seat 8C, the first row of economy. The fasten seat belt light had been on for almost an hour after takeoff due to turbulence. The in-flight crew comes along with the drink cart just as the captain turns off the seat belt sign and tells us it’s OK to move about the cabin with the prerequisite warning about keeping ourselves buckled when in our seats. I’m in need of the restroom; men of my age will attest to the fact that from onset to desperation can now be measured in minutes rather than weeks like it was in my younger days. So, blocked by the cart and crew now at row 10 I decide to head for the business class restroom. The business class flight attendant steps in front of me and reminds me that I’ve been told that these are reserved for business class passengers only. I am as pleasant as can be, I’m from the Midwest, we know pleasant, and acknowledge that I’ve heard the announcement. I explain that while I’d like to adhere to the airline’s policy my urgently needed bathroom break is blocked by a cart and crew and there’s no way, with my figure, that I can “squeeze past.” The steward is relentless and now informs me it’s an FAA regulation. Really? Are you kidding? I know the government probably has a 5,700-page dossier on in-flight toilet usage; the culmination of many years’ research and many tax payer dollars. But I’m guessing it really doesn’t specify that people in 8C cannot use the closest bathroom. After I ask the attendant, in a pleasant way, if this is really the case and that I’m not trying to be a pest but nature calls, she relents and I am relieved in more ways than one.

Isolated incident, I think not. A few days later my cell phone stops ringing. I fiddled with the settings and there was no way I could get it to play a ring tone. This is a replacement I received in November last year for the original, whose “main chip” died I was informed. I’d had that phone for about seven months before its demise. I head to the Verizon store and show my non-ringing phone to the assistant. They fiddle with the settings and tell me the ringer is broken. My technical faith is restored. “No problem,” he tells me “we’ll replace it.” That’s more like it, I think, proper customer service. “Oh,” he says, “your phone is out of warranty.” I explain it can’t be out of warranty because it was replaced only five months ago due to a deceased main chip. “Ah yes,” he says, “but your original phone was more than a year old. The warranty is with your original phone not replacements.” First I check to make sure I’m not on Candid Camera and then explain that my old phone has probably now been recycled in to a trash bin and sitting on a shelf at Bed Bath and Beyond. Suffice to say that a call to the office the intervention of the store manager and much level headed explaining resulted in a replacement phone. Was I, a customer for ten years who pays $150/month for their service, supposed to feel good about the fact that they were not supposed to do this and were doing me a favor?

On my way home from Verizon with my new phone I started wondering why it seems that customer service is heading in the wrong direction. I have concluded the following; that customer service agents are so concerned about their jobs in a highly volatile job market that they are delivering service by the book. Whereas in the past these people would have let these small things go they are now rigidly enforcing the corporate policy. This seems ironic as it's only because of customers paying for this service that these corporations exist in the first place. You’d think that executives would be sending the exact opposite direction to their staff, “now’s the time to step up our customer service game.”  Hopefully, this recession will be over soon and we can all return to mediocre customer service.

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