Delta Doesn't Even Have A Customer Service Number Anymore
Are you unhappy with your recent experience with Delta airlines? Would you like to talk to someone about it? Using a telephone? Too bad. Delta doesn't even have a dedicated customer service phone number anymore. If you want to talk to them, like Time's Richard Zoglin did, you will have to call their corporate headquarters on an unpublicized number. You will then be told that they don't accept customer complaints by telephone and be sent back to the website.
From TIME:
A Delta spokeswoman seemed perplexed by the whole question. First she said simply, "We direct customers to our e-mail." After more checking, she reported that Delta does have a customer-care option on its toll-free number. When I couldn't find it, she checked once more and clarified: the customer-care line is found on Delta's main corporate phone number - but that number is not publicized and "it is not suggested" that customers call it. A representative at that number said they do not take customer complaints and directed me to the website.
We find that Google Finance is an excellent tool for escaping these sorts of circular traps.
The Airlines' Customer-Complaint Lines: No Answer [TIME]
(Photo:Zonaphoto)
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Comments:
You can always call the SkyMiles number, 800-323-2323. Or, if you're in the airport they generally have (at least in the larger hub cities) a phone bank that goes directly to service reps.
Does the FTC have any power over this?
Maybe this will get some action on Delta's part, but does anyone really read Time anymore, save for the six month old copies in doctor's offices?
Delta doesn't even have a dedicated customer service phone number anymore.
Makes sense to me. Delta clearly doesn't have dedicated customer service either.
@sleze69:
...why would they? I can't think of any reason why the FTC or anyone else could force a company to have a customer support center at all.
The best option, if the existence of a customer support center is important to you, is to fly on someone other than Delta.
I know that people might not like this, but from my own personal experience actually handling the company end of end-user support, you're way more likely to have a good experience using email or IM-style chat than the telephone. Why?
1. CSRs can only handle _one_ telephone call at a time. That means you need lots of CSRs to do phone support. More CSRs means it's harder to train them properly. Doing email or chat support means you can juggle multiple conversations at a time - not hard, really - requiring fewer CSRs, and thus you can train them better.
2. The "accent situation" is much worse over the phone than it is with an electronic medium. Most people can decipher Filipino or Indian English. They're going to have a much worse time with some of those accents.
3. You can audit email and chat support more easily and quickly than phone support. Listening in on those customer support call recordings is time-consuming and boring as hell. Reading transcripts of emails and chats is way, way faster. More auditing means, eventually, a better experience for our users.
4. Escalations are much more manageable when they can be handled over email, and don't require them to drop everything. Managers don't mind escalations so much when they're not getting shouted at over the phone - and they can do more research, too.
So, look, I know you like your phone calls, but they generally suck for everyone involved. Display some adaptability, and start using this new-fangled Internet stuff - it helps everyone.
it is probably for the better. odds are that your average customer service rep will make errors when transcribing a phone call. with e-mail you have the abilty to relay all of the accurate information and have it archived for your records.
if it results in a more efficient system of service, i'm all for it.
@Erwos: It is also much easier for the company to ignore an e-mail, or claim they never received it in the first place.
I think this is quite caring on Delta's part.
Why should they have someone whose only job is to tell you they can't help you? By not answering the phone, they help keep your hope alive that someone at Delta might actually care.
Thank you, Delta... for caring enough to not tell us you don't care.
@foodfeed: Restricting and shutting down avenues of communication will improve efficiency? The only result I see is it gives the reps more time to play one their twitter accounts.
I recently called United, and the customer service was so good that I figured either some outrageous fee would automatically be charged to my credit card or that the rep didn't actually change my flight as requested. I really would have liked to have had an e-mail or chat transcript of the part where she said "no fee".
Who can feel bad for these idiot airlines? They are the next bailout. I say let them all fail and allow the stronger companies to emerge out of the ashes.
No wonder why Southwest is so popular! (aside from the occasional big/tall person discrimination incident)
I prefer written correspondence anyway - when I wrote Delta a letter last year I got a pretty immediate response, and I was pleasantly surprised.
@twophrasebark: I can't wait until Consumerist gets forwarded the new form e-mail from Delta "Thank you for choosing Delta for your airline travel needs. We have your money, we've canceled your flight and we hate you. Piss off."
@Erwos: This actually makes a lot of sense from an efficiency stand point.
To @Erwos point there are still going to be people who don't have access to the website, which sucks. But, those people probably don't travel much or are going to spend money traveling on Delta.
Streamlining the customer service process is inevitably going to leave some people in the run around. The staff at the reservation lines should be better equipped to satisfy those peoples requests though.
Also, Delta sucks.
@Porcelina: Yep, that's my thought exactly. There are people out there who do fly but do not use computers.
When traveling with the husband I found it extremely aggravating not to reach companies by phone when I had no internet access.
@Erwos: Oh, and yes, I do not believe you that this system is better for the consumer. It only helps Delta hide behind an address that they can choose to ignore at their own pleasure.
@Laines: I've never flown on or worked for Delta. You had no good response to me, so you nailed me with an ad-hom attack. Very mature.
You can believe me or not. I have years of experience in this area. I'm just not a sucker for the groupthink that pervades the comments on this site.
@Erwos: The problem is that you sometimes need help on the road. If I am traveling and I need to make a change, I may not have access to my computer during the trip.
@Erwos: Yeah, right. The last time I used internet-based customer "service" - I did an online chat yesterday - I was given completely incorrect, unusable information and had to call back today anyway. Oh, and nothing got "logged" about my online interaction so I had to start over from scratch.
Also, anytime I've emailed a customer service address with a question, I've received a form letter response that usually doesn't address the question I've asked. It takes 5 or 6 emails to get someone to actually read my question and respond appropriately.
I'm moving soon and was trying to get my gas and electric started at the new place. I did the handy online form - then received an email saying I had to call because they needed more information from me. Information they hadn't asked on the form!
On paper your ideas make some sense. In practice - efficiency FAIL!
@Erwos:
And yet my company (an unnamed Fortune 50 corporation) just did away with email support. Now you can either call or utilize our Live Chat feature. Mac users...not so fast, Internet Explorer only.
I haven't a clue what the thought process was in that decision.
@Erwos: No, you instead gave a "The company is always right" excuse that doesn't excuse anything about Delta's attitude for their customers. I have years of experience as an airline customer but I don't claim to be an expert and the only opinion that counts in this discussion. That was your claim.
@Porcelina:
I'd like to agree with you, but then I thought, what about people who don't have access to telephones or computers? It isn't any better to assume everyone has a phone than it is to assume everyone has internet.
This is the difference between real airlines and the flying cattle trucks that you have to tolerate in the States.
At Lufthansa, complaints from Frequent Flyers are assigned to a senior manager who personally case-manages it to resolution.
3 benefits: the customer is talking to someone who takes him/her seriously, management (and these are people from any of the myriad companies within the Group) get to experience the coalface and systemic issues get fixed.
@Schmeeky: Interesting. Maybe you've got a different support structure than us? Our CSRs had to handle a LOT of different issues, so maybe if you've got a dedicated department that would work better for call centers. *shrugs*
I know for a fact that switching to email worked really well for us, because I was the one who actually writes the scripts to calculate all of the customer (dis-)satisfaction numbers. :)
Somewhere I think I have an old copy of Tom Peters' "In Search of Excellence", where back in 1988, Delta was one of the poster-boys of a great company: terrific customer service, happy loyal employees, and big profits.
And my experience with them back then was pretty much exactly that.
What the hell happened to them?
I'm sure they have a ticket booking number that is immediately answered, 24/7.
@calittle: This should probably be tagged to the article. The SkyMiles number is pretty good info to have.
@Bruce Bayliss: Oh, it's entirely possible (likely?) that there is a customer service number for Delta's elite flyers, it's just not available to those flying fewer than 25,000 miles/year.
@MMD: I *just* had this happen with Amazon not 5 minutes ago. I ended up getting it resolved because the customer service rep said he'd make a "one time exception for me" but "you must make your qualifying purchase during the timeframe of the promotion" yet... I said I bought the item yesterday 9/8 and the promotion runs 9/1-9/30. I fail to see why I need an exception to be made other than they didn't read my email.
I thought listening skills were bad, reading skills for customer service problems are even worse.
@bobert: They let it go to their head; meanwhile the innovators took over.
Same thing happened to Yahoo and MyCrapSpace.
@Erwos: I wouldn't have a problem with email based customer service if they actually read your email to begin with. It's so frustrating to have to go back and forth 5 or 6 times when you gave them all of the information in your original email, what could've been resolved on the phone in 5 minutes now took all day or sometimes several days.
@Laines: When did I say the company was always right? I said that this makes sense as a move on its own merits, and isn't necessarily oriented around screwing customers.
You haven't expressed any real arguments against what I wrote. Instead, you attack ME for actually defending Delta's action in this particular case. Just keep telling yourself that I'm an agent of the man or whatever - it must be a lot easier than actually trying critical thinking for once.
@Laines: Actually I was thinking the form letter response would be:
"Thank you for contacting Delta Airlines.
We welcome customer comments and greatly appreciate your feedback. We will review your message shortly and provide a response if appropriate."
Your original message is then parroted back beneath this response, then both messages are immediately wiped off Delta's mail servers.
@CFinWV: Fair enough. I'm sorry if I portrayed this as a cure-all panacea. I'm just saying that email and chat strikes me as a better support mechanism than calling.
@MMD: It does make sense that email or other electronic methods for customer service could be better and more efficient than phone support, however, that doesn't prevent companies from implementing it poorly.
The future:
Make reservations on your own computer.
Only web check-in kiosks at airport.
You insert credit card to pay Delta an extra fee for checking in your own bag at Kiosk.
If bag is too heavy, you pay extra weight fee.
You print out bag barcode and put it on your own bag.
You place bag on belt and it is scanned on its way to plane.
If you are too late, Kiosk will tell you that you can not check-in. You will have to purchase a new ticket.
If all goes well, Kiosk will print out your ticket.
Take your carry-on to security.
If you make it past security and to the gate, you will self scan your ticket and pass through a man-trap gate.
Before you get on the plane, you will have the chance to purchase food & beverage and rest room tokens.
Once on the plane, you seat yourself and wipe your finger across a biometric scanner to identify yourself.
The LCD screen in front of you will play the FAA safety video and you will press a button agreeing to the TOS.
If you need assistance while on board, your video screen will have an FAQ you can read.
At the scheduled time, the plane hatch will close and fly to your destination all without a single human operator.
Constant stories like this about airlines WILL cause them to get regulated again or have laws passed to govern how they treat customers.
They brought it on themselves.
@FatLynn: If it was better than normal, you should call or write to them about it. Very seldom do companies get to hear about them doing something well. A majority of people are only vocal when something goes wrong.
On the other hand if you were just surprised that they did their job correctly, I wouldn't really call that a plus.
Hell, I even called a Taco Bell once to tell the manager that I had the best Nacho Bel Grande ever (those things are hit or miss).
I wonder how long it'll be before Delta starts trumpeting itself as the leader in airline service due to the reduced number of customer complaints?