“You’ll Have to Speak to an Agent”

Pleasing customers. Especially when something has gone wrong. It seems like it should be so simple. But it never is.

I listened with horror last week as my brother Doug sat on hold for dozens of minutes at a time, on multiple occasions, trying to retrieve a lost bag from a non-stop SFO to Toronto flight. I’ll spare myself the pain of retelling that story… but rest assured its far worse than the mini rant I will now share.

I booked a one-way flight from Toronto to Boston and all seemed well. As I got ready to make the 3+ hour door-to-door trek by boat and car from Georgian Bay to Toronto’s Pearson airport, I attempted to check-in and print my boarding pass at the local marina. After going through the whole process, entering passport, passport expiration, Nexus #, selecting seats, hitting Continue a few times, it informed me at the last possible moment that it couldn’t check me in and I’d have to visit an agent at the airport.

An agent at the airport. When you plan to arrive 60 minutes prior to flight time for an international flight, even one that’s 55 minutes long, speaking to an agent at the airport is a death sentence. You are going to miss your flight.

For the next 2 hours I tried a few more times to check in. No luck.

I called Air Canada customer service. After the typical search for my information, he asked how he could help me.

“I’m cutting it very close because for some reason I’m unable to check in online. If I’m able to check in I’ll be fine, but if not, I have to be at the airport an hour before the flight which will be tight. I might miss the cutoff.”

“Let me see what I can do.” {click, click, tap, tap, tap, tap, click, click, click}. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m unable to check you in. You’ll have to see an agent at the airport.”

“Yes, that’s what its telling me. But if I’m late by a few minutes can it go on record to show that we tried to check me in so they will allow me to get on the flight?”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m unable to help you on this. This is reservations, and that is ticketing.”

I’m thinking… why do all of these companies set it up so that customer service/reservations/ticketing/whatever agents can’t at least transfer you to the airport, or to a person who can help, or help you themselves. But I know sharing that is useless. This guy is doing his job – that’s it.

“Ok, so then, I guess I’ll arrive and start begging.”

“What was that, sir?”

“I said I’ll just be prepared to beg then”.

“Sir, I must inform you that you must arrive 60 minutes prior to flight time and be checked in or you will not be permitted to board your flight.”

“Yeah, we established that at the beginning of the call. That’s why I’m calling you guys”.

“If you happen to have a laptop, you’ll need to arrive earlier.”

“Sir, I’m not going to make the 60 minutes cutoff, let alone earlier”

I let it end from there.

While pulled over for gas a bit later, I bit the bullet. While I wasn’t allowed to check-in, I knew that if I upgraded to business class for $157, when I entered the airport they would at least take me seriously, despite my 10-day beard and ragged Boloco ball cap.

Upgrade successful, I carried on.

After parking and walking to Terminal 1, I waited in line for 10 minutes before finally meeting my Gate Agent – it was now 12:10pm and the flight was scheduled for 12:50pm departure. I noted the economy class line was at least 45 minutes to an hour.

The woman frowned when I told her my attempts to check-in. She said it was because I had upgraded that caused the glitch. I told her I upgraded to see if I could circumnavigate the glitch.

But… as I had hoped… I was in the right line and was taken seriously. She said “I’m going to check you in, just try to make that flight”. Which as a mostly economy class flyer, is all I ever ask when late to check-in and they refuse to let me through…. “can I just try to make it and if I don’t we can find other options?” In Business class… “good luck Mr. Pepper. Thank you for choosing Air Canada (or any other airline)”. In Economy Class “Sir, you’ve checked in too late, we’ll be rebooking you on the next available flight which is… tomorrow morning at 11am” (!!) And god help you if you argue.

This all could have been avoided had the person on the phone been equipped to help my situation, which likely happens thousands of times per day. What an easy fix it would be – it seems to me – to empower your team to satisfy customers while on the line. The transfers, the holds, the dead ends… I wonder how these things still happen in 2017?! (I’ve since read that JetBlue is working on exactly this solution… link here)

Rant complete with a hint of an obvious solution provided….until next time.