No traveler hopes they’ll have to meet a customer service agent face-to-face during a trip. On the other hand, a human is generally much preferable to one of the airlines’ much touted kiosks.
While carriers say that these kiosks can handle rebooking canceled and delayed flights, the fact is that the “skills” of these machines are pretty basic. If the next flight has space, the machine puts you on it with some caveats — assuming the flight is operated by your original carrier, is going to the identical airport, etc, etc.
In short, if there is any kind of a complicated itinerary involved or a bad travel day with weather or a lot of other delays, the kiosks get overwhelmed pretty fast.
Since airlines have cut airport staff because they expected the machines to take over much of their jobs, overwhelmed kiosks turn into overwhelmed customer service agents and airport chaos develops pretty fast. (As a “brick and mortar” travel agent I must say that the silver lining in all this is a number of clients calling agencies again because they have “had it” with the online-automated world.)
But now it appears as if Delta at least is realizing that the savings in personnel costs may be costing them more in the long run. How else to explain the report in a newsletter for retail travel agents this morning that the airline is adding 700 airport customer service employees, and 300 additional reservations agents, primarily to deal with flight disruptions.
Delta will primarily fill these jobs from current part-time and reserve employees, but may actually hire new employees to fill the rest of them if needed.
What’s less important here are the details than the fact that Delta has acknowledged a problem and is now spending actual money to fix it. Whether it’s proactive customer service, or some management report telling them they are losing more money in the current situation, it’s hard to believe this could make things worse for travelers.
In fact, years ago, Delta was famous for their “Red Coats,” customer service agents empowered to fix issues on the spot. They canceled the program in 2005, and brought it back in a more limited capacity a few years ago. Whether these new agents will be “Red Coats” or not, it means more humans in case of a problem.
And while anyone who travels frequently has “stupid human stories,” overall, I think most of us agree, they are far better and more creative when problems develop than mindless machines.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
