I must admit that I'm torn. Part of me wants to continue on this dogged crusade and part of me wants to just move on and accept that whilst I was able to get Delta's attention (monitoring the conversation), they just aren't set up or structured to turn lemons into lemonade (responding to the conversation).
Here's the blow-by-blow details:
- Within 24 hours of my first posting of Delta Skelter, I was contacted via cellphone by Tina, who works for Delta's head of customer service, Lee Mackensack.
- That was the good news. The bad news is that I was unable to get hold of Tina until Monday i.e. a full 3+ days went by before we connected
- I asked Tina if I could record the call. She agreed under condition that it didn't find it's way to my blog. I'm honoring the promise but will ask her if I can (with her approval) get something up in due course
- We spoke for 30 mins and she ultimately offered something to me, but again asked that I don't divulge the offer.
- I told her that I had no malicious intent in terms of harming the company or brand, but was speaking up on the basis of principle and the hope that given the opportunity to make this situation right, Delta would rise to the occasion.
Unfortunately, the offer was nowhere near what I asked for OR what I believe is reasonable/commensurate given the context and unique circumstances of the situation.
I did tell Tina that I would think about the offer and would not bias her or demand that she offers what I asked for as a bargaining chip per se. I thanked her for the offer but reminded her that I would decide what my next steps would be.
What I can tell you is that I did not get any of the following:
- one or two round trip first/business class tickets to anywhere in the world
- one or two round trip COACH tickets to anywhere in the world
- one or two round trip COACH tickets to anywhere in the continental US
To be honest, I was kind of shocked that, given this opportunity to rectify a bad situation, Delta was either just "unaware" i.e. unable to grasp the situation (potential, opportunity) or "hamstrung" i.e. not empowered to act accordingly.
Bottom line is that I believe Delta had an opportunity gifted to them on a silver platter and I'm sorry to say, they blew it. Some people have questioned whether my ask was a little over the top i.e. greedy. I'm not sure it was. I do think it was always meant to be a benchmark. For example, how hard is it to get an executive to sign a letter or approve an e-mail to be sent? This wasn't about my ego....this was what I believe any reasonable company committed to customer service would do in a similar situation.
Now I have to decide what to do and to be honest, I'm conflicted. Do I it go and move on or continue to fight? To help me with my decision, I'm turning it over to you. What do you think I should do? Let me know here in the comment thread or on the Delta Skleter Facebook Group.
Please let me know and I will defer to the wise crowd.
At this stage I will say that I am certainly leaning against giving Delta my future business. Will I fly them again? Of course, but not by choice. Will I continue to use my American Express Skymiles card? Probably not.
As a reminder: American Airlines is a crayon client, but I am writing this post and about this experience as a human, individual and most importantly, a customer â a Delta customer.
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