Hanging up
After waiting for customer service to take me off hold for more than TWO HOURS, I accidentally lost the call when I had to run to retrieve a screaming toddler from his crib. (Little Dude didn’t nap long enough and judging by his screams, he wasn’t ready to wake up.)
I was so frustrated. (Understatement of the year – I was livid, to put it lightly…)
Little Dude was crying, and then I started to cry – it was not a pretty picture. Then, since I was crying, Little Dude began to cry more.
When the Hubby got home, I tried again, and finally got through. I was very calm and polite, and told the customer service representative why I was calling and how I waited for more than two hours the first time. She said, “Yes, it has been a busy morning here.” NO APOLOGY! In fact no apology for the inconvenience of any of this throughout any of the call – and I was nice to her.
In the end, I mentioned that I have a Web site, and that I had already posted this horrid experience for my visitors to read. I said that I knew it wasn’t her fault, but that I would appreciate she share my displeasure with her “powers-that-be.”
Her response? “You should have used our Web site to cancel your flight, then. It isn’t our fault that you had to wait.” And then she sort-of huffed into the phone.
Umm, you can read my prior post to see what happened when I tried that method.
Now here is what I have to say to the current executives at Midwest Express, who obviously don’t care about long-time customers. Never mind that these customers have shared glowing reports of their service for years, always recommending to others to “pay the little extra as you will never have a bad experience.”
(Seriously laughing at that last statement right now…)
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I used to book you, even when it cost a little extra, as I have always been impressed with your customer service. What happened?
You boast of the, “best care in the air,” and I’m happy to hear it, because you certainly have horrible care on the ground, as of recently.
You let the news of the canceled flights hit the media before you bothered to contact your customers about these cancellations, and then you don’t even bother to apologize for the inconvenience?
I realize airlines are getting hit heavily with the increase in the cost of fuel and I sympathize. But my sympathy and understanding for you, Midwest Express, went out the window with the HORRIBLE customer service, I experienced today.
Luckily, we were able to reserve seats on another airline, but thanks to you, Midwest Express, I almost lost out on the chance to be with my family this fall. By the time you would have notified us of this change, we wouldn’t have been able to afford the only seats left on the other airlines. The prices were going up as I browsed for a new flight this afternoon.
As I told my sister, who is also dealing with this mess, I can deal with receiving a horrible product or canceled services, as long as customer service is wonderful, apologetic and assists me with rectifying the situation. When it comes to bad customer service, though, I tend to shout it from rooftops, which I am now doing.
From what I can tell, Midwest Express is sliding downhill in how they treat their customers – and quickly. And my love for you, Midwest Express, is gone.
You can keep your chocolate chip cookies. (And although my dad would cheer me on, my mom would be horrified, so I won’t be crass and tell you what you can do with those cookies.) I prefer knowing I won’t be ignored, treated as insignificant and that I will actually have a flight when needed.
Thank you.
Bad customer service kills companies, and it sounds like Midwest Express is done and over. I’m sorry you had such a crappy experience.
I am so sorry to hear this. I wish I could say I was surprised that the customer service, but sadly, I’m not. It seems like it’s unusual to have GOOD customer seriver these days. In fact, I’m surprised when I do get good service because I expect it to be bad…and that’s really sad.
Yeah, you already know my feelings here. I keep telling myself that the trip is worth the hassle. It really is. C and B were in total fret mode this afternoon. They were much happier when we found new flights. Trouble now means smooth sailing, I mean flying, later, right?
Sorry about your experience. I can’t begin to imagine how frustrating the whole thing must have been for you.
Glad to hear that you solved the ticket problem. I hate poor customer service … It makes me feel very old, because it always makes me say “It wasn’t always like this … I remember …”
Here in the UK it is getting worse and worse … When you go into a shop and the person behind the counter can barely drag herself away from conversation or throws my change on the counter, I feel like saying “I don’t have to shop here” … but the probelem is she probably doesn’t care and wherever I go is likley to be the same.
I hope your trip goes well.
I hope you get a response from them, because you’re absolutely right. Just poor.
UGH!!
Its sooo true – bad customer service can ruin a very good relationship with said product.
Sorry you have to go thru this. But I’m more than happy you got another flight!
Oh… and we had a TERRIBLE flight/vacation this past January with Sunwing Vacations – and it took them 5 months to respond. And another month later – they offered us all $200 voucher to use on the next vacation we book with them…
Yeah.
Not sure that’s gonna help much.
ACK! Flying is such a pain sometimes!! I’m sorry you had to deal with that. What a royal PITA!
What a pain! I’m glad you finally got through, but no way should it have taken that long… And there is no excuse for rude behavior!!!
I think the call centre approach to customer service has taken away the personal touch. Still no excuse for poor and rude behaviour. And I do see it from both sides, because my son worked for a telephone survey company, and D1’s boyfriend works for a support call centre. They have both told horror stories have how awfully they have been treated, despite how polite they have remained. I think the really tough thing for both the customer and service rep, in this situation, is that they have to stick to the script. My son would quite often get in trouble for deviating from the script, even though it meant serving the client better.
I can’t believe you stayed on the line for almost 2 hours!!! My attention span and patience is way too limited for that. I’m impressed.
What a royal pain for you to have to deal with. I’m glad you were able to book with another airline. It’s too bad that customer service is so horrible lately EVERYWHERE.
Windstream should make no claims about good or even acceptable customer service. I have reached this opinion based on how Windstream has treated me over the past 8 days.
Contact with Windstream on 7-25-08
I called my local Windstream office to see about telephone and internet service. I gave the lady my information (name, address, cell phone number, etc) She read back the information with the wrong street name. I corrected her saying it was South not West. She told me that someone would call me on 7-28-08 with my new phone number and scheduled installation date and time. As I work via the Internet, I will have to delay working for one week and take a loss of $1000 wages.
7-28-08
I did not receive a phone call from Windstream.
7-29-08
I went into the local Windstream office. The lady couldn’t find my information in the computer. Finally she found the handwritten form in a cupboard. She wrote my phone number and installatin date (8-1-08) on a blue post-a-note and gave it to me. I asked what time on the 1st would the technician be out. She said “Oh, they will call you before they come out”. Then she verified my cell phone number.
8-1-08
Ok I have planned my whole day to be home and available for the Windstream service technician. At 2pm, I call the office wondering if the tech is coming or not. The lady tells me that they work until 7pm and yes the tech will be out. She doesn’t verify any information like name, address or contact number.
8pm on 8-1-08
No technician, no phone call from the technician or the Windstream office. I contact the repair department as they are the only ones available. The lady there informs me that I am not in the system and would have to contact the business office on Saturday morning between 8 and 5 EST.
8:15am EST 8-2-08
I call the phone number I was given by the repair representative and get a recording that tells me I need to call back during business hours. So I call repair again. The lady there tells me I have to wait until 8am my time (MT) to reach the business office. So I go to Windstream.com. There it says that the business office is open from 8:30 to 5 Eastern. By now it is 8:40 Eastern. So I call the business office number again. I still get the recording that I need to call back during business hours.
So I call repair again. I ask to speak with a supervisor. I explain to the supervisor that I am very upset and I really need to contact the business office. She places me on hold while she gets someone from the business office on the line. The person from business finally finds my installation information. He is upset with me because I don’t have the work order number. I was never given a work order number.
Finally he finds my information and tells me that I gave them the wrong address so my installation was placed on hold until I contacted them. He informed me that it was my fault that the tech was sent to West instead of South and that I would just have to wait until the next available time for installed. I asked him why the technician had not called me when there was a problem; he said “We don’t do that. We wait for the customer to call us when we don’t show up.”
I went to where I had Internet access to look up the corporate information for Windstream. I find the main office number. I call it and as I expected, got a recording. The male voice said to leave a message and someone would return my call during the next business day. Then a female voice says “This number does not accept messages”.
So the poor communication and customer service starts right at Windstream corp headquarters.
So here I sit waiting until 8-8-08 sometime between 8 am and noon to maybe, possibly, have a technician appear to install my phone/internet service. I wonder if Windstream will reimburse me for the second week of lost wages or even apologize to me for the physical and emotional stress their poor customer service has caused me.
You might want to check out FlyerTalk’s forum for Midwest Airlines:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=496
and specifically this thread:
It appears that individuals who booked directly w/ Midwest Airlines are getting screwed big time.
Sorry, I omitted the thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=859947