Travelstart customer service a big fail

Times Media consumer writer Wendy Knowler writes a weekly column on issues affecting consumers. If you have something you would like her to investigate, send your queries to: consumer@knowler.co.za Follow her on Twitter: @wendyknowler

WHICH personality type makes the best customer service rep – accommodator, competitor, controller, empathiser, hard worker, innovator or rock?

Each has their strengths in dealing with an irritated or angry customer, but companies tend to favour the empathisers by a wide margin, according to a study of 1 440 customer service reps, published in a report titled “Kiss-Ass Customer Service” in the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Empathisers enjoy solving others’ problems, seek to understand people’s behaviours and motives and listen sympathetically – perfect for handling prickly customers, surely? That’s what I’ve always thought, too.

But it turns out controllers make the most effective customer service reps despite that they are the bosses’ least-liked personality type – only 2% of those surveyed said they’d hire controllers ahead of other personalities.

Controllers excel at serving the needs of customers because, the study authors said, “they are driven to deliver fast, easy service”.

“They describe themselves as ‘take charge’ people who are more interested in building and following a plan than going with the flow.”

In other words, what consumers with a problem want is someone to not just say sorry, but fix it. Fast.

The following observation by the report’s authors captures the problem perfectly: “As companies have focused on new self-service technologies, they’ve underinvested in frontline service talent . . .

“The live service interaction has barely changed in decades, creating a gap between customer’s expectations and actual experience.

“Tales of poor service provoke outrage on social media and go viral despite companies’ best efforts to contain them.”

What I’m seeing is companies failing to integrate their social media responses with those of their traditional customer response platforms – call centre and e-mail.

The Twitter response team members are almost always quick to respond, while the customer’s e-mail is often ignored for days or weeks, with the result that disgruntled customers end up airing their problem on a public platform.

That was exactly my recent experience with online travel agency Travelstart.

On Sunday March 12, I booked return flights from Durban to Johannesburg to attend a funeral the following Friday – Mango for the first leg and FlySafair for the return.

My bank sent me an SMS to approve payment for both flights, and Travelstart’s fee, which I did.

When I tried to check in online the Thursday night before the first flight, I discovered that I hadn’t been sent the promised e-tickets with booking references, so I dashed off an e-mail to Travelstart, pointing this out and asking to be sent the reference for my return flight, given that it was too late for my morning flight less than 12 hours away.

I had to join the Mango check-in queue at the airport but at least I got to Johannesburg on time.

I didn’t get a response to my e-mail, so Saturday afternoon saw me at the FlySafair check-in counter, only to be told that there was no record of my booking.

A call to Travelstart’s afterhours line confirmed that for reasons unknown, my payment for the FlySafair flight had failed.

It got better. Thanks to the long weekend, there wasn’t a single flight to Durban – on any airline – to be had out of O R Tambo Airport that evening.

So I was forced to book a flight for the following morning, cancel my plans for Saturday night with my family and impose myself on my hosts for another night.

Rather than venting on Twitter, I recounted all of that in an e-mail to Travelstart that Sunday night, and asked very specific questions: why wasn’t I told that my payment for the second flight had failed; why was I not sent e-tickets, and why was my e-mail of Thursday ignored?

And then I set out my expectations: a detailed response during the course of the following day, an apology, and a refund of my Travelstart fee and a R196 Uber fare.

When I hadn’t had a response by Monday evening, I tweeted about Travelstart’s service failures. That prompted a call from the company’s “afterhours specialist” who apologised, and then sent me a detailed response, a day later than promised.

I wasn’t advised of the second flight payment failure because “the agent processing your booking omitted this step”.

I wasn’t sent an e-ticket for my Mango flight because the second flight’s payment failure meant my booking’s status was “pending”.

My e-mail of the Thursday night was ignored because the agent “did not clearly read it to understand you fully”.

“This is not the normal level of service provided by either the agent or Travelstart,” she said.

I was promised a refund of my Uber fare and Travelstart fee, plus get a R300 Travelstart voucher, valid for a year.

Nine days later, I’ve received none of that.

Travelstart, you need to get yourself some controllers on your customer service team. Fast.

CONTACT WENDY: E-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za Twitter: @wendyknowler