08 September 2009

Customer Service and Initiative

Being a customer service representative can be a monotonous job at the best of times. Doing the same thing day in day out is cause for boredom and other sorts of interesting behaviors.

Today I had a difficult flight combination. 4 flights to get to my destination (when actually a simple nonstop would have done). As seasoned travelers and well trained airline people know 4 segments is not a winning combination particularly when you are transferring across airlines and different PNRs.

So I was that rare case of 3 different PNRs and tickets and 2 airlines with 4 segments. The make or break in my journey was to occur when I swapped airlines. AND I had a bag to check through.

Well the very charming young lady at Lufthansa check in in Newark Terminal B regarded this as a challenge and went out of her way to solve the problem. She was only a temporary employee (An Ulsterwoman to boot!) on a one year assignment from a Tourism course in Northern Ireland along with 10 of her fellow students. She handled the difficulty with aplomb and care that would have put a seasoned veteran to shame.

She actually went down to the baggage area - retrieved my (short tagged) bag, retagged it and came back to give me the appropriate paperwork. Not only that she then told me what to do to ensure that my bag was on the flight.

OK so I am an old hand at traveling and I am invariably jaded about the ability of the person behind the counter to be able to solve the problem - and MORE IMPORTANTLY give me the confidence that they both knew what they are doing and can communicate same.

This young lady did all of that.

Kudos to LH for its training program. And definitely kudos to the young lady for doing a job well. It really made my day when it could have gone pear shaped very badly.

See I can be nice............

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