{"id":94175,"date":"2014-03-05T19:51:42","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T03:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/customerservicearoundtheworld.com\/2014\/03\/has-westjet-gotten-too-big-to-deliver-great-customer-service.html"},"modified":"2014-03-05T19:51:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T03:51:36","slug":"has-westjet-gotten-too-big-to-deliver-great-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/has-westjet-gotten-too-big-to-deliver-great-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Has WestJet Gotten Too Big to Deliver Great Customer Service?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"westjet.png\"<\/a>Apparently, WestJet doesn’t need to improve – they just need smarter customers.<\/p>\n

That was the message I got this morning when I questioned why it was going to take up to 6 weeks for a copy of a receipt for a flight I took 2 1\/2 months ago.\u00a0 Here’s the story:<\/p>\n

I realized I needed a supporting copy of the receipt for a flight I took in early December.\u00a0 No problem, I thought.\u00a0 I diligently save my emails from the airlines I fly.\u00a0 Sure enough, 30 seconds later, I found the email with the itinerary – but it only had the flights on it, not the actual dollars spent.\u00a0 There was a link, though, to a place where I could download it.\u00a0 The caveat, to my dismay, was that the link to my receipt had only been available for 8 days following the flight.\u00a0 Dang.<\/p>\n

Was I worried?\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 Since its inception 18 years ago, WestJet has built its business on\u00a0providing a superior\u00a0customer experience.\u00a0 This was going to be a breeze I thought.\u00a0 I couldn’t have been more wrong.<\/p>\n

When I explained the situation to the young lady in their call centre, she told me that all I had to do was click on the email\u00a0link, and it would take me to my receipt.\u00a0 When I said, “I thought it was only good for 8 days,” she replied, “Oh, this is for an earlier flight?” (I had already told her the flight dates, but she hadn’t really been listening).\u00a0 She then told me that I should have read my email more\u00a0carefully, and\u00a0there was nothing she could do.\u00a0 “Well,” she said in retrospect, “there is a form I can fill out and submit, but it’s going to be about 6 weeks for you to get it.”<\/p>\n

Six weeks?\u00a0 Really?<\/p>\n

After I gave her all of the information to fill out the form, I said, “Could you do me a favour? If you have the ability to raise comments or concerns on your system, can you pass on that this is really a nasty process, and that WestJet might want to look into it?”<\/p>\n

Her response floored me.\u00a0\u00a0“Sir, we do provide you with a receipt,” she scolded.\u00a0 “You just have to take more care in reading your emails.”<\/p>\n

Yes, I am clearly an idiot.\u00a0\u00a0But it gets better.<\/p>\n

I responded by saying, “Yes, I understand this is all the customer’s fault (she missed the gentle sarcasm).\u00a0 But, you know, in our business, if a customer calls and asks for a copy of a bill we had sent them 8 years ago, we could have it to them in three minutes.\u00a0 I just think this is a process WestJet could work on.”<\/p>\n

Her answer?\u00a0 “I don’t know anything about your business, sir, but WestJet is a very large international company with hundreds of thousands of customers.\u00a0 We can’t just have\u00a0reciepts available if everybody\u00a0starts calling and asking for them.”<\/p>\n

Yikes.\u00a0 The message?\u00a0 ‘You’re just a little, insignificant customer – and it’s best you remember that.’\u00a0 In her mind, there was absolutely no reason for revisiting or changing processes.\u00a0 It would just be easier to have smarter customers.<\/p>\n

The point of this blog post, of course, isn’t about the receipt itself.\u00a0 It’s about attitude.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time in the last little while I have gotten this underlying message in my dealings with WestJet.\u00a0 And maybe if it were any other company, I wouldn’t be so surprised.\u00a0 But that’s not the way it used to be.\u00a0 This airline used to be held up as a model for customer\u00a0experience – along with their US mentor, Southwest Airlines, and Disney, and Four Seasons, etc.\u00a0 It used to be when you reached their call centre, you got cheerful, helpful people who were skilled in dealing with customers.\u00a0 I would imagine that ten years ago, the response to my suggestion about improving the process would have been met with a cheerful something like, “I sure can understand your frustration, Mr. Belding.\u00a0 I will absolutely pass this on!\u00a0 Your comments are very important to us.”<\/p>\n

But I’m really starting to wonder if WestJet hasn’t maybe lost their edge and their focus.\u00a0 I’m certainly seeing the difference in their call centres.\u00a0 I’m wondering if they have just gotten too big, started to believe their own press, and gotten a little\u00a0complacent.\u00a0 It wouldn’t be the first time that\u00a0a company was so convinced of their superiority\u00a0that they abandoned the quest to get better.<\/p>\n

Um, and, oh WestJet,\u00a0for the record, it just\u00a0takes Air Canada,\u00a0your biggest competitor,\u00a07 days to provide a receipt….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, WestJet doesn’t need to improve – they just need smarter customers. That was the message I got this morning when I questioned why it was going to take up to 6 weeks for a copy of a receipt for a flight I took 2 1\/2 months ago.\u00a0 Here’s the story: I realized I needed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6838,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6838"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}