Posted by Lisa Hochgraf
Leave it to plane travel to inspire two grumbly posts. (See the other one here.)
The rant? When two companies are supposedly working together to serve customers, they need to be on the same page. When partnering to offer service, make it seamless, train your staff and make sure you really deliver. What I experienced trying to get home from San Francisco Sunday night would translate easily to CU members using a CU's third-party provider for service ...
What happened was that my itinerary showed my carrier being U.S. Airways. But United actually operated the flight from San Francisco to Boston, and U.S. Airways operated the leg from Boston to Rochester, N.Y. Should be seamless. Theoretically.
My experience was far from seamless. My first clue that there would be a problem was that I couldn't check in on line. Somethinga about two carriers. My second clue was that I couldn't check in using the airport self-serve stations. Finally talking to a U.S. Airways counter rep, I found out I had to check in at the United counter, a five minute walk away. To her credit, she printed me an itinerary and showed me which number I needed to show at the United counter so they wouldn't send me back down to the U.S. Airways counter!
The staff didn't have enough training. OK, I did reach my final destination (with a caveat I'll explain below), but it was pretty clear the staff was feeling its way through this. At the United counter, the rep said, "I can check you in for the San Francisco-Boston leg but not the Boston-Rochester leg?" and looked at me like I should know what to do. Ultimately, he gave me printed instructions on how to navigate the airport in Boston so I could exit the United terminal and ride the shuttle bus to the U.S. Airways counter where--you guessed it--I'd have to check in again with the other airline. He assured me my bag was checked all the way to Rochester. Read on.
They didn't fully deliver on the promise. Needless to say, when my checked bag didn't make it, I attributed it to the lack of dialog between the two airline partners.
U.S. Airways and United did get me safely where I was going, but the process had lots of holes in it, the fact that staff didn't know what was going on made me uncomfortable, and having to wait for my bag to be delivered was a drag.
Credit unions partner every day to provide services they might not otherwise be able to offer members. And that's great! But partnership takes effort to teach staff how provide members with a seamless experience, one that fully delivers the service they expect.
If you're thinking about partnerships today, you may also like to check out this related post I wrote a while back.
