Slashdot Mirror
Angry Customer Buys Promoted Tweets To Bash British Airways
An anonymous reader writes "After the airline lost his father's luggage (and presumably was less than helpful in resolving the issue), one man decided to use Twitter's self-serve ad platform to issue a warning to fellow travelers in the New York and UK markets. The tweets have gotten the attention not only of media outlets, but also of fellow airlines. A JetBlue executive even retweeted it. While companies use the platform to target customers, it's interesting to see it being turned around."
because of this one tweet. it opened my mind to how evil this company is burning customers' luggage for the fun of it
thank you thank you thank you
Think about this, BA did not respond to this paid & highly public tweet until 4 hours later. If they are that bad at dealing with publicity, I imagine their customer service on a daily (semi-private) basis must be 10 times worse.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you
Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.
That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.
In my experience, United Airlines is shit, don't care if they're shit, will tell you point blank you shouldn't expect anything but shit, and would you like some more shit?
When a company ignores you, blows you off, or does absolutely nothing about your complaints, I think something like this is brilliant.
Sending a very public "fuck you" is sometimes the only recourse you have for companies who have lousy service. If they're going to act like "too bad, we don't care" -- pointing that out for all to see isn't such a bad idea.
I've never dealt with BA, but I've certainly encountered companies whose customer service is so terrible as to make you think they're doing it on purpose. And those companies deserve a little public shaming sometimes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
http://simpliflying.com/2013/promoted-tweet-against-british-airways-airline-customer-service/
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
So what? They all do it so it's ok? What's your point? They deserve every bit of bad press for losing luggage.
In the early 2000s I had a two Sprint phones on a family plan. For a year, I checked our usage almost daily on their website. One day, it stopped working. The first-line idiot said that it still worked the same way it did when he was hired 6 months ago. I asked him whether he thought I was crazy and he said, "Well, I guess I don't know." I spoke to his manager - same line: you have never been able to do this from our website. Either guy could have at least pretended to believe me, but that's customer service gone right and they were all about getting it wrong. How hard could a bug report be? I cancelled my service on the spot.
Had I been able to buy a Tweet at the time, I might have. Complete incompetence.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Au contraire...
I've found that I get great service on Slashdot for legal questions. You can ask anything and get lots of different answers in minutes. None of these people are actual lawyers but that doesn't stop them from expounding at length (as if they were getting paid by the hour) about any subject. The usual barriers of accounting for different laws in different jurisdictions are never a problem here. You can get legal advice for any country just by extrapolating answers from the five or ten countries represented in the typical answer set.
Best of all, it's free and open source!
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.
And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.
Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.
#DeleteChrome
That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.
Exactly. The one thing you can always do is vote with your money.
When the german Bahn AG (train company) was stupid to me about a 40ÂâÂdispute, I told them that in my business position I control a couple thousand Euros in travel budget going their way - or not. They blew me off, I told my secretary to always check alternatives and book them if they're the same or slightly more expensive from now on.
When O2 was stupid to me about my (rather small) mobile contract, I told them they could be nice to me or I'd cancel my much larger phone and DSL contracts as well. They didn't listen, so I move all my business elsewhere. When I got the usualy retention call, I told them why.
It is unlikely that your move will get as much attention and most likely it'll all get lost at the customer service level. I used #o2sucks on plenty of my FB postings while the above crap was going down, but I don't think it got very much attention.
But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice. And if ten or a hundred thousand do it, they just might smarten up. And if they don't, they might go belly up and good riddance. But someone has to start, so be that someone.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The tweet shown with TFA simply says "Don't fly with British Airways. Their customer service is horrendous".
Not only is this entirely plausible, on the basis of anecdotal evidence, but any attempt to sue him for libel for such an innocuous comment would be doomed to ignominious failure.
He is perfectly at liberty to express his dissatisfaction with their service. If BA doesn't like it, they can always try pulling up their game.
And for what it's worth, a shitlist is as just as useful as a recommendation. As every corporation knows, a satisfied customer might tell a couple of people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell at least ten.
I used to maintain a shitlist (LG electronics goods are at the top), but now I check reviews before I buy. I'll sometimes accept one negative review in 10 as an outlier, but 3 or more is usually enough of a flag to tell me to look elsewhere.