Today I tried to fly from my home in the American Southwest to Atlanta Ga for a meeting at my company's national headquarters. I used to be able to fly Delta non-stop until they jacked the prices past the $800 mark. Now, to get a realistic fare I have to fly either American or Continental and connect through a hub before I can get into Atlanta. That means going in the day before.When I arrived at the airport, my flight was delayed by 20 minutes due to thunderstorms at DFW airport. One hour later the flight was completely canceled. I trekked around to the ticket counter only to find a line of at least one hundred people ahead of me. I grabbed my cellphone and called American Airlines' reservations line and was able to book another flight for tomorrow. Although I had wait on hold nearly ten minutes, that wasn't bad considering flights were being canceled in Chicago, Boston, and who knows where else. The customer service rep for American was friendly and efficient. There were still 50 people in front of me when I finished rebooking my flight.

Wanting to write my blog post in advance since I would be in the air (I hope) when it's due, I surfed the Internet and came across this USA Today column by David Grossman. Mr. Grossman writes about an encounter he had with employees at Enterprise Rent-A-Car which, as Sam Walton might say, resulted in "legendary customer service. (I must admit his column has improved my image of Enterprise.)

I highly recommend it. Be sure and click on his link that takes you to his "dark side" column. It sounds to me like those rental companies that he mentioned as lacking in customer service should review their procedures for holding their employees accountable, improve their training, and increase opportunities for feedback from customers.

Well, gotta go print out my boarding pass for that 6 AM flight. I sure hope there are no snakes.

Regards,

Glenn

PS Just printed out my boarding pass. The CSR put me in first class on the DFW-ATL leg. YEE HAA!!!!