Customer Service Story – The Forgotten Bag

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This airline customer service story shows the importance of communication in the event of a service failure. What could have been a horrible customer experience ended up being an inspiring customer service story as a result of the airline’s proactiveness and good communication. 

Below is the story, originally published on Quora by the customer (Rajkumar Subramanian):

I was flying emirates on a recent business trip and on my way back, my transit time in Dubai was cut short due to late arrival of incoming flight, but it was not noticeable and everything was business as usual. I was in the long leg of my second trip from Dubai to Dallas and about 11 hours in to the journey, a stewardess gently woke me up and handed over a apology card saying that one of my bag have missed the connection and gave me heads up that it would reach my residence next day. I just had to fill the form with my home address and verify my bag tag. This is a big change for me, as in past i used to wait at the baggage belt only to find out at the end long waiting that my luggage has missed connection, where as here, i was updated on-air and advised that i would receive it home tomorrow saving time and more important avoiding anxiety.

Next day, fighting jet lag, i managed to get online to check the status of my baggage and the website status said, ticket/case is closed…worried, i dialed the emirates helpline and as i was speaking to the associate, who confirmed that the baggage is out of delivery, my door bell rang and found my baggage at my door step.. all three channels synchronized almost real time and i was pleasantly surprised and to me that is a best in class customer service.

No matter how efficient any company is, service failures will occur. What will matter to the customer when it happens is how the issue is handled. It is important that companies have a plan or guide on How to handle service failures that might occur in the course of business.

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The Airline in this story did an excellent job of acknowledging the issue and keeping the customer informed. By doing this they were able to prevent the customer from getting anxious and making assumptions which would have negatively impacted on the image of the brand.

More importantly – They fixed the issue and ensured the customer didn’t have to make much effort to get it resolved.

Kelechi Okeke
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