How Well Do the World's Airlines Answer a Simple Email From a Customer?

By Leslie O'Flahavan | Date Published: March 05, 2013 - Last Updated August 22, 2018 | Comments

In autumn 2012, I was especially interested in customer service emails from the the world's airlines. That September, I spoke at the annual conference of the Worldwide Airlines Customer Relations Association 's annual conference in Kuala Lumpur.

To get ready, I ran a little customer service email experiment. On Friday, August 3, I sent the same email to six airlines. Here's what I wrote:

Hello [Airline],

I am planning a trip from [City A] to [City B] on [your Airline] in September. I will be bringing a pair of ice skates with me. May I put the skates in my carry-on bag, or do I need to put the skates in my checked luggage? Thank you.

By the way, the ice skates are just an email ruse. I brought lots of important items to Kuala Lumpur, but no ice skates were in my bag!

The quickest response came from Air France.

Within five hours, I received this email:

Dear Ms. O'Flahavan,

You will need to carry them in your check in luggage.
Thank you for using the Air France E-Services
1-800-99 AF WEB (1-800-992-3932)
Seven days a week 8:00 am to 7:30 pm, Eastern Standard Time
http://www.airfrance.com/

The Air France email is a tidy success. The airline responded promptly, and the agent answered my question. My ice skates must go in my checked luggage. Air France got the email job done.

easyJet sent a detailed, personal response.

On August 5, I received this email from easyJet:

Dear Leslie,

Thank you for considering us for your travel plans.

You need to carry pair of ice skate as hold baggage. You are not allowed to carry ice skates in hand baggage as they are classified as dangerous goods. For information on dangerous goods, please click on the link below:

http://www.easyjet.com/en/dangerous_goods.html

You can add a hold baggage online or via contact centre or at airport. Payment of the hold baggage fee provides you an aggregate weight allowance of 20 kilos per passenger, not per item. Each hold baggage should be within the dimension of 275cm (length+width+height). For more information on hold baggage, please click on the link below:

http://easyjet.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4050

I look forward to your travelling with us.

Regards,

Simon
easyJet Customer Services

For several reasons, easyJet's email is excellent:

"Simon" uses a warm tone in the first and last sentence of the e-mail. His writing is friendly, and he uses pronouns such as I and you to make it personal.
He answers my question right up front, in the second sentence, so if I read no further, I've still gotten my answer.
He includes links to detailed information at the easyJet website. This is good writing and smart customer service.
In the second paragraph, he anticipates and answers my next question. He knows that once he's explained I cannot put my ice skates in my hand baggage, I am quite likely to ask how to add hold baggage and how much I'll pay. By answering the question I didn't ask in my first email, he frees me from having to write to easyJet again.

Malaysia Airlines sent a useful response.

On August 7, I received this email from Malaysia Airlines:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email.

In response to your enquiry, you have to check in your ice skate and this will include in your free baggage allowance. For further information regarding baggage allowance, we suggest you to visit our website at

http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/book-and-plan/baggage/checked-baggage.html

Thank you

Yours sincerely,

Umar
Malaysia Contact Centre| Global Contact Centre| www.malaysiaairlines.com
Malaysia Airlines Contact Centre : 1 300 88 3000 ( within Malaysia ) +603 7843 3000 (outside Malaysia) Please click at this URL for MAS offices and contact details: http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/hq/en/contact.html

Malaysia Airlines did a good job. They answered my question ("check your skates") and used friendly wording, if a bit repetitive at the end. They anticipated and answered my question about whether the checked skates would increase my baggage fee. The email would have been better if they had addressed me by name instead of as "Customer," and if I'd received the reply a bit sooner. Four days is an awfully long time to wait for an answer. In fact, faced with a long wait for an email reply, most customers initiate a costly second contact by phone, social media or, ahem, email.

"But Leslie, you said you sent emails to six airlines..."

That's right. I did. I asked six airlines the same question about whether I could carry my ice-skates in my hand baggage. And the other three airlines, who shall remain nameless, provided the worst possible email service. They did not respond at all!

Featured Contributor E-WRITE’s Leslie O'Flahavan has helped thousands of people learn to write well for online customers. She delivers customized writing courses for frontline agents, social media managers, and contact center managers. She is a problem-solver for all the writing challenges faced by contact centers: email, chat, text, and social media. She helps contact centers train agents to write well, measure the quality of their writing, and rewrite their template libraries. In 2018, she completed an overhaul of customer service writing for a global airline’s domestic and international contact centers. Since 2015, Leslie’s been on ICMI’s Top 50 Thought Leaders on Twitter list. She's a LinkedIn Learning (Lynda.com) trainer for the courses “How to Write Customer Service Email,” “Serving Customers Through Chat and Text,” and “Serving Customers Using Social Media.” Leslie is also the author of Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents. Connect with Leslie at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @LeslieO.

Topics:

More from Leslie O'Flahavan

Subscribe now to ICMI Contact Center Insider!