Adrie Reinders

Delta, Hotels and Atlanta Airport

When you have as busy a travel schedule as I do, you quickly notice a number of things that are directly opposed to the economic recession.

That airports have turned into “traveler’s hell” is commonly known. In particular the security areas are not adding to the overall fun of travel. Airlines suffering a turndown in times of recession, are reacting to that brilliantly by decreasing their level of service even further. This past week I was at Atlanta airport twice, coming in and leaving. Both experiences were nuggets of brilliance in how terrible it can be – when you arrive, even if Atlanta is your final destination, you have to pick up your bags, go through customs, drop your bags on another belt and then go through security again before you can leave…taking overall a good 1,5 hours after you have left your plane. If you are lucky. Departing I once again had to deal with the incredibly bad service Delta provides at Atlanta airport. I travel there regularly – but I have not yet had the pleasure of an unobstructed departure. There always seems to be something wrong with my ticket, they can’t find your reservation, or you are not sitting in your reserved seat. It always seems to be aggravation and if you say something about it, they put on this record that you will have to take your complaints in writing to their customer service department. It’s a bad sign they even have such a department, let alone all the representatives knowing its address and details by heart. You see their mouths move as they drum up these platitudes, but their eyes are void of any empathy with their customer. A very interesting strategy when it comes to customer acquisition and retention.

Then Hotels – what you see here is that they use more and more interns – for obvious reasons. However they have no clue as to what they are doing – because there isn’t anyone training them – they are just cheap. I keep being amazed how large companies in time of receding revenues seem to think so little about client retention and acquisition.

A major exception for me is always the W in Atlanta – staffed with great people that make the hotel, and make you feel truly at home. A pleasure to experience.
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