Last year, while on the way back from Barcelona (I wrote about taking pictures of Edurne Passaban for the female alpinist book) I got bumped off a flight on Swiss. Naturally I was pretty upset and wrote a long letter to Swiss customer service (while sitting in the lounge smoking a cigar and sipping whisky – there is something about whisky that gets your creative writing skills going…). I stated my case passionately, I argued I had experienced a wrong, I reasoned that I wanted them to give me a reason for continuing to choose Swiss Airlines in the future… When I finished the letter (you gotta finish these things right then and there, you lose the passion for the case later on) I was pretty happy with my letter writing achievement and thought my arguments are so sound and convincing that the good people at Swiss surely will agree and offer me a real compensation for my trouble and emotional distress.
Now, everybody always sees Swiss people as very well organized, thinks of Switzerland as a country where customer service is held in high regard and also were matters such as this are treated with the utmost respect and seriousness. I was quite surprise when I got my answer…
A form letter written by an AI computer (at least it read this way) that never made any reference to my arguments (I´m telling you they were soooo passionate and convincing) and… wait for it… An MCO voucher (which is something like a rebate coupon for when you buy a ticket) for 50 Swiss Francs – which is something like 39 €, the loss of my ticket was a multiple of that.
Wow, this is what I call adding insult to injury. Now let me explain why this is the equivalent of a “F… you” message from Swiss customer service. First of all the voucher is valid only on Swiss, so whatever I do with it I have to go back to their sucky airline. Secondly, what in the world can you possibly do with a 39 € voucher except spend more money with… Swiss. And thirdly boo freakin´ hoo – will it kill the airline to give me a free standby ticket – which is a seat that they wouldn´t otherwise sell anyway?
That seems to be the real policy here. Swiss doesn´t bother to listen to the customer´s complaint – too much trouble. Just send a useless coupon to shut him up. I probably would have let it go if I didn´t write the letter but this is one way to make things worse with your disgruntled clients Swiss…
One hell of a way to add insult to injury, congrats to Europe’s sucky airline: Swiss.
