Lufthansa deserves praise and I must apologize to them for delaying this post by nearly 4 months. 2 Days after the previous post on May 11, I received a call from a Senior Customer Care manager in the Frankfurt Headquarters, offering to reimburse me for the Unaccompanied Minor fees. They did not reimburse me for the time and energy I invested to get their attention for their mistakes, and perhaps it was simply to put the hatchet to rest, but nevertheless, I believe they clearly recognized the effect Social Media was having on their brand awareness and finally took action.

Thank you Lufthansa!

I can only hope that this experience was beneficial and educational to Lufthansa Customer Care, to Lufthansa as a company, and to Lufthansa customers around the world.

My lesson from this, is that it is not the Lufthansa Customer Service representatives but rather the Customer Service policy and those that design it that are creating this inefficiency and massive cost producing machine, that they are not keeping pace with the changing customer-driven communication now effecting their brand. It is glaringly obvious that there is a severe disconnect between the Lufthansa Social Media Department, the Brand Managers, and the archaic Lufthansa Customer Care Department.

Certainly it is not easy for a company with 117,000 employees to align these three departments so quickly, Customer Service, Brand Management, Social Media, but this excersize demonstrates to me that they are on the right track!

And they managed to convert me back into a happy customer.

For those almost 1000 visitors to my initial blog post early this morning, the over 40 Facebook Like’ers to my facebook post on the Lufthansa Facebook Page, here a brief update:

I just checked my private e-mail account (now that I am home from work) and see that Lufthansa wrote to me 3:47pm today. The Mail is titled: “Confirmation of Waiting List” (in German). There is no explanation for the mail. It does not say who the mail is from, or why it was sent. There is a PDF attached showing two flights, the original one that was booked (using the partner United Airlines),  and now a second one that appears to be a Lufthansa owned machine. However, at the top, it says :

“Sie verfügen nun über eine bestätigte Buchung ohne Warteliste. Bitte lassen Sie Ihr Ticket bis zum 09. Mai ausstellen.”

Translated this means: “You now have a confirmed reservation without a waiting list. Please have your ticket “released” or printed by May 9th.”

BUT IT IS NOW MAY 11th!! WHAT THE F*** DOES THAT MEAN??

And again. No explanation. But I am invited to call the cost-based number again!!! So Lufthansa can earn more money while I am put on hold and the minutes go by and my telephone bill goes up.

Am I missing something here? Antonia on Facebook said they would contact me. Is this contacting me? Writing an e-mail with no explanation forcing me to call their cost-based number!!!! This circus has no end. Here the mail and the PDF. And again, there is no confirmation of any Unaccompanied Minor service.

(you can follow the progress here:  http://on.fb.me/izOzJn)
They sent me to the following form to fill out:

Which I filled out and then got this reply about 3 Minutes ago:

I hope someone at Lufthansa and UNITED is listening and can help me here. I would be extremely grateful. The situation is still not resolved yet (May 11th 2:20am).(May 11, 21:38) after a total of 2 days.

Here is my account of what has transpired over the past 48 hours.

I never would have imagined Lufthansa Customer Care could be so deceptive, unfair and utterly helpless to serve their customers.

It all started so conveniently and easy.

Yesterday, May 09th, I booked an online flight for my two chilren (12 and 7) overseas for a whopping 1415€.  After the booking my 12 year old, who is considered a full-fare adult in the Lufthansa Booking, said she did not feel comfortable with changing planes in Frankfurt and being responsible for her  7 year old sister. So I called Lufthansa Customer Care, the only number I could find, to book the Unaccompanied Minor (UM) service (for 100€ per direction). The hotline cost 0,14 €/Minute. The friendly agent (Ayden) in their Istanbul Call Center helped me and booked the UM Service, taking down all the necessary data within 20min. Great! Easy. Very professional and helpful agent. He then sent me an e-mail confirmation with the details of the flight (a “Flight Information”).

However when I received the confirmation via E-mail there was no written confirmation of the UM Service. So I called back. The second agent, whose name I negleted to write down, was also very helpful.  She confirmed that the UM Service was booked. However, she noticed that the flight was booked online. I told her it was. She then said this was not allowed and she would have to cancel the booking and re-book the entire thing, and that the first agent must not have known, and it was clearly his mistake.  I said, ok, no problem. Then she said, but it will cost you 1485€ plus  €30 for the cancellation, i.e. 100€ in total. I asked why, saying it was not my fault, this was a fault of Lufthansa. She agreed.  I did nothing wrong. She said she could understand my frustration and it was clearly a Lufthansa mistake but she could do nothing. By now it was after 11pm and I was very tired, so I stopped venting my frustration after a few minutes and realized it would be best to accept the offer and then go to bed. So I did. She sent me another confirmation, again without any confirmation of the UM Service, which I forwarded to all the relatives my kids are visting, because their plans were contingent on the kids’ flight plans. The whole call lasted over an hour and cost me roughly 9€.

What a relief after all that expensive phone time.

The next day, May 10th, around 11:25pm in the evening, I received an E-mail from Lufthansa Customer Service, saying I need to call back. The only number to call was the cost-based number (01805-805 805) at 0,14€ / Minute. And I was on my mobile phone, but I have never received such a mail requesting me to call back. Why couldn’t they call back?

So I called back, and the Agent first put me on 12min hold and when she returned informed me that the partner airline, United, covering one leg of the journey did not allow the UM Service and the only other flight available cost 500€ more. SO why didn’t this appear when I booked it the previous night? And I thought the StarAlliance and Partner Airline is supposed to bring benefits to customers!!!

WAIT, I said! So you are saying, now, after a second Lufthansa mistake, I have to pay 500€ more for a different flight. But why did no one tell me yesterday!! The agent, Frau Yildilim, was also very nice and agreed the mistake was caused by Lufthansa, only she could no nothing with her system to change it. I demanded to speak to a supervisor, but she said there were none.  She offered to write the internal customer support and get back to me in 2 days. I asked if she could send me a confirmation of our agreement and phone call. She said she did not have that possibility and that every call is recorded.

I am speechless. So now after having spent a total of about 3 hours on the phone with Lufthansa, because of their admitted mistakes, at a phone cost of around 60€, and now facing a ticket price 500€ more expensive than the one I booked, plus having to pay for the 30€ cancellation fee, I can only say, thanks Lufthansa for being so customer friendly. I will make sure everyone knows about this painful event. I will warn friends and family about your poor service and how you exploit your mistakes in order to earn more money on your hapless customers.

I am extremely unhappy and truly shocked at what I have been through and would warn all of my readers to avoid Lufthansa if possible when dealing with Unaccompanied Minors. I have since been told, that Swiss Airlines is much more accomodating, although it is part of the Lufthansa Group.

Please Help Lufthansa!

So about a year ago, I settled on the Mandarina Duck business product line “Work Bag” in black (including a large suitcase, the carry-on suitcase + the laptop bag).

The laptop bag, called the “Work bag travelbag”, satisfied all of my utility standards, though at an above average price. The investment in the entire set was around 700,00€. So I was not intending to invest again for a while. The brand is well known for quality manufacturing , so I calculated a lifetime of 5 years for the set, as they call the bag “Work Bag”, and much of the information I could find on it online indicated a robust, durable bag. So I felt positive about the investment.

Now after about 13months of regular, daily, work use by a business commuter, I regret that I must report one very significant flaw and risk to your laptop, as well as a minor flaw.

The significant flaw is literally a risk to your laptop: the strap lock-in mechanism is not reliable, and slips occasionally at seemingly random times, thus suddenly releasing the toothed end of the strap from its holder. This is highly precarious, as it inevitably happens while hanging on your shoulder, while you are in motion, and with such suddenness that it is nearly impossible to react in time to catch the bag from plummeting to the floor. In such an instant, you have only one thought: “SH**! My Laptop! My data! All my projects!!” This has happened to me on several occasions: in an airport while boarding a plane, while waiting for an elevator, in the midst of opening a door, walking to the train station, getting out of a taxi, and so on, and so forth. And each time my heart stops. I stop cold in my tracks. (after about the 10th time, my leg reflex was panic trained and my foot would then shoot out to break the fall.) The situation permitting, I would then immediately wake my sleeping laptop to see if it responded. Thankfully, my laptop, a MacBookPro, has so far survived the various gravity crash tests, and my data is in tact, and backed-up!! Kudos to Apple!! Each time my relief is so overwhelming, it far overshadows my ire and irritation to take action. Until now.

Tonight the end of the strap broke entirely while walking home on the sidewalk from the subway. Once again, my foot saved my bag, my data, my laptop! But my anger finally prompted this blog post. Here is what the strap looks like now. In the right picture, you can see the ridged piece between my two middle and pointer fingers. This is actually supposed to be attached to the end of the strap, which I am holding under my thumb, forming one piece of plastic at the end of the strap. The ridged piece, or tab, is then slid into the strap lock-in holder on the side of the bag (similar to the mechanism on a ski-boot):

You can see that the strap is useless now, as the ridged tab is severed from the strap. And I am not interested in buying another strap, for fear the same thing will happen. The practical/boy scout side of me, says “duct tape!” Which is what I will probably do. But Mandarina Duck, please take note of this flaw. My MacBook, though fully functional still, has suffered 3 dents in its casing and now sounds like a small helicopter when the cooling unit kicks in.

Now the minor flaw, really trivial by comparison, is the zipper on the main pocket. On both corners, the zipper stitching has come undone and one zipper has actually slipped out of track and is no longer functional, as you can see here:

So anyone out there considering the significant investment in the Mandarina Duck Work Bag line, be forewarned: make sure you are carrying a robust MacBookPro or even a Hammerhead before you start using the bag…and by all means, make sure you add more sufficient padding to the bag before you brave the shoulder strap. Otherwise it could cost you your data… and back up your hard drive regularly if you buy this bag!

Mandarina Duck, if you are listening…please look into these flaws. I am still struggling to remain a fan. So far the larger suitcases have held up well. Are you listening?? Any suggestions for an invested customer!! Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Pure Pleasure

Back then Germans still measured with fold-out 2meter measuring sticks! This was ages ago. The Stanley was the one technological improvement I yearned for above all else (except for  Ziplock storage bags). And no I am not an investor in Stanely. But as a disclaimer, I must admit, I love to build my own furniture (furniture designs coming courtesy of my wife). And I gain a distinct gratification from gazing into an empty corner of our apartment and envisioning a cabinet or a side-board and then whipping out my Blackberry…I mean my Stanley…and hooking the tape’s lip on one end of the wall and with a mere gesture and a gentle tug unravelling the length of tape across the empty expanse , lending centimeteres of precision to our domestic interior visions. Ahhh, and then with a flick of the wrist, pulling those meters of tape back in the case with a snap.

Thus, it is with great appreciation that I embed the following video, dedicated to all Tape Measure Guys (found courtesy of Dennis at teendrama).

And may your 2010 be equally as measurable and precise!

First, the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report for October tracking Smartphone Operating System trends, showing Apple up 6.9% to 32.1% of total mobile web pages requested, followed by Nokia at 19.6%, down 2.6%. Skip to Page 7 to see the Worldwide breakdown. (Download the report) But for me one of the highlights in the market is the massive traffic growth from Android phones, jumping almost 300% in 6 months from 7% to 20%! The writing is on the wall for the iPhone. Good that Nokia’s newest N900 is at least Linux-based…a step in the right direction.

Second, (thanks to TechCrunch) check out Morgan Stanley’s “Economy and Internet Trends” Presentation at Web 2.0 last month. Skip to slide 29 for the section on Mobile Internet.
Of the “key themes” raised in the presentation, I would distill the driving forces for mobile down to 1) Location Based Services, and 2) Social Networks+Mobile.
Clearly the carriers still control the floodgates, but IMHO the first one to relinquish its restrictive price politics for data will have a huge opportunity.