We hear a lot about the various types of airline employees – the surly, the chatty, the one who refuses to make eye contact, the one who incessantly pecks at the computer keyboard, and even the friendly.
What about customers? They come in flavors too. And good, customer-focused employees, believe it or not, use their people skills to adapt to each type. Here are a few examples I learned about during my time working in a major airline’s customer relations office.
1. Ms. New York.
She is the stereotypical business person who is in a hurry, wants no fluff, no chit-chat, none of that “how to you do?” sort of stuff. She wants to get in and get out and take care of business with as little time wasted as possible. She could really be from anywhere in the Northeast Corridor.
An airline professional will be well served if he learns to recognize Ms. New York in a hurry, because she is quick to roll her eyes and become irritable if she notices a nanosecond of wasted time.
2. Mrs. Haughty.
Think Espadrilles. Pearls. Junior League. It’s a tone-of-voice thing. Mrs. Haughty talks down to the employee and treats him or her as subservient and subhuman. She stops just short of using the “royal we” when she speaks about herself.
Strangely enough, it seems there are a lot of these in the Richmond, Va., area. Don’t ask me why, but it’s true.
3. Mr. Pompous.
He’s got a lot of the same character traits as his cousin, Mrs. Haughty, but he wears Tommy Bahama shirts, drives a Cadillac Escalade and carries Tumi luggage. As with Mrs. Haughty, there’s a geographic phenomenon at play here, too; there seems to be a disproportionate number of them from metropolitan Charlotte, particularly around Lakes Norman and Wylie.
4. Dr. Surgeon T. Screamer.
Believe it or not, Dr. Screamer isn’t the worst customer to deal with. He usually runs out of gas (or becomes hoarse) if you give him enough rope to hang himself, especially if you keep your cool and refuse to become emotionally charged yourself. Or, better yet, he realizes he’s making a complete fool of himself in front of the planeload of people he’s going to have to spend the next four hours with and tempers his behavior on his own.
Sometimes, Dr. Screamer is so out of control, though, that local law enforcement hauls him away. Then other customers in the boarding area can be overheard making comments like “good riddance,” “he deserves it,” “jerk” or something more colorful. The agent smiles inside, living vicariously through the passenger commentary going on around him, but he never lets it show.
5. Ma and Pa Kettle.
The Kettles rarely fly, and their lack of experience shows. Urban legend goes that many years ago, during the summer travel boom caused by American Airlines’ two-for-one sale, when the “bus people” came out of the woodwork, a female customer was offered a window seat. That particular Mrs. Kettle responded to the agent, “No, honey, I don’t want to mess up my hair.”
You’ve seen Mr. and Mrs. Kettle. They don’t take their shoes off at the security checkpoint or have their boarding passes out for the TSA to inspect. They’re sort of the air travel equivalent of the woman in the grocery store who doesn’t take her checkbook out of her purse until the cashier finishes ringing everything up. The Kettles are the ones who don’t know where the lavatory is, who try to walk into the cockpit when told it’s in the front of the plane, and then can’t figure out how to lock the door and spend five minutes looking for the light switch.
6. Mr. Stupid Pax.
“Pax” is the airline employee’s shorthand for “passenger,” and unfortunately, many of them do stupid things and then get mad at the airline for them.
A partial list includes checking jewelry, medicine, cash, laptop computers or fragile items or booking a flight to a cruise departure and not leaving enough time between the flight’s arrival and the ship’s departure. I’ve actually seen people schedule as little as 45 minutes and then blame the airline when they miss their ship!
Other examples of stupidity include losing tickets (back in the days of paper tickets, I used to think they ought to be sold with a roll of tape); failing to bring one’s passport for an international flight; and booking a reservation through a self-service online site and not paying attention to the date, whether the flight is in the morning or afternoon, or whether it is even to the right city.
And like I said, of course the airline is to blame for all of these mistakes, right? Right.
7. Mr. Chronic Complainer.
Mr. Complainer is sort of like the patient who goes to the doctor with some song and dance, seeking pain or anxiety medicine to feed his addiction. Every time you turn around, he’s there finding another reason to get his fix which, in this case, is a travel credit or some sort of compensation for any number of problems, legitimate or not.
Be warned: airline customer relations offices track each and every call or letter they get. They know when you called, what you called about, what you said, who you said it to, what was said back to you, who said it, when it was said, and what, if anything, you were given. How Orwellian! If you start down the path of complaining for trivial matters, you will likely find yourself cut off from the goose that lays the golden egg right about the time you encounter a legitimate problem.
I’ve told many a customer that they’re welcome to contact us to voice future service concerns, but that they should no longer expect to receive any compensation, regardless of the severity of the problem, because of the number of times they’ve contacted us. Funny how they never call us back after that.
8. Mrs. Shrill Whiner.
I’ve been trying to mix up the genders I’m using for the mythical customers in this article to keep myself out of trouble, but the mental image that comes to mind here is George Costanza’s mother, Estelle, from “Seinfeld.” I don’t think I need to elaborate on her persona, do I?
9. The Snowbird Family.
There are a couple of personalities in the Snowbird clan.
The most obnoxious seems to fly between New York or Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale or Miami. See previous statement about Mrs. Costanza, and you could throw in her husband, Frank, too. Mrs. Snowbird wears gold lamé. Carries Louis Vuitton luggage. Pronounces it “Flaahrida.” She wants special in-flight meals. She doesn’t like the brand of vodka the airline serves. She wants the airplane declared a “peanut-free zone” because of allergies to everything under the sun, yet she wants to bring her Llasa Apso or Siamese cat onboard in a Sherpa bag. Estelle and Frank Snowbird appear to loathe each other — and everyone else — and speak in a volume that suggests they are standing in front of the speakers at a Van Halen concert.
The other branch of the Snowbird family tree flies to Tampa, St. Petersburg or Sarasota and is much easier to get along with. They wear bowling shirts. They root for the Steelers or the Browns, drink Iron City or Old Milwaukee beer and wouldn’t dream of buying anything other than a Chevrolet. They tend to burp and watch “Family Guy” religiously. They often don’t care if they have a seat assignment, as long as their ticket is cheap.
10. Mr. Easy Going.
This is the customer who, right off the bat, identifies the employee by name and genuinely asks the person how his or her day is going. Wow. Somebody who cares. A little mutual respect in a world rife with hostility. Someone who rolls with the punches and understands that a thunderstorm over the airport is going to cause a flight to be delayed and that it’s nobody’s fault. We should all strive to be this person, myself included.
Guess what? Mr. Easy Going is probably going to reap what he sows. He’s probably going to be the one who gets that upgrade when there’s a duplicate seat assignment snafu in coach and an empty seat in first class, even if he’s not an elite status customer — especially if the elite customer fits into one of the types listed above. He’s probably going to be the guy the flight attendant just smiles at and says “keep it” when he tries to pay his $7 for the gin and tonic he just ordered.
So, which one are you? Hopefully number 10.
Let’s be honest, though. If you went to Dollywood and asked “Who’s a redneck?” I’d bet most people would deny they were, in spite of the Dixie flags on their trucks and the mullet hairdos on their eight-year-olds, so I’m guessing many of you have the incorrect impression you’re Mr. Easy Going.
And if you’re from Richmond, Charlotte, New York, Philadelphia, or are a Snowbird, please do a little self-reflection and reconnect with your sense of humor before you unleash your hate mail.
I’m sure there are some customer types out there that I’ve missed. If you have ideas of what they are, let me know in the comments section below, or in the TalkingTravelers forum section of our Web site.
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