Man Fired From American Airlines For Handling Customer Complaint
Posted: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
by Asher Ricard
Sometimes you are darned if you do and darned if you don't. At least that is what one American Airlines employee found out after answer a customer complaint against the company at which he worked.
It all started with a blog post from Dustin Curtis in which he wrote a letter complaining about the companies' website.
He went on to offer redesign samples that he designed to make the site better. Seems innocent enough. We all make complaints against corporations every day. Curtis most likely did not expect a response.
He received a response in email form from an actual designer at the company which he republished on his blog minus the name of the designer. Basically, the designer explains how hard it is in a large company to get every department on the same page with the same vision.
He explains redesigning is the easy part, but getting it to meet the demands put on by the 200 plus employees is nearly impossible. He goes further to state that there are changes on the way and they hope to get it going over the next 12 to 18 months.
The designer handled the complaint honestly. But was it too honest?
American Airlines response was to search through company emails, identify the designer and fire him.
Dustin Curtis's response from his blog.
"When I first learned about this, I was horrified. Mr. X is actually a good UX designer, and his email had me thinking there was hope for American Airlines. The guy clearly cared about his work and about the user experience at the company as a whole. But AA fired Mr. X because he cared. They fired him because he cared enough to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and help clear the company's name in the best way he could."
Why does this matter? What do you think? Did he go to far? Is it unacceptable to be honest about the place your work for and the issues it has when customers complain? Is it better to just sweep it under the rug. I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comment section below.
As someone who has experienced this situation, I can tell you it is a difficult place to be in as an employee. You do want to be disloyal to the company since they do provide for you and the company is made up of people who are not bad people. You also have to take into account your perspective on the issues. Are you just bitter because you are tired of fighting the system? Does your customer really need to know the issues that go on inside to have a complaint answered?
Either way, I think the employee is probably better off now that he is fired. I am sure he does not feel that way, but there were obviously different views on how decisions and designs should be made.
Again, I leave it up to the reader. When is it crossing the imaginary line by explaining what goes on behind the scenes? Where is that line positioned?
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I could have done the same thing for about a million times in my life and probably would have been fired just as many times... I believe some companies rate politics too highly meanwhile treating their empolyees as disposables. I leave politics to people who are good at it - this includes dealing with customers, and the meantime I keep fighting for innovation internally. One's lucky if doesn't get fired for that actually ! :)
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