Letter to Sir Richard Branson
Editor’s note: This blog post was sent via airmail in late December to Sir Richard Branson from Clive Beavis, our VP of Engineering, the most calm and most kind person I know. He has yet to hear from Virgin, Orbitz or the travel insurance firm.
Dear Sir Richard Branson,
I have long been an admirer of your ability to drive businesses from the customer’s perspective. As a teenager Virgin records offered me to ability, to purchase much need LPs at reduced prices. Your crowning achievement for me, personally, was when Virgin Atlantic made an old man’s honeymoon a dream come true. Your staff in the UK upgraded my then 70 year old grandfather and his new bride to first class for their trip to the US. This was over 20 years ago, his name was George Martin.
Compassion required.
Fast forward to today. The daughter of George, a woman now 80 years old sits at the hospital bed of the husband she has been with for 60 years. She does not know if he will live or die. Virgin required me to ask her to prove that he is both ill and hospitalized. Customer satisfaction, was replaced with forms and paperwork and an unbelievably inhumane attitude.
You built an impressive empire on, I believe, the premise of customer satisfaction. This is why I decided to write to you about this matter. I thought you should be aware that, although Virgin has come a long way since its early years, it seems to have forgotten who got it there, the customer. Somewhere along the line the company has lost the plot. Your relationship with, in particular Orbitz, effectively allow the “buck” to be passed back and forth leaving me, the customer feeling frustrated and annoyed. Your offshore “customer service” department did not service the me, the customer at all. They left me on the phone to hang. They did not even have the courtesy to hang up–just left me there and claimed the line dropped when I inquired the next day. They had my number, why did they not call me back?
Compassion required.
Here are some details of my particular case. In the summer I arranged for my parents to fly to the US from the UK for a few weeks. Something I have done once a year for the past 10 years. My father, now suffering from prostate cancer was in good shape and fit to fly. We booked the tickets through Orbitz, even purchased the insurance, just in case.
My father’s condition suddenly and unexpectedly changed. After an unanticipated chemo session he collapsed and was hospitalized for 5 days. Between Orbitz, Virgin and the insurance company I could find no help at all. I could neither cancel nor place the flights on hold. Everyone demanded that I ask my mother, who’s husband appeared to be dying in front of her, to fill in some forms to prove it. I refused, point blank, to ask her to do this. It was cruel and uncompassionate beyond belief.
I live 5,000 miles away so there was little I could do directly. I gave the name and address of the doctors, the hospital, the phone number and anything else they might need, but I refused to ask my mother to prove to you her husband was seriously ill and hospitalized.
I would have been quite content to have the flights postponed. In an ideal world the insurance might have been worth something. However everyone at Virgin, Orbitz and the insurance agency, just hid behind rules, and suggested I talk to the other parties involved.
I started with Orbitz customer service. If you have never had to use this, you are a lucky person indeed. First you engage in a dialog with the Orbitz talking computer. I say talking because it clearly cannot hear. After the 15th attempt to pronounce “yes” in the required accent I was about ready to blow my top at the poor unsuspecting human who I might eventually talk to. If the Orbitz equivalent of HAL had been used in the 2001 novel, the astronauts would have happily ejected themselves from the space craft just to avoid it. Some combination of high pitch, faster delivery and mild cockney accent seems to work. I talked to a human at last, “Can’t help you.” No that’s not what he actually said but he might as well have, he did say, “Let me get Virgin on the line.”
At this point Orbitz intention is clear, they want to ensure you are screaming mad by the time the other rep comes on the line. The piped music is a very old, barely audible recording of a Bach fugue. I think it’s from the original 78 and may even have been recorded by the man himself. In a desperate attempt to hold on to my sanity as I waited, I found the nearest chalkboard and drag my finger nails slowly down it. The screeching sound offers some relief from Orbitz attempt to force me to submission.
The buck passing to Virgin means, of course, going off shore. Your offshore “customer service” department does not service the customer at all. In capable for going “off piste” my man in Bangalore got the bottom of his crib sheet and could offer me no more help. They apparently could not cope with this kind of situation. So they left me on the phone to hang. They did not even have the courtesy to hang up. Orbitz nor Virgin, they just left me there and claimed the line dropped when I inquired the next day. They both had my number, why did they not call me back?
This was hopeless. I tried partying with this triad several days in a row. The message was always the same.
There was the travel insurance of course that I had mysteriously acquired whilst booking on line. So I worked this route in parallel. I knew from the outset what the answer would be of course, “pre- existing condition.” I think this is a little like telling someone who’s gangrenous leg has been amputated that their athlete’s foot was a pre-existing condition. However I thought I might as well go through the motions.
“No, we won’t need your mother to get a sign doctors certificate. Just provide us with the names and we will contact them”. One week later. “We need the doctor to fill out this form and sign it” Argghhh!
A small digression here, in the UK health care is run as a service not as a business. The poor unsuspecting doctor has no knowledge of the ways of US insurance company’s. No idea that even a hint of pre-existing and it’s all over. They dutifully fill in the form, believing that providing an entire health history is helping the situation. Of course they provide enough ammunition to prevent my father, his family and any future generations from ever getting health insurance approval.
The buck stopped with a lost customer.
Might I suggest you work with your Virgin team to develop a slightly more humane approach to exceptional circumstances like these? Reinstate some of what made Virgin great. Your customers would, once again, really appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Clive Beavis
VP of Engineering
UpTake
