In-House Counsel

On Airline Tickets And Management

If you wanted folks lower down the totem pole to be less frustrated -- or customers to be happier -- wouldn't you occasionally expose yourself to the indignities that mere mortals routinely confront?

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I learned recently that members of top management at an airline get a great perk: If a manager wants a free airline ticket — business class, to anywhere in the world — the manager dials a special phone number, and the ticket is reserved.  (The next level of management receives tickets only on a space-available basis.  Life is tough.)

This is great!  And this is wrong.

If the CEO of an airline company wants a ticket on the airline, then the CEO should be required to call the same number that I — Joe Bag-o’-Donuts — must call to buy a ticket.  (The CEO should be required to call that number personally.  There should be no cheating by, for example, having the CEO’s administrative assistant call the number and deal with the torture.)  The CEO should experience being put on hold, being cut off, dialing again, talking to some idiot who’s not quite sure what an airplane is, and finally being booked on the wrong flight.

Why?

Because that’s how you ensure that the customer service line is responsive: Subject yourself to it, be frustrated by it, and make it better.  Not: Evade the usual procedure altogether, let mere plebeians suffer through the usual system, assume that customer service is satisfactory, and enjoy your business class ticket.

But I fear that this is how senior management at many companies handle things.

The usual IT service help is damn near do-it-yourself.  Call India, wait on hold, be told to reboot the computer, gouge your eyes out, never get the computer working again.

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But for senior executives, IT service help is quite different: Have your assistant call the IT guy who works on your floor.  The IT guy strolls by and fixes your computer.

Who says that IT support is no good?  Who’s complaining about it?  What’s wrong with them?

The usual HR system is damn near impossible: You use it once a year.  Because you use it infrequently, you can’t find anything on it.  And there’s no one around to help you, because everyone in HR uses the system daily and can’t understand why you’re having trouble with it.

But for senior executives, HR is quite different: Call your HR aide.  Tell your HR aide what should happen.  Then, forget about it; the HR jock will enter everything into the system, exactly correctly — or fix any errors, if necessary — and the senior executive will never have to think about it again.

Who says the HR system is no good?  It strikes me as very easy to use!

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I understand that senior executives are busy.  Their time is precious.  They shouldn’t have to screw around with the stuff that confounds mere mortals.

But, if you wanted folks lower down the totem pole to be less frustrated — or customers to be happier — wouldn’t you occasionally expose yourself to the indignities that mere mortals routinely confront?

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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