Wristband Customer Service
Let me preface this by saying that I hate to complain and gripe when I know exactly how much hard work goes into putting on Airventure. But, after mulling this over all day today, I felt I wanted to share.
My husband and son came to AirVenture on Monday and purchased weekly passes. On Wednesday they weren't able to attend and since we're in the midst of moving, my husband went over to our old house to do some cleaning and hauling of construction materials, etc. Somewhere along the way hauling these things to the city dump, he lost his wristband. He tried to find it the best he could, but gave up. He emailed to find out if anything could be done to replace it, and in the meantime he also called customer service and a fellow named Lucas told him to explain things at the counter this morning and they could help him.
We arrived at the counter, already prepared for the fact that they might not give him a new one since it was his fault and out of EAA's control, but we hoped they might see that we did purchase it and issue a new one. The woman immediately called over someone else for help. About three other women circled around all trying to "understand" what happened to the wristband. All shaking their heads, saying they couldn't replace it without a receipt (which my husband had declined to take on Monday when the counter offered it to him, not ever thinking something like this would happen. Lesson learned). We truly understood that, HOWEVER, one of the women started shaking her head at my husband and tugging on her own weekly wristband, telling him that "NO way would that come off without your knowing it. We put these on so tight and they are THICK." That was uncalled for. Tell us it is policy and leave it at that. Don't insult the members who love and support EAA and its mission. We are good people who don't lie. In fact, I never even would've thought about someone trying to slip it off and to give to someone else to use until customer service had explained that as a scenario for why it's EAA's policy to not replace them.
We arrived home tonight to an email from Victoria Norton telling my husband to bring in his receipt if he had it and if not, to contact a Chris Jovaag at the gate and he/she would take care of it. (This was in response to his email last night). So, there are some conflicting messages on this wristband policy.
It was interesting because as we tried to purchase a regular daily pass for him today, the system wouldn't allow it because he ALREADY purchased that weekly pass. So, she wound up having to enter the tickets as spouse and guest for he & I. So, he's going to have to go through that explanation every day the rest of the week/weekend while they scratch their heads over why they have to enter him as a "guest". Might be easier to just pay the full non-member price. ;)
Yes, it's not fun to have to pay another $108 for each of the days left of Airventure, but we understand that it was HIS fault, he lost the wristband. So, I'm not here to gripe about the money portion. Just please tell your customer service reps that treating us like liars is never okay.
I have to admit it really put a damper on the day. (I could only take off one day of work and chose Jet Day as my day). I do know that one customer service worker isn't a reflection of the organization as a whole, but it still sucked. (for lack of a better word)
