We all know them. We see them in the airport donning that famous red blazer. They are Delta Red Coats and it’s their pleasure to serve you.
With the busy holiday travel season behind us, we wanted to build on the travel tips we’ve shared via social media the past few months and give you some insight on what you can expect from Delta in 2011. To that end, I sat down with one of our very own Red Coats for some insight into their world.
Delta: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Michelle. Shall we start off by sharing a little background on our Red Coat program?
Michelle: Sure! The program was revitalized in 2007 at our New York-JFK hub. Today there are about 800 of us in many large airports across the U.S.
Delta: What does a typical day look like for you?
Michelle: Every day I assist customers from all walks of life and from all over the world. I work at Delta’s Detroit hub, where we see customers from all over the U.S. and Canada as well as Asia, Europe and South America. I walk around the airport and see customers arriving from Brazil, returning to Paris or on their way to Japan.
Delta: Yes, our Red Coats are certainly famous for your ability to provide one-on-one help from anywhere in the airport. So how exactly do you assist customers without being behind a counter?
Michelle: We’ve got new technology and the know-how to get what you need. We use hand-held devices to resolve problems on the spot and issue printed boarding passes, meal vouchers, Sky Club passes, travel passes and other coupons.
Delta: That’s great. And lastly, can you share any advice with our customers traveling in 2011?
Michelle: Of course. While we’re here in the airports to serve you, there are some tools customers can use to help themselves if they wish. We have kiosks that can help with flights and information as well as scan-and-go stations where a simple scan of your boarding pass can give you a new one in most situations if you need to be rebooked.
Liz G.
Delta Social Media
January 6th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Good work everyone..keep it up!
January 6th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Red Coats are awesome…but would be even more awesome is if you still empowered your agents to make decisions for themselves on behalf of customers! Relegating front-line CSAs to “Deltamatic button pushers” has had a significant negative impact on customer service quality. There is nothing more demoralizing to a gate agent than hearing a HVC say “Well, I’m a Diamond and I don’t like that. I want a Red Coat.” When the Red Coat intercedes you have a line of customers who have just been taught not to respect the CSA–after all, why accept a “no” from someone who isn’t empowered to say “yes”?
But what do I know, I’m just a 15 year pilot.
January 10th, 2011 at 1:54 am
Michelle is one of the best Red Coats around! I’m an agent at DTW and she always has the customer in mind
@Inconceivable: All agents are empowered to make decisions on their own. Many of us do on a day-to-day basis. But it is the people (the traveling public) who want to hear the decision from someone else… the “supervisor” per-se. That is where the Red Coat comes in.
February 7th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
The redcoat idea is a great one. My personal experience traveling with Delta a fair amount (I have Diamond status) is that, when exceptions occur (mechanical, botched schedule, weather issues, etc.) the agents at the gate almost always try their best to help but are often overwhelmed by the volume of the task. When overwhelmed, some agents respond by doing it “by the book” without considering alternatives that would make sense for the customer and the airline. Most of the time, I resolve these issues by calling the Diamond Line. One simple example: the last two times I have flown the small regional jet from MSN to ATL to connect with international flights, the flight out of MSN was significantly delayed because of problems with the weight and balance. This necessitated taking passengers off the plane who had already boarded (and their luggage) resulting in a large number of misconnects due to the 45 minute to 75 minute delay. The response I got from the gate agent once was “You have already been re-booked on XXX.” This was a great response–and the way we all want this to work. The second time this happened, the response from the gate agent was that I would have to choose to either stay with the late flight and check with the agent in Atlanta for a possible alternative flight (the soonest alternative would be the next day) or voluntarily switch to standby for flights to Asia via MSP and hope for the best. I called the Diamond Line and was confirmed by the agent in business class on the flights via MSP (I was traveling on a purchased business class ticket).