Airtran Has Trouble With Days and Weeks
April 18th, 2006
Airtran has a little trouble with the concept of time.
Above the fields for requesting credit for a flight with Airtran’s frequent flyer program, the site displays this message:
Click to see full message from Airtran.com
In red letters, our user is told, “Note: Please allow three (3) days following completion of your flight for posting of credits!” (with an exclamation point, no less!)
Yet, just below it, our user is informed, “Verification of missing credit requests may take up to one week for completion.”
Verification of missing credit requests?? Is that something different from requesting a credit for flight? Will our user’s request take 3 days or one week?
But wait, that’s not all!
Once our user filled in the necessary unaccounted-for flight information and hit submit, they get this confirmation message:
The three days has now expanded into a full two weeks!
Why tell users how much time it will take? We’re guessing the main reason is to reduce calls to the call center asking why the update hasn’t been made. If the user knows how long to wait before “panic” should set in, they are less likely to call, thus keeping costs down.
But that doesn’t work if the site itself isn’t clear on what time to wait. Is it 3 days, 1 week, or 2 weeks? Clear messaging is the only way Airtran can achieve their objective of reduced calls.
I guess it’s no surprise that an airline that is only on-time 75% of the time has trouble telling the difference between days and weeks.
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