An Open Letter to Yannis Karmis, President of Travelocity.com

As a consumer, I realized from this class (and other experiences) the power of my demographic and my social networks, and I drew upon those to complain to the President of Travelcocity.com.  After a nasty experience with Travelocity's bait-and-switch tactic to overcharge my air ticket, I looked up Travelocity's executive team's emails (Google and CapitalIQ).  I decided to email the President of the company and, in the last paragraph, explained how my social network, through Facebook, blogging, and WOM marketing, would be affected by me experience with their lack of integrity.  My full email is below.

Consumer transparency in Travelocity.com pricing model

From:	Felicia Zhang
To:	yannis.karmis@travelocity.com

---

Dear Mr Karmis:

I am a new Travelocity user who will never use the site again after my last experience.  I'm an urban, late 20's, well-traveled MBA, the type of consumer who is usually apt to stick to one provider, who values my time and who hates switching costs.  In short, I am a loyal customer.  

I am extremely disappointed in Travelocity's tactics this afternoon.  I spent over 1 hour on the phone with customer service, for something as simple as needing to move the dates on a planned visit to my parents in Washington State from NYC.  For every price I saw on my computer screen, somehow the agent saw a $50-$100 price differential on his screen.  Even when I told the agent I could actually enter in my Amex to buy the ticket at the price I saw on my screen, he would still tell me it wasn't a valid price and that his higher price was the only valid one.  As the phone conversation drew out in length, the prices kept only climbing higher and higher.  Finally, I had enough and told the agent's manager that a reputable company cannot treat its consumers in this way - that a company with integrity doesn't invalidate the prices that are on my computer screen to sell me a ticket at a 10% higher price.  That's when the manager finally said that although the website doesn't disclose this fact, customers who are switching flights get charged a more expensive price - in short, that the online prices are a bait-and-switch.

Mr. Karmis, I am a loyal and undemanding customer to please.  As a consumer, I expect to be treated with respect and fairness.  As a marketing and branding professional, I urge clients to be authentic and honest; I tell clients that a reputation of  fairness and transparency is the best customer servicemarketing campaign any company can have.  Customer service these days makes and breaks business - look at Zappos.  I am extremely disappointed in a company which I had heard such great things about could find it acceptable to treat consumers and run its business this way.  I have a large social network full of demographics close to mine, and I am very vocal about my good and bad experiences, on my blog, on Facebook, and in person.  Regardless of the negative micro-publicity, I think it's more important that you examine what's more important - winning the battle (overcharging me $50-$100 for a flight) or the war (my loyal customer use for the next ~2-5 years).

My best,

FZ