How United Airlines’ Customer Service System Ruined My DMA07 Conference (and What Catalogers Can Learn from My Experience)

Now that I hopefully (or not) entertained you with my sad little saga, let’s get back to my whole ordeal with United’s 800 number and the points I’d like to make to multichannel merchants. I don’t blame the people who handle these calls. They’re doing their jobs, following orders and reading the scripts that some idiot from United gives them. Here’s the real problem: The reason I placed so many calls is two-fold: These people don’t understand English! They recite the lines they have in front of them: