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I recently had an unpleasant experience with EasyJet. I had booked a flight to Paris and a car from EuropCar through EasyJet but a  few days before the flight I got an email  from EasyJet informing me that because of a strike in Orly Airport, our flight was rescheduled to land to Charles de Gaulle.

Although I had booked airflight and car rental together, there was no word about the car. I should expect that the pick up would automatically be rescheduled too to the new airport destination, but, apparently, the booking system is not that advanced and some manual intervention was required. Or so I thought.

And here starts my little odyssey: after numerous not answered calls to the designated number, I started calling everywhere I could: the airport, EuropCar in Athens and Paris, the baggage service of EasyJet. EuropCar said they could not change my booking because it was done through a partner and they couldn’t interfere in the system. EasyJet, well, simply did not answer.

As my frustration was mounting I thought to look if they have  a twitter account and try to approach them through this channel.

It turned out they did: EasyJetCare. And from a brief look at the twitter account, I could see they were busy with the strike in Paris because lot of people had problems with their rescheduled or cancelled flights.

I asked the question to Paul and his team that overlook the account and, hey, an answer came shortly!

For a company like EasyJet, with limited physical presence, the feeling that someone *real*  listens, even through twitter, is very comforting. And it eased my anxiety a lot.

After a couple of tweets, Paul promised me an email.

I got the email, but only the other day, that is, only one day before my flight.

While I appreciated the fact that I got a response,  the explanation was disappointing: neither EasyJet nor EuropCar could change my booking!!!  So I would have to commute from Charles de Gaulle to Orly to pick the car and  EasyJet offered to undertake the cost.

At this point I was pissed off. I decided to cancel the car booking, informed EasyJet (the same twitter team)  about it, and asked them to waive the cancellation fee, which they did. Consequently, I made another booking with Avis, arranging the car pick up and drop the way I wanted.

Next day, on my flight to Paris (which, by the way,  had a 3 hour delay) I heard with astonishment the stewardess urging us  to benefit from a special offer of EuropCar for the day (something like 15% off normal price, if i recall correctly).

So EasyJet/EuropCar could not change my booking, but were giving everyone else a discount!

When we landed  I went to the EuropCar desk, curious  to find out about the deal. It turned out there was none: EuropCar had no cars available. And this might be the only plausible explanation why they couldn’t change my booking: they wouldn’t be able to offer me a car in Charles de Gaulle!

The whole case left me with mixed feelings. The EasyJet twitter service definitely  works. But they can only offer their customers what EasyJet has in stock. And, in this case, it was sour grapes. Without EasyJetCare though, this wouldn’t be a sober post, but a very angry one.

Moral: for a company to service its customers through social media, it takes more than social media. It needs to have the proper customer centric policies in place throughout the organization. And if they could afford only one such policy (they shouldn’t) this one should be consistent and uncompromising  honesty.