Brian's Brain

I'm writing this entry at 4:10AM, enroute to Sacramento Airport (and from there to LAX, and from there to the SID Conference in Long Beach). Poor customer service is, apparently, not restricted to SuperShuttle's competitors, therefore this post and why I'm crafting it so early in the morning.

Last time I had an early morning SuperShuttle reservation, prior to NAB a month back, the van showed up 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled 4AM earliest-pickup time and the driver phoned me from the curb, waking my wife up. This time, after making the SuperShuttle reservation online, I therefore telephoned the company and had them append a do-not-call notation to their record. I did this at the suggestion of my last-time shuttle driver, and SuperShuttle customer service indicated that they'd be happy to honour my request.

Yesterday, I received an automated phone call confirming my pickup between 4:35-4:50AM today. So far, so good. However, this morning, at 4AM, I received another automated SuperShuttle call, indicating that the driver would show up at my door within the next 10 minutes....followed by another call from the driver 5 minutes later, indicating he was at the curb. Yes, both calls woke my wife up.

That's two explicitly un-requested phone calls, in conjunction with a shuttle that arrived 30 minutes ahead of the already-unnecessarily-early scheduled time (my flight doesn't depart until 6:50AM, and I'm only ~15 minutes away from the airport, especially this early in the morning). The driver was, to his credit, exceedingly apologetic. He's only following the schedule provided him by the central SuperShuttle coordination office in Phoenix, AZ, and he had no indication in the record provided to him that he shouldn't ring me up.

What's the point of an online-scheduled pick-up time, already earlier than it needs to be in order to pack the van with customers, that is repeatedly pushed back even further with no advance notice? And what's the point of a no-call request acceptance from customer service that's repeatedly ignored? When I'm in Nepal, I'm not particularly disappointed if my flight doesn't depart within the scheduled hour (or frankly, day), because I'm not given that expectation. In this case, on the other hand, technology-delivered services set an anticipation in my mind that, when it wasn't subsequently met, further increased my dissatisfaction.

This story has at least one other nuance. Unless I want to make the early morning drive to the airport myself (not an environmentally-sensitive approach, plus there's the issue of finding and paying for parking), SuperShuttle and expensive taxis are my only alternative. There used to be a diverse ecosystem of shuttle companies servicing Sacramento, many of them locally owned. However, SuperShuttle is the only one left standing; the large national company either bought up (and closed down) or squeezed smaller competitors out of the Sacramento market. This latest customer service debacle, I suspect, exemplifies the end result.

Whether we're talking shuttles or semiconductors, selecting your supplier based only (or even predominantly) on the lowest price often isn't the best course of action. Not in the present moment, and even more so, not in the long run.

Followup: I just talked to my wife (greetings from Long Beach). Apparently, SuperShuttle called us three times this morning; the last one a redundant second call from the automated system after I was picked up. Infrigginbelievable (but believe it).