A lot of companies I call often have a message that says “We are experiencing higher-than-normal call volumes” when I call their customer service line, which I assume is to set expectations that they might leave me on hold for a long time. In most cases, I’m able to get to a representative within 5-10 minutes, which is kind of what I expect under normal circumstances.

Anyway, I happened to be up around 4AM this morning (Easter Sunday in Boston) when I noticed I had a mail from Expedia saying that I needed to call them because an itinerary for an upcoming flight (several months in the future) had changed. To my surprise, I received the “high call volume” message, even though someone picked up immediately after the message was finished. Unless one call is “higher-than-normal”, I suspect that Expedia leaves up this message permanently.

This practice is known as "sandbagging" and parallels the use of sandbags to weigh down hot air balloons. If a balloon needs to rise rapidly, the sandbags can be easily thrown overboard, resulting in a reduction of weight that gives a temporary boost to the balloon’s ability to rise. In this case, Expedia wants me to believe that it will take a long time to get around to my call so I won't be unhappy if it takes a long time. In the event that they get to my call faster than expected, I probably won't be unhappy since it's to my benefit.

A lot of businesses sandbag in their own ways. Sometimes it’s important to pad a schedule for unexpected issues, and sometimes it’s useful to smooth revenue for the perception of predictable growth. Individuals are the same way in both business and personal relationships. However, once you get a reputation for being a perpetual sandbagger, you begin to lose credibility, and that’s never a good thing. We all know someone who is perpetually "slammed" or "doomed" with work

Last week, for example, I needed to book a last minute flight from Toronto to Seattle (“last minute” as in “in a cab on the way to the airport”), so I called American Express travel (and likely paid a hefty premium) because I knew that Expedia always had “higher than normal” call volume and didn’t know if I would be able to get through in time. Ironically, I probably wouldn’t have had any problem getting through to Expedia, but I knew I couldn’t trust the message to indicate whether the call volume was actually high or not, and five versus thirty minutes would make a huge difference. Although this is probably a rare case, it’s one where perpetual sandbagging can come back to hurt business credibility. Then again, Expedia is run by very competent people, so it’s very likely that they have weighed the costs of one-off business losses like this versus the customer satisfaction benefit of being able to exceed customer support expectations. After all, it’s not like I don’t use Expedia—I just don’t use them when I need high quality support, which is actually what they want me to believe.

4/8/2007 1:06:24 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [1]