It has rekindled my faith in chatbot-meets-human-intelligence
WHEN my boarding pass blipped at the gate for my KLM flight from Amsterdam to London, my heart jumped. “What’s wrong? Are they going to deplane me?” I immediately thought.
Such is the paranoia of travelling in Europe these days with endless reports about how terrible flying is and the chaos at airports with lost baggage ending up in mountains at Schiphol and Heathrow that I was prepared for anything.
As had been advised by everyone we spoke to, we had arrived at the airport four hours before departure time, prepared to wait hours at security and immigration. We had even considered taking the train or a car to London – my phone had been beeping all morning with messages of photos of queues at the airport – so by the time we left for Schiphol, I was in a state of high anxiety.
As it transpired, it took us just under an hour to check in, clear security and immigration, and we found ourselves with hours to kill which we put to good use at a Dutch restaurant promising fresh, local fare which generally consists of soups and sandwiches with different cheese variations.
Feeling good because our worst fears had not been realised, I was now looking forward to a change of scenery from Amsterdam, as lovely as the canals are and as pretty as the city is.
Amsterdam, looking mightily pretty on a canal cruise.
Amsterdam revisited AC (After Covid) feels much the same BC (Before Covid). I know, I know, I can hear some of you saying what AC – there’s still a pandemic on, but honestly, travelling in Europe, you feel like it’s over. No one talks about it, no one’s counting cases, only a handful wear masks, everything is back to normal – they are really living with it, not just talking about it.
Amsterdam feels busy but not as busy because all the tourists are still not back. Europeans and Americans are back, but not the Asians. You really sense and see the difference – the usual crowds of Thais, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, Taiwanese, Japanese, South Koreans and of course, the Chinese have not returned and selfishly, it really is the best time to visit Europe this summer. There seems to be even more bicycles and one evening, I nearly got run over by a male bicyclist who shouted at me, “Ching Chong.” I wanted to tell him that was not my name but the idiot was just too darn fast. It’s been a while since I got called out like that, feels like the 1980s, really.
So you can imagine my excitement to be finally boarding after a four-hour wait – until my boarding pass blipped. “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked the KLM staff. She looked at me and said, “Come with me to the other side.” I walked with her to the counter, fearing the worst, whereupon she turned to me, smiled and asked, “Did you leave your Kindle?”
Let me rewind. Four days ago, on the KLM flight from Bordeaux to Amsterdam, I had left my Kindle in the seat pocket. I didn’t realise this until I looked for it that night for my usual bedtime reading. I berated myself for my stupidity – this Kindle had been twice-lost (left behind on flights) and twice-recovered, and so we had developed a special kinship.
I retrieved the KLM check-in email and saw a message at the end that said for 24×7 service, WhatsApp this number. So I did. I typed, “Hi, I left my Kindle on KL1316 on 26/6 seat 5D. Is it possible to recover it?” In return, I got a string of chatbot-generated messages, prompting me to, towards the end, a request to speak to a service agent. It warned me of delays and apologised for it.
About a day after, I got a message advising me to “contact the baggage services of the airport of arrival, as all items found onboard after the flight are handed in there”, signing off, “I hope that it has been found.”
My heart sank. After all I’ve heard and read about airport chaos and lost baggage at Schiphol, how could anyone be bothered about my little Kindle? I resigned myself to the loss, said goodbye to my trusted companion and went to a bookstore to buy a book.
So imagine my surprise – actually, that’s an understatement because I practically screeched at the KLM staff. “What!! You found my Kindle!!!”
She smiled and handed me a plastic bag with my Kindle in it and a note stuck on it, stating my name and the number of my flight from Amsterdam to London. That they had found it was incredible, that they had it ready and waiting for me on my next flight is unbelievable, considering I hadn’t even bothered to call the airport.
That this extraordinary customer service moment happened during the most extraordinary times in travel – when airports in Europe are bursting at the seams, and unable to hire enough workers to handle the demand – is well, extra extraordinary.
It’s certainly restored my faith in customer service and that with the right blend of chatbot tech and human intelligence and initiative, much can be achieved. Kudos, KLM. You have a fan for life.
PS On my newly-returned Kindle, I am now reading Margaret Atwood’s “Burning Questions”. One essay titled “Somebody’s Daughter” talks about a two-week camp in Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic in which women are taught to go out on the land with a group of elders and teachers, and learn skills of survival, one of which involves making an article of clothing the old way because out there, a bad stitch can literally kill.
She quotes a poem written by one of these “daughters” who, after having successfully learnt the skill of stitching with sinew, wrote, “After I finished sewing the hard part of the kamit, I feel like an eagle, so free and fly wherever I may go.”
With my Kindle in hand, I now fly wherever I may go.
