Yes, I forgot my password and my ID. Please don't punish me.

Just booked a flight on WestJet. Who is a pretty user-friendly company. But today it took me longer to update my profile than to select and buy the tickets. ARGGGH!

After booking the flights, when I said "yes, remember my information" for the next trip, I was sent to create a profile. It turns out there is already someone in the system with the same first name, last name and e-mail address. [Creepy. Wait, maybe it's actually me.]

Usually when you see something like this, you get a link that says, "Are you Susan Abbott?", and you can escape profile Hell. Not this time. Instead, I entered into a Kafkaesque process with multiple steps, each of which had to be confirmed by really complicated CAPTCHA words. I had to redo those a few times too.

Finally, my user ID is revealed!  So I try to finish updating the profile so I can save time in the future. [Wait, wasn't that why I did the first profile?]

Turns out they have no special question on file for me, so they can't validate who I am, and will not let me in. But they kindly offer to "Expire the Profile" for me. [I'm not kidding. This is enough of an issue for them that they have an option like this.] Killing off my former self also requires multiple steps, including an e-mail link and more confirmations.

After which, I can start all over to create a new profile and hopefully save time in the future.

They still don't want me to use my e-mail as an ID, because it is being used by another customer. Okay, that's just too bizarre. I thought we killed off that other person...

So now I can't link my recent ticket booking to the profile. And there's no way to correct this. I guess their CRM system is stuffed with this kind of noisy data. I imagine management team meetings where people wonder why x% of ticket bookers have no profile, and what this means. 

It occurs to me that the productivity problem we keep hearing about may actually be related to profile updating, lost IDs and passwords.

When this happens with a brand I have a weak relationship to, I just say forget it, and I bet you do too. However, I kind of like WestJet, and will probably travel with them again in the future.

Seriously, WestJet, you can do better than this.

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Just check out this un-WestJet-like Expire notice. Who wrote this thing?

THIS IS AN AUTO GENERATED EMAIL.  PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.

 A request has been made to expire a westjet.com profile that is associated to this email address.  The information contained in or attached to this e-mail is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the message and delete the message from your computer.  Any  form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication of this message without our prior written consent is strictly prohibited.

 

Please click the link below to expire your profile with westjet.com.

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