Article: Qantas Considers Bringing Call Centres Back to Australia

[dajop]

If Qantas bring back those job home, one would hope it won't be outsourced neither. ,

Hope you’re right.

But yeh, Qantas never outsource jobs within Australia.

 

[Blackadder]

Unpopular opinion: I think they should outsource the call centres to countries that get customer service (e.g. USA). And while they’re at it can they please bring back customer service desks at airports so that when a flight goes IRROP I don’t have to be put on hold for several hours? It would also be nice if they could hire Americans to work in those customer service roles here in Australia (again they get customer service)

-RooFlyer88

Working in customer service , it is rather insulting and not painting the full picture to say Australia doesn't get customer service.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

If you work in any sort of help desk call center, the majority of the calls are people that don't know how to fix their simple issues (it's why you always get asked when you call IT help desk - "did you restart your system?"). And for those types of enquiries a low level employee is fine. I actually don't think every CS agent needs to be equipped to deal with every weird situation.

Fair enough although I would argue frequent flyers with status (esp World Platinum and the like) are unlikely to call QF for basic stuff like booking a return trip. More than likely they are calling to book a complex multi city OneWorld award, or maybe to book a flight with QF EMEA that cannot be booked online (because the online system struggles to correctly price out the itinerary). If anything I would hope that when I do call QF that I have a competent agent to help me with my concerns than someone who can only handle the basic stuff.

-RooFlyer88

 

[aikman]

Being Australian does not necessarily and automatically make someone a better customer service agent. I've been intentionally hung up on twice by Qantas, both times by Australian agents.

+1 for the chat function. I never understood why they took it away. I think it works well for Jetstar.

 

[justinbrett]

I think it's ridiculous to rate customer service by nationality. What a stupid concept.

The reason the HBA call centre is good is because they are trained and trusted directly by QF and have the full set of tools to fix problems. The (newish) CPT premium staff are pretty good too but their toolbox is limited, so complex things become impossible to fix. It's nothing to do with the competence of the person, and certainly not their nationality.

As far as US call centres go I've had excellent customer service from some, and terrible from others. It really depends on the company, and the individuals. Same deal for Australian call centres. They're not all brilliant.

 

[KSC]

I think it's ridiculous to rate customer service by nationality. What a stupid concept.

The reason the HBA call centre is good is because they are trained and trusted directly by QF and have the full set of tools to fix problems. The (newish) CPT premium staff are pretty good too but their toolbox is limited, so complex things become impossible to fix. It's nothing to do with the competence of the person, and certainly not their nationality.

As far as US call centres go I've had excellent customer service from some, and terrible from others. It really depends on the company, and the individuals. Same deal for Australian call centres. They're not all brilliant.

Agree with your points on Australia on shore doesn’t directly mean it will be successful. My experience with RACV and other local call centres can attest to that.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I think it's ridiculous to rate customer service by nationality. What a stupid concept.

The reason the HBA call centre is good is because they are trained and trusted directly by QF and have the full set of tools to fix problems. The (newish) CPT premium staff are pretty good too but their toolbox is limited, so complex things become impossible to fix. It's nothing to do with the competence of the person, and certainly not their nationality.

As far as US call centres go I've had excellent customer service from some, and terrible from others. It really depends on the company, and the individuals. Same deal for Australian call centres. They're not all brilliant.

But location is important. As pointed out above, no Aussie resident - regardless of nationality - would argue that qantas absolutely doesn’t fly between Sydney and Melbourne after 8am on any day of the year. It’s nonsensical and they would understand that, and seek assistance.

O/s call centres believe what they say, and stick by it, and refuse to escalate.

 

[Howdythere]

Qantas Considers Bringing Call Centres Back to Australia is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

Qantas Considers Bringing Call Centres Back to Australia

In news that customers will welcome, Qantas is considering bringing more of its call centre work back to Australia.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

Overseas call centres are a nightmare.

99% of the time they do not fix my problem, understand my problem or have any idea and on the phone for 45 minutes with no result talking to them. I get the Hobart call centre with problem understood(1 minute), solved(1 minute) and fixed(1 minute) then the rest of the time the Hobart callcentre person is waiting for a response from their computer system.

If I get an offshore call centre I normally just hang up, once the offshore call centre called me back to my surprise, while other times when call drops out to offshore while they spend 45 minutes looking at my simple problem it drops out and no calls back........

Bring Qantas call centres back onshore please, we are already paying a premium to fly Qantas so please Qantas support your customers with better service.

 

[justinbrett]

But location is important. As pointed out above, no Aussie resident - regardless of nationality - would argue that qantas absolutely doesn’t fly between Sydney and Melbourne after 8am on any day of the year. It’s nonsensical and they would understand that, and seek assistance.

O/s call centres believe what they say, and stick by it, and refuse to escalate.

Hard disagree.

If Mindpearl had a call centre here you'd get the same result.

The issue is the training and processes of the call centre, not the location.

I do support bringing the call centres on shore - but in an expanded HBA/AKL model; not a new outsourced model. If we're doing the latter just invest in CPT instead.

 

[Ade]

Doesn't matter the location, they need the staff to be properly trained first.

Agree. Training must be the same regardless of where the CC (call centre) is located. Reason I say this, IME dealing with CPT, they don't seem to have had proper training is using one of the booking systems. I used to work in IT side for travel systems and know a little bit about how to go about things. When the agent kept selling me a SAVER fare, instead of a FLEX fare (which is what I wanted), I asked if there is any way he can sell me the FLEX fare and he kept saying the application says no. I then asked if I can talk to a different agent or his supervisor - I was told that they are instructed to ONLY escalate *genuine* escalations, my request to escalate was not *genuine-enough*. I still insisted that he escalate and then was told that his supervisor was busy and will get back to when she is available. This was 3 months back and I'm still waiting for that call.

In any case, I HUCA, got another knowledgable agent, who confirmed that they are able to sell a FLEX fare for the bookings I wanted, however, she needs her supervisor to do that. I politely asked if she can try something else for me and voila, what do you know, FLEX fare was now available to be priced and booked!

After a bit more questioning, he admitted

The words "bit more questioning & admitted" - alludes to the fact that the agent in question, somehow, hid the fact that he was from an overseas CC. Before the agent's "admission", did you actually ask where he was located and he gave you a different answer, which then changed after "bit more questioning"? Apologies if this seems too direct, I had an exact scenario play out this week with someone I know, so just keen.

This is so true.

Overseas call centres get a really bad rep, but when they are well trained, have current knowledge and have the appropriate powers, it is very difficult to say they are automatically worse than an Australian call centre.

Some may prefer the overseas agents because they often act with deference and patience more than Aussie ones.

I'm lucky enough to recognise and be able to work with most accents of English, having cut my teeth calling overseas based technology company support lines to log new repair jobs while working for customer service at Harvey Norman. I realise not many others are so lucky and can struggle with this.

The real issue as said is that the new call centres aren't empowered enough to solve real issues without excessive escalation or simply saying no stubbornly. After all, if customers can take care of the most trivial things by themselves online, then what's the point equipping your call centre staff to that minimum level when a person calling in likely has a more difficult and/or complex issue?

O/S CC are good when they are given the right tools. I run a business where we employ folks from overseas to work as customer service/support personnel. We have seen first hand, how training, trust & providing the right tools (and privileges) empowers personnel to do the right thing by the customer and the company. One of the issues we face is, depending on the country of operation, the general workplace culture could be *restrictive*, meaning, that some personnel would not like to take their issues to their supervisors, simply because they don't like to be viewed as incapable, or didn't want to get in the bad books of the supervisor etc. They think it is better to simply drop the call and ignore the problem OR provide the information that the customer *likes* to hear, even if it is contradictory to company policy OR simply provide factually incorrect details to customer, so that the customer thinks nothing can be done.

It is like @MEL_Traveller mentioned, someone telling that there are no flights between MEL and SYD at 0800 on a weekday! If the customer doesn't know better, he/she will take agent's word that there are indeed no flights between MEL and SYD at 0800 on a weekday OR if the customer knows, he/she might HUCA or book with a different airline that operates the service the customer wants

Another issue at play I have noticed a trend with gen Z workers in general find talking and customer service skills challenging. This is apparent with the sub par service I have experienced allot recently in luxury stores all the way to retail and fast food. Simple things like no eye contact or asking a customer a question and not listening to the answer.

Polite, professional, solutions oriented customer service is becoming a lost art.

Amen to that @KSC . Full disclosure, as someone who works with and hires gen Z workers - I second this. It is not that Gen Z is service-skill-challenged, they are unable to relate to the idea of human interaction, which at a certain point, will transform the way businesses are conducted. I truly believe we can train them to work as expected, but it is definitely an herculean task. No offence to any Gen Z folks here on AFF please.

Speaking about ‘price promise’, I had an offshore operater that did not want to honour it 30 minutes after a booking was made. Tried constantly to charge me, even when reading out policies. This is the issue with offshore, poorly trained and especially contracted outsourced staff. They are trained not to care, as complex long calls impacts turn around time statistics. It’s incentivised to have your call magically drop out.

This ties in what I mentioned earlier, about the work place culture. Some workers, IME, prefer to be mark-free, meaning, they do not like to be associated with the thought they are unable to do *something*. Each work place has that - agent A is always good with something, if you want something else done, then agent B is your guy etc ... so when the agents go to their supervisor and say "hey, I'm not able to do this price promise, I don't understand", this is sometimes misconstrued as *inability to perform* etc ...

For instance, your point on "constantly to charge me, even when reading out polices" - I faced this exact issue with CPT. The aforementioned agent, who did not want to escalate my request, was quoting incorrect policies re: change fees. I kept referring him back to a location on QF website where it says otherwise. He simply couldn't understand and kept saying "you will be charged $45 for this change" and I'm like "mate, nah, go to this page on QF website, I should not be charged any change fees"

unlikely to call QF for basic stuff like booking a return trip.

Mate, you'll be surprised how many *super-frequent-regular-road-warrior-types* call in for a simple thing. It is not that they are not able to do it by themselves, they might be time poor, or simply they don't know how. I know a CL, who, did not even realise the value of their CL membership until I pointed it out. I had to explain what their membership level meant and what they can do with the kind of access/privilege. Again, not trying to go against what you said, but I have seen people that need hand-holding at every stage, even if they are super frequent flyers.

 

[serfty]

KPI's are often an issue and can negatively impact the service one receives through the laws of unintended consequences.

An Example:

Some call centre staff do not have the 'eleveted' tools to enact the legitimate request of a calling customer, even if they know it could be done and could do so with said tools. Irrespective of any of that, the fact is they cannot do it and SOP would be to refer. Such escalation may negatively impact the staff members KPIs so they avoid doing so. Why would escalation affect KPI's? Time spent already with no resolution as well as time lost having having to justify it.

 

[MollyJones]

I detest the overly wordy conversations with o/s call centres across the board. The calls would take half the time if they would stop saying the same thing over and over again.
I can't stand the regular mispronunciation of my name (which native English speaker never get wrong).
There are cultural differences in our expectations of what a customer service agent is able to do, and also in what individual people in organisations expect of and from each other. @Ade makes an excellent point about this above, and one that is competely lost on the number crunchers who outsource these contracts.
When all else is equal, I have and do choose companies with Australian based call centres as I find they are much more likely to understand the issue and resolve it, and if they call me back it isn't 1am as happened recently with a US based call centre. (Who continued to ring 3 times that night.)
Moving call centres back to Australia isn't going to solve all the QF problems overnight. However, I do think that they need to be seen to be making significant changes to their customer experience and this would likely be popular with customers across the board and earn them back some confidence from the general public and FFs alike.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Even if they do bring their call centres back, to become real Aust QF call centres, indeed they do need to spend money on the training.
Its the money that is the main point, if QF is not willing to spend money, the training might be sub par.
It also takes a long time to get used to the systems in place.
If QF re employes the staff they had as previous call takers, it would not be too bad, but if they do succeed in bringing the call centres back, it would a lot of itme to train, and a lot of money to be spent.
Hopefully, VH will do it soon.
But for now, talk is cheap.
===
O/S, sometimes first names is last name and last name is first name, and sometimes, people go by only one name, eg, Aust Pooch, sometimes, o/s, they use the Mr Aust instead of Mr Pooch, just using it on here, Pooch being my surname, of course, IRL, its not, but lets just say.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hard disagree.

If Mindpearl had a call centre here you'd get the same result.

The issue is the training and processes of the call centre, not the location.

I do support bringing the call centres on shore - but in an expanded HBA/AKL model; not a new outsourced model. If we're doing the latter just invest in CPT instead.

I think we’re at slight cross purposes here.

Someone living in Australia would know sydney and melbourne are the two biggest cities, and the notion that qantas doesn’t fly between them after 8am on any day of the year is not right.

The o/s call centre agent possibly has no idea, and could think they are just two tiny towns. And probably doesn’t care. If they can’t see the flights they have no reason to enquire further, or understand their system might not be right.

 

[Himeno]

Part of the problem with outsourced overseas call centers is that they aren't just Qantas call centers. They are call centers for dozens of companies all over the world.
They might get a call for one client, then get a call for a different client and both calls require access to completely different systems and different things they can do.
They only know that you are calling Qantas because their computer is telling them that they have a call via the Qantas contact number.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @Howdythere .

I recall when CBA brought their call centres back on-shore. What used to be a awful, Qantas-esque experience with their O/S call centres has become a no-worries, call-and-the-issue-will-be-fixed situation. The agents are likely to be using the same products as I need help with, so they instantly know what may be going on. Then they do have the tools to fix (usually).

Although on-shoring isn't always the answer. QR's call centre is in Qatar and if anything, its worse than CPT.

 

[anat0l]

Even if they do bring their call centres back, to become real Aust QF call centres, indeed they do need to spend money on the training.
Its the money that is the main point, if QF is not willing to spend money, the training might be sub par.
It also takes a long time to get used to the systems in place.

Training is a big thing here.

There's disempowered agents and then there are incapable ones. If I recall, Qantas records conversations (like most companies) for "quality and training purposes". They should put that into action to ensure that agents are rigorously trained to handle the most complicated and complex requests in a competent (first) and timely manner.

I think the first lesson anyone in customer service learns is deescalation. That should be a given skill after day one for any CSA. Booking a flight for a time poor customer which at worst is a simple flight to gateway and connect to main flight should be child's play.

Basically QF should have something like what London black taxi drivers need to pass before they get the job. Customers rarely are calling to achieve the basics because everything except calling the call centre can't achieve what they want, which is unlikely to be basic.

Time is not on Qantas' side here, but shoving a whole bunch of agents onto phones who can barely do more than any of us can do without calling the call centre is like giving a soldier a bayonet going into a tank battle.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

For now, yes, I agree, but for the future, time will tell.
As QF uses other companies, they can "wash their hands" of it, as most of these overseas QF CSA are working for overseas companies, ie, is it Mindpearl, (if they still are agents), or has QF changed companies.
But, a lot has to be done if and when it happens.
I am just idle gossiping here, not that I have any direct input to QF, neither do a lot of us, I guess, except those with friends in QF who might be able to indirectly pass on whats important to us.
In the end, heh, maybe that also goes nowhere, as none of us are friends of VH.
There is no mention of the scope of it/timeframe, ie, she has not said, "I will bring the Qantas call centres back to Australia in 18 months and am giving the current operating companies notice").
She would have to give them notice and pay out the time left in the contract, or let it run to its end/ending term.

 

[nancypants]

Yes and no!

Try having a conversation with an o/s call agent who truly and honestly believes qantas doesn’t fly after 8am between Sydney and Melbourne, on any day of the year.

No matter how wet behind the ears, you simply wouldn’t be faced with that sort of ridiculousness from staff based in Au.

I dunno, I have had several painful conversations recently with Australian based QF staffers who for example don’t know that Alice Springs and Darwin are in the same time zone

Besides, it should be possible to train someone to know that Melbourne and Sydney are the two biggest cities in Australia. Not seeing any flights after 8am suggests a systems issue. In any event, surmountable

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I dunno, I have had several painful conversations recently with Australian based QF staffers who for example don’t know that Alice Springs and Darwin are in the same time zone

Besides, it should be possible to train someone to know that Melbourne and Sydney are the two biggest cities in Australia. Not seeing any flights after 8am suggests a systems issue. In any event, surmountable

The ‘not being able to see flights’ is a system issue… it’s a deliberate block on some connecting inter-city tags on award flights.

But it took many hours of frustrating calls for me to work that out on my own. The call centre staff simply said there were no flights, didn’t understand why that was wrong, and wouldn’t escalate.