Article: Qantas Considers Bringing Call Centres Back to Australia

[Quickstatus]

I don't really care where they put the call centres. It is really not about the nationality of the agents.

Unless the agents interacting with the customers have the proper tools to effect a fast resolution, unless the airline adopts a one call only policy, and unless the Qantas App is significantly improved, the enhancement is cosmetic and is basically going from a 3 leaf to a 4 leaf Neil Perry Salad.

Customer facing agents must be given all the tools to fix any situation
Customers should only have to ring once. Any follow up should be initiated by the airline.
#make the Qantas app better

 

[justinbrett]

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.

I think you're really demeaning the overseas workers. In the case of CPT, most South Africans are quite familiar with Australia, and IME (having just been there last month), the average citizen is well aware of our major cities, especially the ones who host Rugby (union) games.

Again this has nothing to do with the competence of the staff. In the case of Mindpearl, the staff aren't paid to be lateral thinkers. They have set workflows and processes they follow. If the computer says no, it's no. They have KPIs and supervisors on their shoulder.

Replicate this in Australia and you may get same result. Not everyone is a frequent flyer, give a job to a recent migrant who's never been on a domestic flight, they may well think SYD-MEL is once a day as well.

 

[RichardMEL]

I'm with the majority of commenters here who worry less about where the agents are based but about their training and having the ability (tools/authorisation) to actually do the things. Those of us lucky enough to access HBA delight not because it's in Oz (well there's the factor of local jobs of course) but because the agents, in the main, are experienced and have the ability to do the things almost always first time, quickly and without issues that seem to crop up for other locations.

Give the agents in (location) the same kind of tools and training and they can be just as good (experience takes time to build of course).

I've interacted with agents of various institutions/airlines etc all over and I don't care as long as we can communicate (this is another major issue on occasion I accept) and they can do the job requested without issue.

As someone else pointed out, having agents answering phones in Australia doesn't automatically equal that they will be any better than those in CPT or MNL - if they have the same level of training and tools, I'd expect similiar results tbh.

 

[Quickstatus]

Customer facing agents must be given all the tools to fix any situation
Customers should only have to ring once. Any follow up should be initiated by the airline.
#make the Qantas app better

Is Qantas a full service airline or not?

 

[Quickstatus]

I'm with the majority of commenters here who worry less about where the agents are based but about their training

When Australians have their radiology scans done, do they know that sometimes their scans are reported by an overseas accredited radiologist especially when the report is needed at 2am - it's normal working hours somewhere in the world.

On the other side of the coin, Qantas calls itself the "Spirit of Australia". How Australian is Qantas really? when a lot of its functions and employees are externalised..,

 

[N860CR]

One of the bigger issues is that customer care has been outsourced to a Filipino contractor. I’m dealing with an issue that’s dragged on for 2 years. It was escalated to ACA (there’s a whole other issue) and it’s ended up with a call centre worker in Manila who sends a template response every 4-8 weeks that doesn’t address anything.

Thats literally the biggest “we don’t care” that Qantas gives to its customers.

 

[Himeno]

How Australian is Qantas really?

It only has to be 51% Australian.

 

[Quickstatus]

51%

In ownership, though shareholders equity is only $10million. Who really owns the airline?.

But in % workforce including contracted?

 

[RooFlyer]

In ownership, though shareholders equity is only $10million. Who really owns the airline?.

Interesting trend in Shareholders equity (essentially, total assets minus total liabilities) over the past 4 years, to June '23. This is from a US web site.

 

[SYD]

Interesting trend in Shareholders equity (essentially, total assets minus total liabilities) over the past 4 years, to June '23. This is from a US web site.

View attachment 352634

The stark reality of lockdowns, border closures etc and the huge drain on cash. It’s a miracle they’re still flying.

The question will be how long it takes to get back to the historical figures around that $2B mark?

 

[RooFlyer]

The stark reality of lockdowns, border closures etc and the huge drain on cash. It’s a miracle they’re still flying.

The question will be how long it takes to get back to the historical figures around that $2B mark?

Agree; can now see what Joyce was saying about being X weeks from (balance sheet) insolvency - although the balance sheet doesn't show the several $bill JobSeeker etc payments from government and the US web site may not have recognised those payments as an asset.

Historically it was more around the $6 billion mark (early 2000s).

 

[dajop]

Agree that it’s not the location of the workers that’s the problem. It’s the lacks of competency, lack of authority and probably the incongruent incentivisation of customer service workers that makes good service impossible. Could have the same problem if you brought it onshore and still had a contract with Mindless Pearl to provide the service from within Australia.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Agree that it’s not the location of the workers that’s the problem.

Location does play a factor here. If you live in a country where air travel is not a common occurrence, you will lack the understanding and empathy of travellers calling the call centre. One of the reasons why my calls to United were a success was simply for the fact that the person on the other end of the line did travel and could appreciate that an hour connection at SFO is not gonna cut it for a international to domestic transfer. Could you train for that? Perhaps to some extent. But you will never have the empathy for your fellow traveller unless you of course travel.

I could be mistaken here, but I believe when QF had exclusively onshore call centres one of the perks employees had was the ability to take QF flights at a discount (i.e. ID90). It would not surprise me if those remaining agents in HBA actually took a Qantas flight within the past 3 months and could have an understanding of the travel experience in that regards.

It’s the lacks of competency, lack of authority and probably the incongruent incentivisation of customer service workers that makes good service impossible. Could have the same problem if you brought it onshore and still had a contract with Mindless Pearl to provide the service from within Australia.

I would argue that part of the reason we are seeing this is precisely because Joyce and Co wanted to trim costs. You do that by offshoring customer service to the lowest bidder. However, a risk that goes up when you outsource operations in that way is potential fraud especially by customer service workers who frankly don't have much to lose in committing it. You prevent this by limiting their actions and having audits in place (i.e. the infamous award ticketing queue). Providing additional training to customer service agents represents additional cost which has an obvious bottom line cost but has no explicit benefits.

-RooFlyer88

 

[KSC]

Location does play a factor here. If you live in a country where air travel is not a common occurrence, you will lack the understanding and empathy of travellers calling the call centre. One of the reasons why my calls to United were a success was simply for the fact that the person on the other end of the line did travel and could appreciate that an hour connection at SFO is not gonna cut it for a international to domestic transfer. Could you train for that? Perhaps to some extent. But you will never have the empathy for your fellow traveller unless you of course travel.

I could be mistaken here, but I believe when QF had exclusively onshore call centres one of the perks employees had was the ability to take QF flights at a discount (i.e. ID90). It would not surprise me if those remaining agents in HBA actually took a Qantas flight within the past 3 months and could have an understanding of the travel experience in that regards.

I would argue that part of the reason we are seeing this is precisely because Joyce and Co wanted to trim costs. You do that by offshoring customer service to the lowest bidder. However, a risk that goes up when you outsource operations in that way is potential fraud especially by customer service workers who frankly don't have much to lose in committing it. You prevent this by limiting their actions and having audits in place (i.e. the infamous award ticketing queue). Providing additional training to customer service agents represents additional cost which has an obvious bottom line cost but has no explicit benefits.

-RooFlyer88

Agreed with advantages of onshore contact centres. Also higher chance that local employees will travel with Qantas so will have empathy with the quirks, limitations and pain points on a personal level. They will also know the good points.

When I worked at retail many years ago at Vodafone it definitely helped that I also had to endure outages, billing issues etc.
It gives you the fuel to resolve and escalate up the chain the issues to head office that need to be resolved. Genuine passion and empathy is hard to substitute. I had also endured for customers been on the phone for hours at a time to get a rightful billing credit due to billing errors. I feel in many ways working retail has more day to day stress than working corporate.
The general public are allot less forgiving when things go wrong and will voice it. I have had security and the police called on occasions, that has never happened working in an office in corporate.

The questions asked at the AGM if they have flown an economy international flight is a fair question. I would add have they routinely tried to personally make changes via the phone calling the normal bronze and no status number. It would also help if corporate staff do more ride alongs at contact centres to first hand experience receiving customer calls.

 

[Quickstatus]

The questions asked at the AGM if they have flown an economy international flight is a fair question

VH did fly MEL-SYD in Y not long after her elevation to CEO. IDK if it was one time only

 

[anat0l]

Providing additional training to customer service agents represents additional cost which has an obvious bottom line cost but has no explicit benefits.

Customer service is a department where the benefits are difficult to make explicit.

Sure, we could have metrics like minimising loss of refunded fares for a customer who cannot be served properly, or how much additional business that customer brings after having had good service, or we can use those Likert metrics that some people bother to fill out after the call is finished. All of those are hardly explicit.

Customer service is a cost base, not revenue.

That doesn't mean you can completely (and/or contemptuously) blow it off any more than you can stop spending on your health (unless you happen to not care for your health at all and/or do not fear your mortality). At some point a case needs to be made to have well-equipped and well trained CSAs that will require time and money; the return will be very difficult to pinpoint back to the bottom line. How much time do Qantas cheeseheads want to wait or to throw more money at it to potentially speed up the process is another thing.

There are lots of these kinds of "non-tangibles" abound in running almost any business that don't seem to be all that important to the boardroom, and yet often are the parts that make us human - moral and ethical.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

VH did fly MEL-SYD in Y not long after her elevation to CEO. IDK if it was one time only

I suspect that is the only time. But even if she were to fly regularly in Y, will she see the real QF Y experience or will she see a version crafted for her? Additionally, I think some of the goodwill towards her was eroded not just by the AGM but her first action as CEO: renaming the tail numbers of all Qantas planes to start with her initials: VH.

-RooFlyer88

 

[anat0l]

I suspect that is the only time. But even if she were to fly regularly in Y, will she see the real QF Y experience or will she see a version crafted for her?

How often does anyone from upper management actually do this, especially longhaul Y? I would see this as mandatory, as you have to understand what the experience is like there - the most common traveller class.

I know that runs counter to the idea that the flagship or signature service of a carrier (and certainly the one that most of us on this forum tend to judge a carrier by, i.e. hardly anyone judges a carrier on face value by its Economy service); in fact, at one point many thought Economy was getting a lot of attention that should have sorely been directed at premium classes.

Additionally, I think some of the goodwill towards her was eroded not just by the AGM but her first action as CEO: renaming the tail numbers of all Qantas planes to start with her initials: VH.

Hah. Funny.

 

[trader10]

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

Correct. Training is the key

 

[tdimdad]

Again this has nothing to do with the competence of the staff. In the case of Mindpearl, the staff aren't paid to be lateral thinkers. They have set workflows and processes they follow. If the computer says no, it's no. They have KPIs and supervisors on their shoulder.
Replicate this in Australia and you may get same result. Not everyone is a frequent flyer, give a job to a recent migrant who's never been on a domestic flight, they may well think SYD-MEL is once a day as well.

The KPI's are a minefield here. Many call centres are measured by volume of calls and call durations. It's to their benefit to maximise the volume and minimise the duration. I wouldn't be surprised if the QF outsourced centres actually were (at least partially) paid for the volume. If this is the case, incidentally every HUACA and follow-up call plays to the call centres' advantage and they are incentivised to keep the merry go around.

What often lacks from the KPI's is the 'first call resolution rate'. This would be a decent proxy for either the work quality or giving the customers the "one call only" service where the support organisation takes ownership of the resolution without the customer needing to call again.

Back in prehistoric times, I worked for an IT service provider, at the customer service / support interface. A new management shifted us to volume-based metrics. As we had prided ourselves with exemplary customer service (and rightly so), we attempted to get a quality metric included. Eventually we lost the battle and were measured by volumes and throughput times only. You can guess what happened to the service quality from there on. And I see the same traits all over in the service industries or interfaces - only very few organisations aim to provide genuinely good service to their customer base (if you get great service, it often is because of a great individual and/or the team & local management).