Article: Spare a Thought for the Poor Qantas Contact Centre Staff

[drron]

Well QF used to have us as 2 rusted on users. I learn't quite some time ago that their loyalty scheme wasn't returning the loyalty so switched to Advantage more than 15 years ago. It took me a bit longer to realise it wasn't even the best airline with inconsistent service as it's hallmark so it has been BA,SQ,JAL and TG in or out of Australia for some years now. The only QFi flights have been to Fiji and NZ.

But I still would not abuse call centre or any other airline staff. And it pays off. We missed a connection in MIA on AA a few years ago. We had upgraded our original flight but it looked certain we wouldn't be able to do that on our new flight but the check in agent rang the gate agent for us. I approached the gate and asked if any possibility of an upgrade and told no. But before I left the agent asked for my name and then said sorry drron here are your new BPs. At that the fellow behind me went ballistic screaming that I am EXP and i have been bumped from the upgrade list. as he walked away I asked how I as a plat got the upgrade ahead of him. she replied that's easy when you contact us you often give us compliments,he only complains. So be nice kiddies.

 

[Greg555]

The modern business and customer service model is for long waiting times. Why can't Australians in general and frequent flyers accept and understand that? Australians have been deemed incompetent at customer service; hence the move to overseas-based call centre operators who are trained to speak in standard sentences rather than conversational English.

Bwahahahahahaha.....

Written, spoken and authorised by Alan Joyce.

 

[RichardMEL]

Bwahahahahahaha.....

Written, spoken and authorised by Alan Joyce.

oh I am so glad it's not me this time. I still chuckle at the time some years back I was accused of working for QF Marketing. Pretty hilarious

sorry I just had to note that one as it amused me.

 

[AVV]

Is there any evidence that people are 'taking out their anger' on the call centre staff? There isn't in the article, but thought I'd ask.

When my call eventually got answered after 4+ hours of trying at different times, my response was to nearly cry with relief and the first thing I said was "it's so lovely to hear your voice!" Which made the CSA laugh.

I agree 100%. Even after several hours I tell them it is not your fault. "Relax.
I generally tell them it is not their fault. Then make them feel happy as have been to most of their countries. I blame A Joyce and tell them so. All QF offices are closed. It is amazing he depends on loylaty. He would never have to wait. I am now using in area JQ , pay all bundles and get to them in 5 minutes. Blame Him. . Perhaps he should go to Air Lingus. They have enough problems. Do not blame the staff it it is not their fault. When I do get through I am polite non aggresive. It helps. It iis not not their fault. Blame QF admin and CEO'S.

 

[TheInsider]

I agree 100%. Even after several hours I tell them it is not your fault. "Relax.
I generally tell them it is not their fault. Then make them feel happy as have been to most of their countries. I blame A Joyce and tell them so. All QF offices are closed. It is amazing he depends on loylaty. He would never have to wait. I am now using in area JQ , pay all bundles and get to them in 5 minutes. Blame Him. . Perhaps he should go to Air Lingus. They have enough problems. Do not blame the staff it it is not their fault. When I do get through I am polite non aggresive. It helps. It iis not not their fault. Blame QF admin and CEO'S.

Tbh it's not just the CEO, it's all the other hundreds of levels of petty management in Qantas and those that keep bullshitting the bullshitters. It's all a game for most.

 

[wotan]

Bwahahahahahaha.....

Written, spoken and authorised by Alan Joyce.

❤

 

[ozgod]

Spare a Thought for the Poor Qantas Contact Centre Staff is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

Please Spare a Thought for the Poor Souls Working at the Qantas Contact Centres

It's obvious to anyone who's tried to contact Qantas recently - be it by phone, email, social media or elsewhere - that the airline has completely lost

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

I have never gotten mad at any customer service person I have spoken to, for the following reasons:

1. its not their fault the company they work for sucks;
2. they might not have the training or infrastructure to help them resolve everyone's issues;
3. they showed up to work and are doing a thankless job and deserve to be treated respectfully; and
4. for the most part they have been able to solve my issues, or at least they put in a good effort.

Irrespective of which call centre it is, of the 10 people I've had to speak to in the past 3 months either solved my issue or made a solid effort to. Only one bloke sounded disinterested and disconnected/hung up on me after 2 hours of waiting. He didn't introduce himself either so I'm guessing it was a training issue.

Oh and:

5. I don't want to be hung up on after 4 hours on hold for being rude

So I am always extra nice to customer service staff when I am fortunate enough to be finally connected to them.

The only time I would ever be tempted to lose my cool if when I have read on this thread of people getting grilled or given a hard time for the use of the so-called priority numbers that are posted on the Customer Service thread. If someone ever gave me a hard time for using a number that I had to resort to my own measures to find, just because I wanted to avoid being made to wait 4 hours on the phone. I just don't think that's good service at all, to get stuck into a customer for making an effort to expedite a call. If they answered the phone on time or let people make flight changes online nobody would have to find priority numbers to call!

That's never happened, so thankfully I've never been tempted...I suspect I would still be able to maintain my composure though.

 

[lovestotravel]

My days of flying QF are over. Fix the contact centre so I don't need to wait 4 hours and hope a poorly paid and trained consultant can do a basic task and I'll fly QF again

 

[Clayton]

The modern business and customer service model is for long waiting times. Why can't Australians in general and frequent flyers accept and understand that? Australians have been deemed incompetent at customer service; hence the move to overseas-based call centre operators who are trained to speak in standard sentences rather than conversational English.

I couldn't disagree more. Whenever I got through to local QF staff for my occasional customer support calls, I was invariably delighted by their excellent product knowledge and how they had autonomy to complete the requested action. The off-shore support staff I have accessed in the past 3 years have almost invariably been after an extraordinarily long wait time, and often they have not understood, or had autonomy to do the action. This is a telling sign that QF is no longer caring about Australian customers, so will not get my business when I have alternatives.

 

[Franky]

I couldn't disagree more. Whenever I got through to local QF staff for my occasional customer support calls, I was invariably delighted by their excellent product knowledge and how they had autonomy to complete the requested action. The off-shore support staff I have accessed in the past 3 years have almost invariably been after an extraordinarily long wait time, and often they have not understood, or had autonomy to do the action. This is a telling sign that QF is no longer caring about Australian customers, so will not get my business when I have alternatives.

All we can do is bite the tongue, (once you eventually get thru0, tell them about the cough service and ask that they pass it up the line that things are not good enough for an airline that calls itself 'Australia's Favourite'

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

The ASU has gotten involved with QF, and demanding their call centre jobs with QF be brought back to Aust, and that the HBA call centre gets more staff.
AJ says he is planning to increase staff numbers all round, with all of their call centres.
He says he feels for people who have to wait hours, and really, should only have to wait 30 mins (big grin, eh)...
Was in the news few hours back.
Edit, if you google ASU and QF, something about it should come up.
Realistically, not sure if AJ will ever do it, promises are one thing, doing is another.
If it comes to fruition, maybe taking away the ability to print QFd BP from kiosks, might be an ok thing, if they put more money into solutions.

 

[AFF Editor]

Is there any evidence that people are 'taking out their anger' on the call centre staff? There isn't in the article, but thought I'd ask.

There is. For example, the Australian Services Union has publicly said that the staff are “exhausted and working beyond breaking point”.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flights/qantas-faces-another-blow-to-call-centre-controversy-as-union-weighs-in/news-story/1fb3bdc74b884aa2c01d4bf874c3046e

 

[RichardMEL]

Sadly one doesn't need evidence per se because it is human nature for certain types of personality types in our sciety. I don't even mean the so-called "karens" but we've all seen people in all kinds of situations who lose their mind at something and take it out on the person - oh the slurpee machine is broken so have a go at the 7-11 clerk, Restaurant has run out of so-and-so dish - abuse the wait staff.... the queue the bank is taking too long - it's obviously the teller's fault etc...

Some people react poorly with frustrations (so understandable in the case of the wait times being unacceptable as even QF finally dares admit) and take it out on the person they speak to as it's the representative of the company they are having their beef with, even though it's clearly not that person's fault.

Really it comes down to personality types.. even if in one's personal life there are those people who will take out their frustrations and pain on those closest to them (easy targets), or as a more extreme example of those who become abusive in relationships towards a partner.

Obviously I'm no psychologist and I have probably worded this poorly (and I mean no generalisations or to seem like I am attempting to equate domestic violence with abusing a QF rep in any way) - I'm just trying to make a point of certain personality types that would be more prone to act this way.

and so I don't have to personally see it to know it's happening and I feel bad for those souls (and I don't care where they're working from) being abused for things outside of their control (and when you have huge wait times it means there is zero slack between calls for the entire shift because there's ALWAYS someone waiting... as noted up thread from someone previously in a similar role).. it's thankless and why I definitely always try to be understanding of and supportive of the front line workers copping the brunt of some people's ire.

 

[pn1]

Exactly but these articles should have investigated the pitfalls of having call centres overseas like when they had South Africa and the staff themselves were either dismissive, rude or did not know the rules and entitlements passengerw had esp top tier frequent flyers. I also found this to ge a problem across the board with their NZ and Aussie call centres and it gave me the impression that the call centres are outsourced and were not monitored for quality of service so the writer should stop blaming passengers calling to have an issue resolved and try calling herself and see what sort of treatment she gets from Qantas, sorry but as a platinum member for 15 consecutive years now a lifetime gold I no longer support it as my preferred airline and prefer to use Cathay, Qatar and JAL

Makes a bit of a mockery of the "this call will be recorded for quality and training purposes"? The purpose of outsourcing to overseas call centres is to reduce "clerical" costs? Who's going to employ someone to monitor recorded calls for "quality and training purposes?

 

[drron]

Just because someone works in an OS call centre doesn't mean they don't want to learn or don't care. One of the best calls I ever had to Aadvantage was carmen from manilla and it was her first day on the job that turned out to be a blessing as it was a complicated reroute following the collapse of Malev. Being her first day I could take her through the processes without her saying you can't do that when something got a little complicated. She also wasn't fazed when there were no awards from Amsterdam to IST. She discovered there was a way to book an AA award on KLM. Who knew.
I guess though in the subsequent years if she got a lot of arrogant and abusive customers that may well have changed.

 

[ric_melb]

There was a news item on ABC radio this morning about Qantas acknowledging the problem of long wait times in call centres. The comment was that Qantas were getting 14,000 calls a day.
But I have only heard it once. The ABC News site quotes Alan Joyce saying that the average waiting time for passengers was 90 minutes, and 30 minutes for premium passengers. Calls have increased from 5000 a day to 15,000 a day, with borders opening up.
However we all know this long wait has been going on for a long time.
It may take time for Qantas to train new staff but surely if they know the issue they could train up staff so that they can reduce the wait time to something acceptable. Preferably this would be in Australia as most calls would come from Australia, so that would hopefully have capacity where the majority of their customers are.

 

[drron]

I got an email from Stephanie Tully today from QF explaining all the figures and saying sorry.

 

[BD1959]

I got an email from Stephanie Tully today from QF explaining all the figures and saying sorry.

That's nice. You'll be able to read it another 47 times next time you're on hold!

Regards,

BD

 

[TheInsider]

I got an email from Stephanie Tully today from QF explaining all the figures and saying sorry.

All forgiven?

 

[DC3]

I got an email from Stephanie Tully today from QF explaining all the figures and saying sorry.