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

[AFF Editor]

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.

 

[Anna]

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.

 

[Kendall Roy]

Any frustrations are best directed at Stephanie Tully, or via the AFF threads.

 

[RealtimeY]

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.

What a way to brighten someone's day, but unfortunately in any customer-facing role you're bound to encounter disgruntled customers, even at the best of times (just look at all the "we do not tolerate violence" signs). Add on imminent travel plans, COVID disruptions, and a few hours listening to hold music, and it gets much worse.

I'm sure any staff would be quite worn down after having to talk to less than happy customers all day long, even if they aren't "taking out their anger" per se.

 

[pn1]

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.

 

[ThePointyEnd]

But it's not just the call centers, it's also the airline. I had the misfortune to fly Qantas in January when Virgin canceled my flight and they were the only viable alternative. The lounge service was surly and we were made to feel an imposition. Onboard there was no welcome, no glass of sustenance, and no service at all until the crew had stopped chatting amongst themselves; and that took a long while. In extremes there is a position for Qantas, but passengers actively booking with them amaze me.

 

[ramboflyer]

I just don't understand why Qantas don't make it possible for customers to self serve straight forward changes on the site. As an example I recently had a connected flight changed from a convenient time for me to an inconvenient time. When I looked at other options I could see some good choices but the only choice offered to me by Qantas in my account was the one they moved me too. In the end I decided to do nothing as it would mean trying to call the contact centre. No doubt others would be calling. If I had the option of changing to flights that suited me I would have been happy but this adds to my negativity with Qantas.

 

[siri]

I have just booked 2 Business class tickets to London via Haneda (JA) with few days rest in Tokyo on our way back.. Try to book via Qantas but got some crazy prices and some insulting award flights when we try points.. It means flying with Qantas with pay or points are not possible.

 

[neverhappy]

Couldn’t agree more that the attempt at customer service from Qantas in this space what’s been beyond unacceptable. As frustrated as I have been, I have not taken it out in their poor people. This along with a refund takes 8-12 weeks (formerly an automated process pre Covid) disrespect and lies, makes QF a woeful business at the moment… so good for you ET telling people to shop elsewhere…. But will these thirsty FF’s actually do that?

 

[Kezza21]

Having spent hours on hold with weekly changes to our flights to the UK and now to New Zealand, I am always totally grateful to get through to someone who knows what they are doing. I know it is not the fault of the poorly trained staff in South Africa, but they have added a comment on the hold script which asks us to respect their staff (which I do) but where is the respect when they hang up on you because they dont know how to handle your request? No respect for the customer at all. Tell us you dont know!
Better still, when Qantas makes a scheduling change, how about programming the system to check the connecting flights and if there is no way they connect any more, change that flight too!

 

[neverhappy]

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 would support this IF you could transact online… there are so many ways QF do not allow this, so the slap in the face customer service model doesn’t work!

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

I'm just another data point, but I echo the comments above.

I availed myself of Qantas' fast track status match last year with enthusiasm, but after a few situations requiring basic changes that should have been but couldn't be done online, then resulting in dozens of hours on hold over the course of weeks, my enthusiasm waned.

After being burned a few more times by Qantas' anything but honest and flexible "Fly Flexible" policy, I gave up and started booking with Virgin simply for the peace of mind that it wouldn't take hours to reach an agent and that I could simply cancel flights during the Covid mess and refund the fare into the "travel bank" and then use as cash.

The result of that little personal protest was that I have accidentally earned Gold status on Virgin and will simply stay where I am.

Sure, I prefer the more extensive lounge network, free WiFi and snack on QF, but my time and energy are worth more than those.

 

[NM]

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.

In the industry in which I work (not the airline or travel industry), Australians are not "deemed incompetent at customer service", they are deemed "too expensive when compared to off-shored operations", which is all about the cost and not about capability or competence.

Its interesting to note that almost every time I call any service provider, the opening line on the recorded message is "we are experiencing high call volumes at this time. I believe this message and making people wait for their calls to be answered, is a direct attempt to have their customers first try any "self help" options such as FAQ or self-service via a web page or mobile app, where such interactions cost even less for the service provider. But as wel know, especially in the case of Qantas, many things cannot be resolved via non-people interactions and sometimes we need to call to get the service we need.

 

[Guvner]

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.

Based on what?
A published study? Where can we find it?
Industry metrics? Which ones?
There's myriad posts on here detailing how the Australian based staff have efficiently dealt with issues, whilst off-shore contractors have dithered, misled and excused their way through calls without a satisfactory outcome, each resulting in multiple calls. Multiple calls to attempt to resolve the same issue blows any "cost reduction" argument out of the water.
If anyone can construct a formula which explains how calling a South African agent 4 times before getting an issue eventually resolved by an on-shore agent (who could have fixed it with one call) can reduce costs, I'll also ask them to explain string theory in 4 words.

 

[NM]

... I'll also ask them to explain string theory in 4 words.

I'll have a go ...

Marketing spin during tender

 

[siri]

Cisco had technology in late 90's to take call centres to regional areas and give our youngsters employment in those areas. I took the design and proposal to Federal govt. and they completely ignored me. We also shown that we can match overseas call centres on cost and I believe that Australian companies should be taxed separately if call centres are out side the country since their business case is not justified. I also think qantas not buying necessary technology (provisioning) to run the call centres .

 

[Guvner]

Not that we'll ever know, but I'd be interested to see how much of the $2B afforded to Qantas by the Australian taxpayer essentially ended up an offshore JobKeeper fund.
Investing in young Australians working from home during COVID with remote helpdesk/call center capabilities should have been the priority, not propping up SA's or Fiji's economy. Typical short-sighted planning by big business and Govt. Throw money at the problem instead of intelligence. The latter in short supply unfortunately.

 

[White Gold]

I haven't had the need to attempt an enquiry through the call centre but recently had an email query which I sent via the website. My issue was resolved in approx. 72hrs which I thought was pretty good. I will try to avoid the call centre and utalise the website options.

 

[NM]

Cisco had technology in late 90's to take call centres to regional areas and give our youngsters employment in those areas. I took the design and proposal to Federal govt. and they completely ignored me. We also shown that we can match overseas call centres on cost and I believe that Australian companies should be taxed separately if call centres are out side the country since their business case is not justified. I also think qantas not buying necessary technology (provisioning) to run the call centres .

This makes some sense for Australian businesses, and lets face it, the discussion in this thread is about an Australian business, though they do have a considerable international footprint of customers. And as you note, there is no technology barrier to delivering their customer service from Australian service agents located anywhere in the country (capital city, regional city/town, home-based workers). When calling American Airlines on their USA 1800 number, I normally find myself quickly talking to a USA-located home-based agent who has all the tools to address my enquiry. I have also recently worked on a solution for an Australian financial services organisation to provide home-based Australian service desk agents with all the tools need to resolve customer contacts, whether arriving by email, on-line chat or phone call. Having home-based agents save costs of office space rent and infrastructure, and the centralised investment in technology, communications and tools is similar and independent of location where the agents are based.

Consolidating service desks into geographic "knowledge base" locations can make a lot of sense for global organisations, and Cisco themselves do this very well with their TAC. Call Cisco TAC from Australia at any time of day and you are unlikely to speak with someone in Australia. But they manage the call very well and if not resolved by the time the service agent who is "owning" the call reaches the end of their shift, there is a seamless handover to the next agent as the call/issue follows the sun to the next knowledge hub location.

Of course with Cisco TAC I get to bypass the "level-1" agents who go through the whole "have you tried turning it off and back on again" process and go directly to level-2 support who assume a certain level of troubleshooting has been done before calling, so I guess that should compare to say QFF Plat, Plat-One status customers in Qantas' case.

 

[MaudedAnvers]

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.

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