Customer Care Don't Care?

[mannej]

Not trying to hijack a thread, but do QF still provide compensation for non-functioning IFE? No go for the IFE on the 772 today.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

In fairness - there are some genuinely good people at QF - both crew and customer service management, who do truly care about the customer experience.

There are good crew, but then you watch Masterchef where a CSM stated in her bio (which they played many times) 'I've been working for 37 years with Qantas but flying is not my passion' - and you wonder why she would say that?

'Flying is one passion but so is food' I could understand. But if I was ever on a flight with her I'd just be thinking 'she doesn't want to be here'.

 

[penegal]

Not trying to hijack a thread, but do QF still provide compensation for non-functioning IFE? No go for the IFE on the 772 today.

That's the thing:

IFE doesn't work - you get a telephone apology and points thrown at you
Crew don't work - you get a copy-paste email

 

[dfcatch]

That's the thing:

IFE doesn't work - you get a telephone apology and points thrown at you
Crew don't work - you get a copy-paste email

You'll get what you're given and you'll like it!

 

[cmon0005]

I had a similar experience, a couple of years ago now, was on my honeymoon travelling to a few different destinations, on a particular route (SIN-BOM) we were flying in A330 J in 1A & 1B. J was lightly loaded as well as having a paxing FA in J in row 2.

The service was lacking to say the least, only saw the crew at meal times, tables not cleared for a long time, call bell ignored for a long time, no proactive drinks service, crew chatting in galley whilst pax trying to sleep about their weekends.etc., then the FA was talking with paxing FA behind us for a good 30 mins, whilst we seemed to be an inconvenience when we wanted a drink top-up.
To top it all off when we landed in BOM, got the feared announcement "Mr.cmon0005 please see ground staff for a message", the crew wouldn't tell me what for, as they obviously didn't care. One whole baggage crate was not loaded in SIN and all our luggage was in it!

Then had to queue for 1.5 hours at 2am in the morning, for the outsourced ground handling company to serve us and fill in the report, when asked about cash we were told we get nothing and had to fight for a "lost bag kit" basically a qantas tshirt, toothbrush and deodorant.

Thankfully we phoned ahead to our hotel, and they were fantastic including giving us shirts, extra toiletries, towels, etc.

Anyway long story short emailed QF customer care explaining all this, and basically got an email like the OP's, no acknowledgement that our honeymoon started off on a very bad note, no offer to followup, no service recovery in terms of points or something and they wonder why they had to cut the QF51 SIN-BOM route by treating pax like that.

 

[RAM]

You'll get what you're given and you'll like it!



I cannot stand lowering standards either on Q or here, so please dfcatch include the full statement:

You'll get what you're given and you'll like it, and then profusely thank me for noticing you or else!

Do not leave out the most important component....

 

[dfcatch]

And yet Storyteller and I had an absolutely amazing crew in F who was thoroughly happy to keep the Taittinger flowing despite the rest of the cabin being asleep

 

[Kangol]

Not that it matters who they are, but the celebrities were Ronan Keating and Storm Uechtritz. They kept to themselves, and I didn't have an issue sharing the cabin with them at all.

Life really is a rollercoaster, isn't it

Not trying to hijack a thread, but do QF still provide compensation for non-functioning IFE? No go for the IFE on the 772 today.

For a moment there I was thinking you were referring to the aircraft type

 

[QF WP]

The crew were not doing their jobs - plain and simple.

Compensation offered or not..... I don't consider a cut and paste response adequate.

Thank you for that card, dfcatch, very interesting reading.

 

[mannej]

That's the thing:

IFE doesn't work - you get a telephone apology and points thrown at you
Crew don't work - you get a copy-paste email

I had horrible ground staff at PER and the QP today, so I'll follow that up when I get home.

 

[penegal]

Life really is a rollercoaster, isn't it

Just gotta ride it?

 

[MelUser]

What was the route?

 

[N860CR]

It's so frustrating that customer care is so removed from reality.

Solution... Fly another airline. After just completing several J sectors on CX where every crew member knows your name and every request is granted in a matter of seconds, I'll never touch QF again.

 

[penegal]

What was the route?

DXB-SYD on QF2

 

[Mr_Orange]

Not trying to hijack a thread, but do QF still provide compensation for non-functioning IFE? No go for the IFE on the 772 today.

QF don't own any B777s do they ??

 

[Princess Fiona]

Was going to start my own thread but I'll just ride along here and report my recent experience of customer service inflight on QF F.
Flight was HKG-SYD. I was the first passenger to have my meal order taken and I chose a soup and one of the small plates. Shrek and I were dining together. After the soup plates were cleared and whilst waiting for the main (small plate) the FA appeared and advised that they had ran out of the dish I ordered and asked me to choose something else. This was at least 1 1/2 hours after the order had been taken.
I was pretty astonished TBH, asked for a few minutes to look at the menu and ordered something else. It was pretty horrid.
After the meal, and feeling a bit annoyed I decided that I would probably complain to customer care.
I thought that I should let the CSM know so I wandered up to the galley and advised the FA that I wished to speak with him.
The CSM appeared at my seat pretty quickly and I explained what had happened. He apologised sincerely and explained that the catering loads had been incorrect and that several pax had missed out on meal choices. Very professional and friendly and brought me a glass of Pol Roger and asked if there was anything else I needed.
Later on inflight the CSM appeared with some skin care I had ordered from the inflight shopping magazine and some other items and advised that they were all complimentary.
Again apologies about the catering and service etc, gave me his business card and encouraged me to feedback to QF the catering issues.
Suffice it to say, this particular CSM turned what was a pretty poor inflight experience into a great and genuine example of service recovery.
QF should clone him

 

[QF WP]

The difference between the two examples is that the CSM in your example Princess Fiona owned the problem and gave service recovery - more than you expected. A pity we can't clone him

 

[dk4]

Often the initial greeting by the CSM will set the tone for the flight: you can get an immediate sense of how good or bad things will be.

Have to agree that at Qantas this seems to be a very good indication of how good, indifferent or bad the service will be.

IMO Qantas really needs to start managing their bad CSMs out of the business, with written warnings, counsellings and terminations. And in turn, CSMs need to take a more managerial approach to weeding out the poor performs in the FA ranks, so they exit the business too...

In general, managers who can't manage/push poor performers out of the business, and prefer to be friends with everyone, aren't management material.

 

[BobbyFlyer]

I agree the way the complaint is dealt with makes all the difference.

My experience on QF a number of years back was that i was heading from LHR to SIN in J having just connected from a flight from JFK. I had stayed up watching movies and and having a "few" reds as well. I was about to have my last red and approached the gallery to stretch my legs and the CSM suggested i have a water next time. I sat down and thought about the comment, to which i then decided to talk to the FA about it. I was totally coherent and acknowledged the RSA policy however the CSM made a judgement based on my red eyes (not knowing i had just connected from JFK). The FA offered me another wine which i declined as i was about to go to sleep anyway. Anyway lodged a complaint on my return and received a call back (not an email) which the guy offered my a basket of red wine -which was dutifully accepted and QF went up in my estimation (which was before all the enhancements!)

 

[Hvr]

• I wasn't addressed or recognised properly throughout the flight.
• "David Copperfield" CSM
• FA spilt wine all over the tablecloth during in meal service, and didn't clean it up or re-set the table. (I don't have a problem with the wine spill, these things happen... But they should have cleaned up)
• Call bell not answered outside of meal service time
• I had to walk to the galley to clear my own service items and refill my water bottle (thus interrupting the FA's mothers club meeting).
• Very long wait to clear the bed / duvet away (I thought I may be landing with a bed, rather than a seat).

There were a couple of celebrities aboard who may have star struck the crew, or maybe they were just having a bad day.

Either way, it left a bitter feeling in my mouth.

All of these issues are above minor, especially in F and with the exception of the wine spillage should not have happened. As penegal noted that happens and an immediate refresh and quiet apology would have resolved it to conclusion.

I believe that a phone call was the minimum response required upon receipt of the feedback. The initial service failures have now been compounded and cannot be explained away as an aberration.

The F cabin is exclusive and demands top quality service standards from staff who consistently deliver premium service to all passengers. At the very least the crew need to satisfactorily explain why they failed to deliver the minimum standard of service and if this is an ongoing issue then a change of duties may be required.

It will be interesting to see how Qantas respond and recover the situation.