Has Qantas lost your business due to its failure to provide customer service?

[Mattg]

I recall reading that you tried to book a classic reward or a red e-deal fare, close to flight departure time. Did you try to book any other type of fare?

The 2 fare categories you mentioned trying to book, were the last categories I would expect to see available at very short notice. YMMV. But maybe you did try for enough other fare categories to be able to say sweepingly that the website was broken, as opposed to there being no availability in the fare categories you were trying to book at the last minute.

There was wide open availability for Classic Reward seats and Red e-Deal tickets, both of which I tried to book. I cross-checked the relevant RBDs on Expert Flyer. The website was broken.

 

[RooFlyer]

Point is people post exceptional experiences. You rarely see people post “I took a flight, it was fine and uneventful. I had no reason to call the call centre”.

Sure, I guess, but that’s what we pay a premium for, when flying Qantas, isn’t it? We may pay for good or superior service in any situation. But cheaper VA and Jetstar currently have much better service. If you get your flight cancelled at the airport or unrealistically rescheduled, I dare say you will quickly join the ranters here pouring it on Qantas.

 

[Guvner]

How on earth are you measuring this?

Via anecdotes, hence the word “anecdotally”.

 

[RooFlyer]

Are the other airlines performing better ?

Yes. Jetstar, Virgin for two.

How on earth are you measuring this?

Probably by listening to the anecdotes, which is what the poster wrote.

Edit: beaten to it!

I imagine your arguments Are similar to those being offered up by Qantas management internally. “ Gosh we never have a problem - there’s nothing to fix. “

 

[Anna]

There was wide open availability for Classic Reward seats and Red e-Deal tickets, both of which I tried to book. I cross-checked the relevant RBDs on Expert Flyer. The website was broken.

So that's "no, I only tried to book a classic reward or red e-deal fare"?

 

[justinbrett]

Via anecdotes, hence the word “anecdotally”.

Which is my point, you can’t prove a negative. People don’t share anecdotes when there’s nothing unusual to report.

This phenomenon is well known in media and statistic circles.

 

[Guvner]

And my point is that more people are sharing more anecdotes.

 

[Anna]

Actually you can prove a negative in a civil matter if you can prove sufficient circumstances to enable the decision maker to draw the necessary inferences to the standard of the balance of probabilities.

 

[justinbrett]

And my point is that more people are sharing more anecdotes.

And (a lot) more people are flying. What’s the proportion of anecdote to pax?

There was wide open availability for Classic Reward seats and Red e-Deal tickets, both of which I tried to book. I cross-checked the relevant RBDs on Expert Flyer. The website was broken.

It’s common knowledge they close off online ticketing close to departure time (it used to be 2 hours, might be less now).

That’s obviously a problem if you can’t buy a ticket at the airport. But I wouldn’t say it means the website is broken.

 

[sudoer]

Conversely, there are many things you can do online that you couldn’t do before covid.

Genuine question - what have they added?

 

[Guvner]

And (a lot) more people are flying. What’s the proportion of anecdote to pax?



.

lol. Take the straw man “win”. It’s getting tedious.

 

[justinbrett]

Genuine question - what have they added?

Reverse check in. That’s an excellent feature.

 

[RichardMEL]

Do you mean 'but that doesn't mean there isn't a serious problem' rather than 'is'? (i.e. there IS a problem).

The rule of double negatives if I may put it that way.

yes, absolutely that is what I meant. mea culpa. I will edit my original. thanks for picking that up

 

[RichardMEL]

I'm starting to wonder if anyone else may work for QF PR.....

 

[justinbrett]

I'm starting to wonder if anyone else may work for QF PR.....

Fewer than those working for VA I’d say

 

[sudoer]

Reverse check in. That’s an excellent feature.

Fair, but this also feels like a bare minimum requirement for the removal of service desks rather than Qantas proactively innovating.

Any other new features? I'm struggling to think of other new self-service capabilities over the past two years. Classic upgrade requests were integrated into the app, but these were already self-service through the website.

There have also been a couple of UI fixes and the activity statement revamp, but no additional functionality from those. In the mean time, searching for classic award has become more difficult, and the status credit calculator has been completely buggered. It feels like an overall negative result for customer experience.

 

[Anna]

So as I pass an hour waiting on hold trying to speak to HSBC, I am pondering what other organisations I would have to cease trying to deal with if my metric was recent woeful phone service. I have come up with:

Telstra
Optus (better than Telstra, but still bad)
Medicare
ATO
Centrelink (re a deceased estate)
Australian Immunisation Register
Microsoft
Hilton (answered the call reasonably fast, but refused to help me out with making a booking - I'm diamond)

So QF is hardly an orphan in this respect, unfortunately for us all as Australian community members.

HSBC have now answered my call and took exactly as long to do so as QF recently did: 75 minutes.

 

[sudoer]

Telstra

At least Telstra have recognised and committed to fixing the issue properly...

Telstra to have Australian agents answer all inbound calls from 2022

Contact centre mix changes made in COVID to become permanent.

www.itnews.com.au

Singapore Airlines can be added to your list also - 1+ hour hold times seem to be pretty common from what I've read on AFF and FT.

 

[Guvner]

So as I pass an hour waiting on hold trying to speak to HSBC, I am pondering what other organisations I would have to cease trying to deal with if my metric was recent woeful phone service. I have come up with:

Telstra
Optus (better than Telstra, but still bad)
Medicare
ATO
Centrelink (re a deceased estate)
Australian Immunisation Register
Microsoft
Hilton (answered the call reasonably fast, but refused to help me out with making a booking - I'm diamond)

So QF is hardly an orphan in this respect, unfortunately for us all as Australian community members.

HSBC have now answered my call and took exactly as long to do so as QF recently did: 75 minutes.

Most of those organisations at least have a physical presence where you can actually speak to a person 'in person".

 

[Anna]

At least Telstra have recognised and committed to fixing the issue properly...

Telstra to have Australian agents answer all inbound calls from 2022

Contact centre mix changes made in COVID to become permanent.

www.itnews.com.au

Excellent! Now all they need to do is fix that my supposedly 4G mobile broadband has once again reverted to 3G. Or will they continue to deny that is the case I wonder. Last time this happened it took hours on the phone before I hit the right area where they finally admitted there was an issue with the tower nearest my home and they didn't know when it would be fixed (18 mths was the answer in the end).