If you had a day to spend with AJ to fix QF what would you say ?

[cove]

Yes I am glad I have a number that works.Part of my family have to use 131313 and the delay is totally crazy.

 

[Hvr]

Actually it doesn't really matter what number you dial. It's what QFF number you enter that determines the speed of the call being answered.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Were you the pie thrower?

Oh, no I was not.
I am all for his marriage.

 

[ajw373]

I wouldn't waste my time. AJ is doing exactly what he wants with Qantas. It's all about keeping the market and shareholders happy in the short term. Their lack of fleet renewal is testament to this.

What’s wrong with the fleet? There is nothing greatly wrong with what they have and they have announced their intention to start the gradual replacement of the narrow body fleet in particular soon.

The oldest 738 is about 18 years old, so still a good couple of years left in it.

I think we were spoilt in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s by advances in plane technology that meant there was gains and efficiencies to be had by replacing otherwise perfectly good planes “early”

 

[Vic]

Well, I'd agree with making the frequent flyer levels more pronounced in having benefits. Sure I can get a seat at the front with platinum, but otherwise there is nothing. I get on that plane and I still get addressed as " Hey Bud". I get the same service as everyone around me. There is only better service with crew that I know over a number of flights. Travel with the competition.

The website needs to fix up some basics. Booking multiple leg flights is a nightmare. You either accept the point to point options, with 2 hour connections in LAX or you do multi city bookings with associated prices increases. I recently had a return booking from Oz to the US with 3 legs in each direction. If I wanted to change the booking to get the first Australian domestic leg on a flight 30 minutes earlier, online I was only presented with options for all 3 flights on the onbound leg. Fix the website to give more flexibility for multi sector legs.

Fix the culture. Culture is driven by management not the unions. The unions are your biggest allies in getting a culture that works. Lead by example, do not denigrate your staff. Having said that shared experience from a very customer focussed friend who did a stint with jetstar, the qantas team culture is miles in front of Jetstar. They said it was a very unhappy workplace. Qantas staff sitting together for lunch and chatting, Jetstar staff separate and not talking to each other. The lunch room dynamics says a lot about a workplace.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

Sit him down with a book entitled "The World's 100 Best Chefs" and say, "pick one, any one."

And, less facetiously, fix the call centre waiting time. It is an embarrassment.

 

[RichardMEL]

Looking at the operation as a whole and not just self serving I'd put up the following as major MAJOR issues

1. Fix the call centres. Yes it will cost money but you will make money by spending money. Waiting any more than a couple of minutes for someone without status is unacceptable in any world. Regular wait time reports for some of HOURS is outrageous. Sort it.
2. Website. Spend the money to get it right. The more online services you provide that work, and work consistently will lead to the less demand for the call centre in the first place (see above). All those annoying "glitches" many of us have to put up with should just not be there. Work with Amadeus to resolve them, or move to a platform that can do what you want to offer to your customers.
3. Related to above but proper award availability for partners.. all of them... I should not have to call for QR or numerous others to be available. If AA/BA etc can offer them up, why not QF?
4. The inconsistency in product (onboard, online, ground) delivery is a joke.. beyond a joke. Sort it out.

- nice but not critical core issues imo

5. Food. Perry has had his time in the sun. Get someone else. And possibly rethink the domestic J experience (even agreeing that in general it's lightyears better than comparable routes elsewhere)
6. domestic lounge dress codes - get rid of it. focus on behaviour of members and guests rather than what they are wearing.
7. Transparency when booking. Show us the bloody booking classes please before we book. (and fix the SC earn for multi city/partner flights to actually be accurate)
8. If you don't/won't fly there, don't penalise QFF members for flying your partners in terms of earn. Earning on MH/QR/CX and others I'm looking at you.

I am sure there are others but there's only a day

 

[RichardMEL]

Well, I'd agree with making the frequent flyer levels more pronounced in having benefits. Sure I can get a seat at the front with platinum, but otherwise there is nothing. I get on that plane and I still get addressed as " Hey Bud". I get the same service as everyone around me. There is only better service with crew that I know over a number of flights. Travel with the competition.

OK but what do you *WANT* in flight?

Personally I am more than happy to be treated the same as everyone else (assuming it's good service ). I don't know that sttaus should have particular benefits when it comes to being in flight, except for priority with meal orders. Other than that....

And remember Platinum status, per your example, has significantly defined benefits above that of Gold and Silver - such a J/F lounge access (oneworld wide), upgrade priority, extra baggage allowance and so on. These things are fairly specific and (unlike the more nebulous benefits of P1) usually provided where available. Isn't that the whole, uh, point?
[/QUOTE]

 

[RichardMEL]

When I think about it more it comes down to some simple (on paper) core items to me and the rest will take care of themselves... I mean if you deliver per expectations consistently then your customers will go away, more or less, happy.

So for example, providing a website that actually works 99% of the time to do the things they advertise and one expects without weird errors or the wonderful glitches we all have so much experience with... having your call answered in a reasonable amount of time (minutes, not hours - or less) with agents who can respond to your queries and actually do what you want.. and providing in flight experiences and products that meet( or beat) expectation.

And yes, all of this costs money, and AJ is a bean counter at heart and unlike the SQ's and EK's of this world who have less pressure on them in this regard and/or put a much higher priority on service standards and product clearly the utopia is not going to be met (and after all it's not like the EK's and SQ's of this world are perfect either).

I am sure QF are very much aware of many of the shortcomings - specially things like the obscene call centre experiences many have, the website issues and so on... the investment to actually sort these things out is not there - or not enough. And that's something AJ and his senior managers should be concerned with IMO.

 

[love_the_life]

Inconsistency is one of the big things for me - if I knew QF was going to be bad then I would choose other carriers. Problem is that it's quite good a lot of the time, but I just don't know when it's going to go south.
It's all about the customer/passenger experience. If I pay big $$ (and we are more often than not, revenue paying customers) I expect the experience to reflect that.

 

[Melburnian1]

...Qantas staff sitting together for lunch and chatting, Jetstar staff separate and not talking to each other. The lunch room dynamics says a lot about a workplace.

Does it? If I was working in close physical proximity and having constant interaction with others all day (including often standing up), lunchtime might be a time to catch up on the smartphone with Facebook, messages or the news, pray, reflect or read a newspaper. A few minutes of solitude is no bad thing.

 

[RichardMEL]

"lunch room dynamics"? generalisation perhaps?

Last week I was in J on a flight. Next to me JQ FA who was quite talkative. She was in civvies.. I did not know she was with JQ till she mentioned it later on (I don't care either way tbh). Anyway she happily pointed out the Capt she flew with sitting in the row in front and he smiled and waved. No idea what that might mean in regards to anything but I agree with the general thing you wok with ppl all day you may not spend break time with them.. or you may.

Heck in my own workplace we have friday lunch together at the pub.. rest of the week we do our own thing.. and we are a very close team who both work well together and care about each other.

Make of the above what you will

 

[Lynda2475]

1. Fix website so that it is possible to book with all reward partners and routes. If website worked reliably this would reduce the number of calls into the call centre.

2. Increase number of staff in call centres and train them better so a. HUCA doesnt create unecessary traffic b. avergae call time reduces and c. wait time is not in the order of 3 hours as it has been of late.

3. Train staff repsonding to support tickets and emails properly, so that they actually address the problem reported rather than send a standard reply which doesnt relate directly to the issue.

 

[Vic]

Does it? If I was working in close physical proximity and having constant interaction with others all day (including often standing up), lunchtime might be a time to catch up on the smartphone with Facebook, messages or the news, pray, reflect or read a newspaper. A few minutes of solitude is no bad thing.

"lunch room dynamics"? generalisation perhaps?

Last week I was in J on a flight. Next to me JQ FA who was quite talkative. She was in civvies.. I did not know she was with JQ till she mentioned it later on (I don't care either way tbh). Anyway she happily pointed out the Capt she flew with sitting in the row in front and he smiled and waved. No idea what that might mean in regards to anything but I agree with the general thing you wok with ppl all day you may not spend break time with them.. or you may.

Heck in my own workplace we have friday lunch together at the pub.. rest of the week we do our own thing.. and we are a very close team who both work well together and care about each other.

Make of the above what you will

Are they a team or a group of individuals? Team culture, working together for the best of the company, or are they just there waiting to get out and get a job with Qantas or another better employer.
I'm pretty sure airport ground staff work (i.e. check in etc.) is very different to the work you do.

You're lucky if you've never been in a bad workplace with poor culture.

 

[TomVexille]

The fact that call wait times for SG and below is often in the 90+ minute mark is an absolute disgrace for any business.

 

[RichardMEL]

Are they a team or a group of individuals? Team culture, working together for the best of the company, or are they just there waiting to get out and get a job with Qantas or another better employer.
I'm pretty sure airport ground staff work (i.e. check in etc.) is very different to the work you do.

You're lucky if you've never been in a bad workplace with poor culture.

Actually I have.

That's not the point I was trying to make.

You can't generalise about company culture from observations of small numbers of staff interactions.

And as you suggested different groups within any company may and probably will interact differently. Certainly ground staff will interact with each other and form stronger I reckon) bonds than flight and tech crew who obviously only spend small periods of time together on trips and may not work together on a regular basis or even see each other on a regular basis. That's where training to work as a team comes into play but you know sometimes people don't play well together.

And of course those dynamics will be very different to those at HDQ.

I do absolutely agree company culture and morale is a very important thing - and QF staff have given up a lot over the years and there's certainly no love between many with senior management and Joyce for union interactions, the differing pay scales (eg: jetconnect, JQ, etc) the shut down of the airline for what 3 days and so on.... Certainly a happy workforce in general will provide better customer service and interactions.. I do agree with that

 

[dajop]

The fact that call wait times for SG and below is often in the 90+ minute mark is an absolute disgrace for any business.

Well people should send a message and start flying someone else instead. Not going to happen, therefore there is no incentive for QF to fix it!!!

People need to face up to the fact that QF have a stronghold on the Australian market, like it or not, and they will continue to send one fingered salutes to the travelling public unless they start deserting them in droves!

 

[TomVexille]

Well people should send a message and start flying someone else instead. Not going to happen, therefore there is no incentive for QF to fix it!!!

People need to face up to the fact that QF have a stronghold on the Australian market, like it or not, and they will continue to send one fingered salutes to the travelling public unless they start deserting them in droves!

To be honest I'm not bothered that most of my work flying has gone to VA as they're a much better airline domestically if you have status. I'll be soft dropping to PS over at QF

 

[jase05]

8. If you don't/won't fly there, don't penalise QFF members for flying your partners in terms of earn. Earning on MH/QR/CX and others I'm looking at you.

This is a huge bugbear of mine. AJ treats ADL like a leper colony for International flights and then double whacks us with disgraceful earning rates.

 

[bernardblack]

3. Train staff repsonding to support tickets and emails properly, so that they actually address the problem reported rather than send a standard reply which doesnt relate directly to the issue.

A thousand times this.