Qantas call centre in Suva, Fiji

[Rangalad]

I'm 30mins on hold for a supervisor. Is there a method where we can request a call be transferred to AKL/HBA?

Put in a U class yield request 2.5 weeks ago and still no answer. Absolute shambles.

When I asked for the call to be transferred to HBA, it was disconnected.

 

[Rangalad]

Implementing this would first require Qantas to care about customer experience.

Looks like “Customer Care” is now handled offshore. Received a call on Australia Day. No message left. Email received a few moments later, my case has been closed as we couldn’t contact you.

 

[Scr77]

When I asked for the call to be transferred to HBA, it was disconnected.

I was on hold as I read this, so I asked the same. Lady claimed they can't transfer calls, I would have to just keep calling and hope it was routed to HBA.

 

[AIRwin]

Looks like “Customer Care” is now handled offshore. Received a call on Australia Day. No message left. Email received a few moments later, my case has been closed as we couldn’t contact you.

Was there caller ID? I had a missed call earlier today with no number and no message left - wonder if it's related to a complaint I submitted last month...

 

[Rangalad]

Was there caller ID? I had a missed call earlier today with no number and no message left - wonder if it's related to a complaint I submitted last month...

03 9005 0000- Goes to the “Cronin residence” voicemail.

 

[madrooster]

I'm 30mins on hold for a supervisor. Is there a method where we can request a call be transferred to AKL/HBA?

When I asked for the call to be transferred to HBA, it was disconnected.

I believe their phone system allows transfers between call centres.

Put in a U class yield request 2.5 weeks ago and still no answer. Absolute shambles.

Message me your record locator. I can have a look and see where it's at.

 

[ANstar]

I hope that QF will invest in hiring and training more staff at its own call centres in Hobart and Auckland instead.

I'm guessing the outsourced Fiji call centre is a stop-gap measure to address the high call volumes, given Qantas clearly doesn't have enough of its own staff at the moment.

FWIW, I would suggest to Qantas that call volumes could also be reduced if the South African staff were trained properly, so that people didn't have to spend four hours on the phone to do something that should take 5 minutes or have to call back 5-6 times to fix something that should have been resolved on the first call.

Don't get me started with the SA call centre. Horrendous wait times to get through.. wanted to amend an award booking but they couldn't book the availability I saw online... anyways after about 3 hours of hold and on the phone decided to call back and just cancel the booking and rebook (Not first choice due to the delay in tax refunds...)
Anyways 2 hours on hold and then it took 1h45 to cancel an award booking!!!! USELESS...

Oh and then I just booked the award ticket they said they couldn't see availability for online. Such a bad customer experience.

 

[Danger]

It would be great if this thread didn't get polluted with posts that would be better placed in this one.

 

[sudoer]

Funnily enough, I was prompted to take a customer survey after a call to Qantas to chase an unticketed partner award today. Three questions, from memory the first two were about the representative and asked for a score from 1 to 5, last question was whether my issue resolved (yes/no/too soon to tell)

Hard to imagine this leading to any significant change but I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

[Port Power]

I hope that QF will invest in hiring and training more staff at its own call centres in Hobart and Auckland instead.

I'm guessing the outsourced Fiji call centre is a stop-gap measure to address the high call volumes, given Qantas clearly doesn't have enough of its own staff at the moment.

FWIW, I would suggest to Qantas that call volumes could also be reduced if the South African staff were trained properly, so that people didn't have to spend four hours on the phone to do something that should take 5 minutes or have to call back 5-6 times to fix something that should have been resolved on the first call.

Besides going with a company that has proven itself pretty useless, what about the time difference? Staff in Fiji must be working the night shift.

 

[Port Power]

Looks like “Customer Care” is now handled offshore. Received a call on Australia Day. No message left. Email received a few moments later, my case has been closed as we couldn’t contact you.

I just love that one!

 

[DC3]

… Staff in Fiji must be working the night shift.

Only one hour different to Auckland, who are there 24/7 anyway.

 

[Doylejenny]

I've been informed that Qantas is now using another outsourced call centre (operated by Mindpearl) based in Suva, Fiji. It's run by the same company that operates the horrendous Cape Town call centre.

Has anyone got through to the Fiji call centre recently, and how was your experience?

Yes I have and I waited 2 hours to talk to someone. They promised to get back to me as they didn’t know how to do around the world business class on points. No one came back then I rang another 3 times each time waiting 2 hours. I spoke to someone at Capetown and Fiji and still no one knew how to help. I put in email to qantas complaint feedback and asked for help which was 4 weeks ago still nothing
So Qantas is going downhill big time.

 

[JessicaTam]

I notice Telstra have started advertising they are bringing their call centre back to AU. I hope the idea catches on.

 

[jpp42]

I notice Telstra have started advertising they are bringing their call centre back to AU. I hope the idea catches on.

Yes, it seems to be a thing in the communications industry, Aussie Broadband has traded on an Australian based call centre for years, and it's growing wildly.

 

[Mattg]

So, according to Mindpearl, Fiji is a great place to operate a call centre because the wages are about 1/5 of those in Australia or New Zealand.

[PDF] THINKING ABOUT OUTSOURCING YOUR CALL - Free Download PDF

Download THINKING ABOUT OUTSOURCING YOUR CALL...

silo.tips

I also had a look on Glassdoor, and the info on there seems to indicate that the base salary for a Mindpearl call centre worker in Fiji is FJD12,000/year. With staff working 85 hours per fortnight, that works out to be around AUD3.60 per hour. This may not be 100% correct, but seems approximately in the ballpark.

This being the case, it's obvious that opening a call centre in Fiji theoretically provides a cost saving to Qantas. But if customers have to call 5 times instead of one to get anything resolved, and calls are taking hours instead of minutes, surely any cost saving is being squandered? Not to mention the terrible customer experience.

I just can't get my head around the decision by Qantas to rely so heavily on outsourced overseas call centres. It's bad for customers and it doesn't even really make financial sense either when you consider what's actually going on with these call centres.

 

[jakeseven7]

Loving the casual racism floating around this thread over my Sunday coffee… just tread carefully people just because you aren’t Australian doesn’t mean you can’t do a good job if trained correctly, despite all your previous ‘experiences’ that may lead you to stereotype and presume otherwise…

 

[Guvner]

Loving the casual racism floating around this thread over my Sunday coffee… just tread carefully people just because you aren’t Australian doesn’t mean you can’t do a good job if trained correctly, despite all your previous ‘experiences’ that may lead you to stereotype and presume otherwise…

Care to quote the posts in this thread which lead you to make that tenuous assessment?

 

[Melburnian1]

So, according to Mindpearl, Fiji is a great place to operate a call centre because the wages are about 1/5 of those in Australia or New Zealand.

[PDF] THINKING ABOUT OUTSOURCING YOUR CALL - Free Download PDF

Download THINKING ABOUT OUTSOURCING YOUR CALL...

silo.tips

I also had a look on Glassdoor, and the info on there seems to indicate that the base salary for a Mindpearl call centre worker in Fiji is FJD12,000/year. With staff working 85 hours per fortnight, that works out to be around AUD3.60 per hour. This may not be 100% correct, but seems approximately in the ballpark.

This being the case, it's obvious that opening a call centre in Fiji theoretically provides a cost saving to Qantas. But if customers have to call 5 times instead of one to get anything resolved, and calls are taking hours instead of minutes, surely any cost saving is being squandered? Not to mention the terrible customer experience.

I just can't get my head around the decision by Qantas to rely so heavily on outsourced overseas call centres. It's bad for customers and it doesn't even really make financial sense either when you consider what's actually going on with these call centres.

Just out of interest, how do you 'rate' each of Fijians (bearing in mind many may be originally of Indian ethnicity), Filipinos, Indians (in India)and South Africans in terms of you understanding their English easily, and separately,how they respond to your queries? (The latter may merely see all working off a preprogrammed script though).

Perhaps give each call centre a rating out of 10. This would be important feedback.

This isn't 'racism' but it aligns with 'comprehension' (important, as apart from anything else it means the caller doesn't have to ask the staff member/contractor to repeat themselves) and 'competency'.

 

[RooFlyer]

Loving the casual racism floating around this thread over my Sunday coffee… just tread carefully people just because you aren’t Australian doesn’t mean you can’t do a good job if trained correctly, despite all your previous ‘experiences’ that may lead you to stereotype and presume otherwise…

Loving the casual sanctimonious-ness. Who here exactly has said they aren’t doing a good job “because they are not Australian”? Just about all the blame is sheeted home ( correctly in my view) to ‘Qantas’ ( management); how casually racist is that?