Qantas Call Centre Long Wait Times

My understanding (from unofficial sources) is that there is a pool of priority phone numbers that airport staff give to passengers which rotates every few weeks.

I will attempt to publish the currently active number(s) in this post:

1300 304 318
1300 659 161
1300 025 396
1300 659 116

1300 024 715
1300 025 390
1300 659 115
1300 659 134
1300 659 502

 

[TheInsider]

Hopefully Mary will learn something from this and only take a couple of minutes instead of over an hour faffing around over something so simple next time.

It really isn't simple when changing seats to something else for a person on a different booking with a lower status. The 'linking' is only a text reference, it does nothing else.

 

[JohnM]

It really isn't simple when changing seats to something else for a person on a different booking with a lower status. The 'linking' is only a text reference, it does nothing else.

Thanks for that.

When I did a seating move online previously, my partner's 'linked' booking moved her seating with mine, so the system seemed to 'understand' that hers would follow along with mine.

That's what led me to believe it should do the same again. Obviously that is not necessarily so.

Unfortunately, circumstances were such that we had to make separate bookings. It is certainly not my preferred way of doing things.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

The Frequent Flyer line (13 11 13) usually doesn't have long hold times

13 11 13 = Newscorp Australia Advertising - not much help mate

 

[encryptededdy]

13 11 13 = Newscorp Australia Advertising - not much help mate

Apologies typo, meant 13 11 31

 

[TheInsider]

13 11 13 = Newscorp Australia Advertising - not much help mate

OR you could look here:

Frequent Flyer | Qantas

Information and contact details for Frequent Flyer and Qantas Club members looking for help with account queries, reward bookings and more.

www.qantas.com

 

[Ade]

just the way she repetitively asked security questions

This is my experience as well. The offshore CC keeps asking to identify yourself ... I mean I had come this far the call by entering my FF number & PIN. The questions of identity have been email address or phone number, full name ...

Post automatically merged: Aug 25, 2022

I wonder if the WP Phone Queue is back to the old standard where it's almost always Hobart?

I don't think so .. WP here, all calls past & this week went to CPT ..

 

[dylarr]

For anyone interested, here's the slide from today's investor presentation that discusses contact centre wait times.

From personal experience, I'd refute the ~90% increase in call handling time being attributable to "call complexity" and more to do with untrained Mindpearl agents taking an extraordinarily insane amount of time to handle even the most basic requests.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I think them asking security questions is better than finding your QFF sucked nearly empty because some scammer succeeded in getting into your account
*OffT, don't laugh, there was the news of the QLD lady who accidentally followed an sms from her "real estate agent" instructions, and deposited $20k into a scammers bank account.
Or people succeeding in getting into others QFF account, how, we don't know.OnT*.

 

[levelnine]

What's most telling about these investor presentations is that their focus is on number of calls processed and wait time.

Nothing in here about dealing with the calls effectively, efficiently or even remotely correctly. If Suva completely destroys your OWA booking, doesn't matter — all that matters to QF management is that you didn't have to wait 100 minutes for this disaster to occur.

 

[Captain Halliday]

For anyone interested, here's the slide from today's investor presentation that discusses contact centre wait times.

From personal experience, I'd refute the ~90% increase in call handling time being attributable to "call complexity" and more to do with untrained Mindpearl agents taking an extraordinarily insane amount of time to handle even the most basic requests.
View attachment 289818

If I had a business with a call centre(s) taking an average 300,000 calls per month, I’d be taking a very close look at my IT with a view to converting a significant number of those calls to self serve.

 

[Telemachus]

What's most telling about these investor presentations is that their focus is on number of calls processed and wait time.

Nothing in here about dealing with the calls effectively, efficiently or even remotely correctly. If Suva completely destroys your OWA booking, doesn't matter — all that matters to QF management is that you didn't have to wait 100 minutes for this disaster to occur.

Spot on. Not a big leap from this to suggest that the KPIs associated with the outsourced call centre contract(s) may draw on quantitative metrics only. Which would mean that until contract review and renewal QF would have limited leverage to get the contractor to remedy the sort of qualitative failures that have been extensively documented on AFF.

And just look at those points on the right of the slide shown a couple of posts upthread, including ‘reduced agent onboarding time by 50% through investment in technology’.

 

[Mattg]

For anyone interested, here's the slide from today's investor presentation that discusses contact centre wait times.

From personal experience, I'd refute the ~90% increase in call handling time being attributable to "call complexity" and more to do with untrained Mindpearl agents taking an extraordinarily insane amount of time to handle even the most basic requests.
View attachment 289818

You could probably also attribute the 60% increase in calls to the fact that most people now need to call more than once about the same issue, as the agent either didn't resolve it on the first call or the call got disconnected.

And just look at those points on the right of the slide shown a couple of posts upthread, including ‘reduced agent onboarding time by 50% through investment in technology’.

That is a real worry. The only way to reduce agent onboarding time by 50% is by spending 50% less time training them.

 

[CaptJCool]

And invisible flight credits archived and purged needed several calls - 3rd time lucky and the $444 rolled in within a day

 

[MJHoops]

I phoned the WP line today at 0840WST. About 5 minutes on hold. Answered pretty obviously offshore by very polite but obviously from the outset (just the way she repetitively asked security questions) very inexperienced Mary.

I had an aircraft change DRW-PER, with my partner's (NB) separate booking supposedly linked to mine but the system had defaulted my seating way back to her row.

When I moved myself forward in MMB, her seating failed to move with mine. So it seemed liked there was still some sort of linkage, but it was not functioning properly. Only option was to call.

Anyway, Mary was in Fiji. She had no idea about status and wanted to move me back, rather than PJM forward. Errr, Mary, allow me to assure that it does not work like that.

She puts me on hold to check with higher authority. Comes back after about 10 minutes saying she'd call me back when she could get through to the higher authority.

Yeah, sure...

Well, blow me down, 1 hour later, just as I was going to call again in the hope of getting Hobart, Mary calls back. She had moved PJM forward.

Hopefully Mary will learn something from this and only take a couple of minutes instead of over an hour faffing around over something so simple next time.

Mary’s only trainers are the frequent flyers calling up!

 

[clifford]

Well, FWIW, I called Qantas this morning as my BKK-SYD J online booking hadn't ticketed after a couple of days.

A pleasant lady from CPT answered the phone within 60 seconds and mentioned that the problem might be that it was charged in THB (surprise?) and asked me for my credit card details again. She then said she would call the ticketing dept and I should wait online until it was ticketed (a nice thought).

She came back about 10 mins later saying they weren't answering and she would send the request to the queue and monitor it and contact me when it had ticketed.

Fine, I thought (not expecting anything anytime soon) and hung up. I was a little surprised when an e-ticket landed in my inbox within half an hour. Coincidence I wondered?

Anyway, a better result than I was expecting.

 

[Duffa]

Called last night to pay for an online award booking that hadn't ticketed.
After 4 or 5 automated menu presses taking about 2 minutes I got through in 10 seconds!
Wow.

 

[1022]

Called last night to pay for an online award booking that hadn't ticketed.
After 4 or 5 automated menu presses taking about 2 minutes I got through in 10 seconds!
Wow.

But did you manage to pay for your flights without some untrained work experience kid in Capetown or Suva totally screwing up the whole booking?

They admitted today that their phone staff are being let loose on the general public with 50% less time spent in training…

 

[JasonK]

If I had a business with a call centre(s) taking an average 300,000 calls per month, I’d be taking a very close look at my IT with a view to converting a significant number of those calls to self serve.

Yes...this! Being able to request a refund online would be good start (even if its a form that you have to fill in).

 

[CaptJCool]

Yes...this! Being able to request a refund online would be good start (even if its a form that you have to fill in).

In my recent experience of a cancellation, I was given the refund option. The taxes of $24 were refunded onto a Qantas Pass...
sighs

 

[MEL_Traveller]

For anyone interested, here's the slide from today's investor presentation that discusses contact centre wait times.

From personal experience, I'd refute the ~90% increase in call handling time being attributable to "call complexity" and more to do with untrained Mindpearl agents taking an extraordinarily insane amount of time to handle even the most basic requests.

Exactly… the 90% increase in call complexity isn’t from those calling… it’s on those *taking* the calls!

Seriously, I had an agent tonight trying to tell me that a classic award of 68400 points to SIN plus $231 in carrier imposed charges (and a few bucks tax) was a ‘points plus pay’ booking and NOT a classic award, because there was a cash component.

The agent genuinely believed classic awards were totally ‘free’.

I can also confirm there’s a significant amount of phantom availability out there on qantas metal… the system is not updating in real time at the moment and lots of flights to and from singapore and bangkok are not in fact bookable.

All four flights - different dates and routes - we were ready to book returned an error. While they were showing on line, the agent couldn’t see them. Eventually this was confirmed about 30 mins later when the flights disappeared on line as well.