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

 

[dylarr]

I think there was some commentary in one of the recent AFF articles where a Hobart based agent told a caller that there was an issue with the system where it wouldn't let them take the call off hold so the only option they had was to disconnect it.

 

[bussyboy]

Day of week	Wednesday
Time of call	0923AEDT
Number used	1300 722 040
Status	Bronze
Hold time	Quoted "More than two hours" Actual time 4h 45m
Call Centre (if known)	unknown
Matter resolved	Too early to say YES!
Details	Follow up to previous refund request that was 6-8 weeks ago, noting I had nothing to confirm it was in-process or the timing Nancy at Qantas said - "I'll call the finance department and get team leader approval to do the refund and it will be 5-7 business days.... no need to stay on the phone. If they need anything we'll call you back..." Hopeful, but underwhelmed; was on the phone with her for <5 minutes in total... EDIT: I now have an email saying Your refund has been processed! 5 hours well spent in the end

 

[zimocca]

Day of week	Wednesday
Time of call	1517AEDT
Number used	131313
Status	Platinum
Hold time	Quoted "One to two hours" Actual time 2h 03m
Call Centre (if known)	unknown (Australian Accent)
Matter resolved	Partially.
Details	Called to cancel 2 award bookings with the hope of getting the points credited back quickly so I could do new bookings (this has been offered and done for me before). had enough points to do 1 of the desired 3 bookings I wanted. While the operator did what some of what was asked, it seemed to be the absolutely bare minimum. I found the attitude adversarial as well as entirely unapologetic regards the long wait time(s), inferior service options available - or he lied and just couldn't be bothered. In the past if I got someone with a similar attitude, I'd simply call back another time and deal with some one else. HUACA is a bit time consuming & the automated call back option seems to have disappeared for me? I imagine very few customer service conversations with Qantas are going well at the moment. Interesting that Premium/Platinum desk has wait times in excess of 2 hours. Fun Times.

 

[Guvner]

I think there was some commentary in one of the recent AFF articles where a Hobart based agent told a caller that there was an issue with the system where it wouldn't let them take the call off hold so the only option they had was to disconnect it.

Suggest they try the mute button instead of putting calls on hold then.

 

[ayebee]

Had a minor win via QF website today ...

QF changed our flight (PER - MEL) from 10am to 1pm (at least on the same date) and it affected our rental car booking timing.
Had booked the rental to burn some points, and discovered that you can't amend points bookings but need to cancel and rebook.
A little nervous but went ahead.
Then booked the same car for 10k points less than before, and the cancelled points reappeared immediately.
As I said ... small win.

 

[Danger]

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flights/qantas-slammed-for-bloated-call-centre-wait-times/news-story/72afbc01c929c943d9e26931f9492f21

I'm confused.

If:

The vast majority of customers can make changes to their bookings online and we have a huge amount of information for customers on qantas.com.

Then why:

We’ve already added hundreds of staff to our call centres, and each month we are recruiting and training more people.

Qantas is either spending money in the wrong area or lying through its teeth.

Far out.

Qantas cannot keep blaming COVID for what was a problem already before the pandemic and continues to be a problem of their own making. This excuse is past its use-by-date.

Two specific comments about the response from Qantas:



No, calls are taking 50% longer on average because the staff at the outsourced call centres haven't been trained properly and take forever to process simple requests. The calls would be even longer, on average, if so many weren't being disconnected!



I haven't seen much evidence of this "training".

I'd like to hear you say that in an interview with Ben Fordham.

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

I am actually really pleased, the QF contact centre call times are finally blowing out and creating an absolute media PR disaster for Qantas.
Lets be honest, ever since the closure of the Brisbane’s CBD and camberwell (Vic) in-house contact centre centres, the outsourced contact centres now in place to theses utterly clueless and frankly “drunk as skunks” business outsourced process providers ( BPO’s) which Qantas have tendered their contact centres out to- these faceless entities might loose finally loose their tender’s.
Maybe Qantas might do a Telstra & a Westpac,- the penny might drop -with out of touch, offshore outsourced contact centres that rarely work effectively and cannot communicate effectively with Australian consumers - period!!!

 

[MZFlyer]

The South African centre on the 1300 659 116 number posted earlier in this thread (thank you so much!) has been excellent both recent times I've used it. I had a June 2020 flight credit to use (our first #covidcancelled flight...) which annoyingly cannot be used on the website and require a phonecall to activate. Husband tried his WP number on Monday afternoon (rookie error) and we took the call back option as the wait time was 1-2 hours. Call Centre called us back on the "local" NSW number within an hour (delay on the line and a South Asian accent so she may have been based O/S not locally) and was sorting out our booking, selected all the flights, confirmed spelling of passenger names etc, was confirming the price minus the credit then put us on hold, and we were disconnected. Assumed we'd get a call back, waited 20 mins, in the meantime refresh the Qantas website and the price had gone up by nearly $2000!!! Spent 2 hours trying to ring various numbers but no joy, 2hrs wait times quoted, and no call back options. Decided to try the 1300 number one more time before going to bed (about 10.30pm) and got through in a couple of minutes to an extremely helpful and sympathetic South African lady who retrieved the booking and quoted a lower price than I'd originally seen online, let alone the revised one displaying later. She completed the booking successfully but also took my number in case of disconnection. The next day the bookings weren't displaying in our accounts (though we had the email with flight purchase completed) but another call at 6am AEST today got me through to Carol again in SA, instantly, and she sorted it out - FF numbers had not been added. That number is gold, thank you again AFF !!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I am actually really pleased, the QF contact centre call times are finally blowing out and creating an absolute media PR disaster for Qantas.
Lets be honest, ever since the closure of the Brisbane’s CBD and camberwell (Vic) in-house contact centre centres, the outsourced contact centres now in place to theses utterly clueless and frankly “drunk as skunks” business outsourced process providers ( BPO’s) which Qantas have tendered their contact centres out to- these faceless entities might loose finally loose their tender’s.
Maybe Qantas might do a Telstra & a Westpac,- the penny might drop -with out of touch, offshore outsourced contact centres that rarely work effectively and cannot communicate effectively with Australian consumers - period!!!

But QF is totally focussed on status, and seemingly little else. Fare paid, revenue, occasional flyers… all somewhere way down the list.

So throw in a DSC and everyone is jumping on board to see how they can get another year of status. Complaints about centre wait times are suddenly somewhere way down the list.

 

[RichardMEL]

This morning's news contained a lame grab from Tully about how it was such a priority to fix this yadda yadda yadda...

there's words.. and then there's actions....

 

[dylarr]

Gaining traction in the media now. Interview with Tully here:

'Appalling service!': Ben Fordham grills Qantas over lengthy delays

Qantas is promising to fix lengthy wait times that have left callers waiting several hours. Some customers have been on hold for over six hours just to have their issues heard. Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully told Ben Fordham they will fix the problem. “We have more people working...

www.2gb.com

 

[Jim Walsh]

My daughter booked a flight through the now defunct STA and spent 4 hours trying to see if she had a flight credit. In the end she gave up and presumed it was gone forever. I also spent 4 hours and was told all you had to do was enter your booking reference when you booked a ticket.

When accessing the “Use Flight Credit” page it showed that the email address for the credit was listed as the now defunct STA center. It wouldn’t allow me to change it. So another 4 hours and finally I booked her flight but no booking ever showed.

So another 5 hours and finally I managed to book her flight.. So in total 17 hours on hold trying to book a ticket.

It is an absolute disgrace and I can’t believe the arrogance of a company that makes people wait so long to allow them to spend their money with them or redeem the money they have spent.

 

[epin]

Agree. The wait times are ridiculously long & also misleading. 6 days ago, I called QN at around 11 pm & finally gave up around 3 am. I tried again the following day & was advised of a 30 min wait time. 2 hours later I made a second call using my wife’s phone & the wait time was at that time was advertised as being btw 15-30 mins so I hung up & persisted with my original call which was finally answered at about the 3 hour mark. A compounding factor is that the on hold music & messages keep recycling but there are no advisories re position in the queue or approximate change is waiting time. It’s clearly no longer worth trying to retain Platinum for limited real benefits especially considering that both Virgin & Rex economy & business class seats are overall way more competitive than QN.

 

[Mari]

I'm just silver pleb but I too recently called QF contact centre. I didn't really want to call but my online booking just wouldn't work. I'd get right to the very end to 'pay now' but the message with the funny robot guy page Error start again over and over for several weeks. Each time the price would increase and I'd have to change the date of travel from YVR-BNE. After 3 weeks on and off attempting to book I called. 1hr 50min later, I got thru to a real person but the connection was terrible and all I could hear was loud echo static noises that sounded like I was calling from the middle of a cave and not N.A. The guy tried his best to hear me but it was a disaster. He put me on hold again and said he would call me back if the line got cut off. He never called me back but sent an email of a booking $600 more and that I had not confimed.

Next day I called N.A QF contact centre and fell asleep while on hold (only for only 53 mins!!) The guy would not honour the online booking price I could see right in front of my eyes but wanted to charge me hundreds more. I said goodbye have a nice day while gritting my teeth.. hung up...cried....then made a booking with Air Canada online and saved $1300 P.E. I chose to travel on a non QF flying day out of YVR bc I just couldn't bare to see that Kangaroo tail and know that I would not be boarding that flight.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

why hasn’t the chief customer service officer been sacked?

So hobart is for ‘tiered’ flyers… ummm… not me.

No mention of all the flights zero’d out and cancelled by Qantas.

Technology improving? We’ve had more reports than ever of replacement flights landing 24 hours after connecting flights in the itinerary.

No mention that overseas staff have little or no knowledge. Training has failed.

 

[ozmouse]

Called plat line today estimated 30-60 minute wait. Missed first callback at 69 minutes later. 2nd call back same estimated wait, callback came at 52 minutes. International Award booking schedule change (QF change) sorted in 5 minutes. So thankful after hearing the current situation for some.

Have to update my thankful comments from a week ago. So that initial flight change turns out not to be so easy. After being advised i would receive ticket/email later the same day that did not happen. Of course you forget about that sort of thing, and did not follow up till this week and i have been on the phone to them for the last 3 days before getting resolution.
I called the plat line, and I like the callback feature. Estimated times are not correct, but at least you dont have to wait. And yes i missed some callbacks, but you get a voicemail and you start the process again. I also did experience call drop out when i did pick up a callback once. no voicemail So that was another waste of time.
My first attempt, was similar refrain "yes changes has been made, awaiting ticketing. have updated in queue now. you will get email later" quick. easy. No email.
2nd attempt, same story, in queue. but this time i requested it to be escalated and i would wait. Operator said she could not do that. no email.
3rd attempt i explained my 3 attempt at resolution. was put on hold for more than 10 min and voila text email arrived (. Operator came back on line and explained i should be in procession of email. Surprise surprise .... Gina from hobart to the rescue.
Such a waste customer and company time and energy......

 

[Jacques Vert]

Gaining traction in the media now. Interview with Tully here:

'Appalling service!': Ben Fordham grills Qantas over lengthy delays

Qantas is promising to fix lengthy wait times that have left callers waiting several hours. Some customers have been on hold for over six hours just to have their issues heard. Qantas Chief Customer Officer Stephanie Tully told Ben Fordham they will fix the problem. “We have more people working...

www.2gb.com

Blah, blah, blah. Same old excuses. He should have asked her if she will resign if it doesn't improve by the end of April.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The gem from the interview though? QF’s whole customer service ethic is based on… ‘following the sun’.

 

[dylarr]

The gem from the interview though? QF’s whole customer service ethic is based on… ‘following the sun’.

Exactly. Qantas do not run a "follow the sun" customer service operation so it was strange to hear them say this. It's a 24/7 operation, sure, but that's not follow the sun.

Follow the sun methodology means that no matter what time of the day you call, the agent you speak to will be working during daylight hours. Once the centre's day is over, it hands over to the next.

As we know, Cape Town (and I believe Fiji and Auckland) are there 24/7 taking calls.

If it was follow the sun, callers from Australia during daylight hours would be getting a regional centre, not South Africa.

 

[gtrod]

Seems to be getting worse. Rang the 131211 platinum line. Was told the wait would be under 15 minutes. Gave up after 2hrs 45 mins. Will try my luck at the airport with service desk/lounge staff.