Red Roo Update

[GoldCanyon340]

Seems odd that QF will be paying someone to now just stalk us. I'd suggest no one mentions the F lounge decanter anymore; I predict that's next for the chop.

 

[samh004]

A thoughtful piece (as usual), samh004. Nicely summarised.
And I would think that there are quite a few more P1s without the AFF Verified status, let alone all the Plats, so all up, it is a significant slice of their FF membership.
I agree with all the views that this seems a very short sighted and counter-productive move.

What next? The SST?

I amended my post to include that and make it more clear.

Rough calculation shows they're ignoring 1,169,000 SC per year and that's just if you take the raw re-qualify numbers of 250, 600, 1200 and 3600. I'm sure some members here often overshoot, and some undershoot, making for a compelling argument to consider supporting the members on this website. It's all good PR.

 

[RooFlyer]

Hi everyone, we’d like to let you know that Red Roo will be taking a break from servicing customers here. We’ll still be monitoring conversations and feedback to continually improve your experience with us.

As always if you need to get in touch, we have 24/7 support on Facebook, Twitter and via the phone on 13 13 13.

We value you all, our Qantas Frequent Flyers, and will continue to strive toward giving you the very best travel experience.

Ye gods. I didn't think Qantas would spell it out so explicitly - no support, just mining the site for nice experiences to shut down. All that's missing was them to say that our forum experience was being enhanced.

 

[frankie]

I find this move to be absolutely ridiculous, AFF consists of a large number of status members as samh004 as pointed out but what I find more ridiculous is directing us to social media channels that have to be the worst thing I have ever experienced.

The twitter account only responds after several tweets eg. sent three tweets just to find out if I could use a keep cup/frank green cup for coffee in the lounge. That is something that I definitely wouldn't call about, only for it to take 24 hours and come back with my name spelt incorrectly despite it being in front of the person who was typing the reply. I guess the real joke was that when I copied the tweet into the reply field there was one more available character which could have very well been used to spell my name correctly.

 

[straitman]

Hi everyone, we’d like to let you know that Red Roo will be taking a break from servicing customers here. We’ll still be monitoring conversations and feedback to continually improve your experience with us.

As always if you need to get in touch, we have 24/7 support on Facebook, Twitter and via the phone on 13 13 13.

We value you all, our Qantas Frequent Flyers, and will continue to strive toward giving you the very best travel experience.

Using FB will just air a whole lot more dirty linen than at present and from my experience is nowhere near as effective, I don't use Twitter and to say ring is just a joke with the call waiting times that now exist.

It's a sad day when the service provider (Qantas in this case) is more about cutting costs than customer service. I always thought and still believe that they actually go together.

I guess I'll reinvent my relationship with opposition (i.e. Virgin Australia). Will Qantas know or care? They will only know if a lot of people do the same and start spending their dollars elsewhere. They have already shown they don't care.

IMHO this is incredibly short sighted as the loss of only a couple of customers would more than pay for the few hours of time that it cost Qantas to be involved with the AFF site. Qantas seem to have forgotten that loyalty is a two way street.

Sorry now that I spent that few thousand dollars the other night.

 

[Pushka]

Also with Facebook others see your posts. My SIL often describes what I have been posting on other sites and I feel that's an invasion of privacy.

 

[samh004]

Also with Facebook others see your posts. My SIL often describes what I have been posting on other sites and I feel that's an invasion of privacy.

To be fair, the same happens here. Anyone can see your public posts on AFF, and you could privately message Red Roo afterwards with additional detail. That is the same on Facebook, there's just a slightly larger audience looking on initially.

 

[mviy]

If you hold WP status the call wait times usually aren't that bad, but for most of us (including myself) holding WP status indefinitely is not sustainable.

 

[pagingjoan]

Also with Facebook others see your posts. My SIL often describes what I have been posting on other sites and I feel that's an invasion of privacy.

But your SIL - and anyone else - can see all of your AFF posts, too.
(Different story with a PM, of course.)

Edit: Sorry. I see that sam has made the same point above.

 

[samh004]

If you hold WP status the call wait times usually aren't that bad.

Yes, I can tell you the exact difference having recently dropped levels.

Last month the longest I was waiting was comfortably under 5 minutes, as a Platinum.

This month I was offered a call back because of the wait times, and received it a whopping 2 hours and 6 minutes after I initially called, as a Gold.

 

[Pushka]

To be fair, the same happens here. Anyone can see your public posts on AFF, and you could privately message Red Roo afterwards with additional detail. That is the same on Facebook, there's just a slightly larger audience looking on initially.

Yes but Facebook sends notifications to friends of posts as she follows me. I can't stop that unless I tell her not to. And real name is used on FB so non followers see it too. They'd have to search to find me here and so are active rather than the passive FB notifications. It's very different.

 

[dajop]

Yes but Facebook sends notifications to friends of posts. And real name is used on FB.

Exactly (although you can turn off notification feature), posts on AFF are anonymous to those who don't know your username or can't connect the dots on your posts.

 

[pagingjoan]

Exactly (although you can turn off notification feature), posts on AFF are anonymous to those who don't know your username or can't connect the dots on your posts.

I think Pushka's s-in-l sounds capable of connecting the dots, though?

 

[Princess Fiona]

I don't think Red Roo was quite the same once the last incumbent left.
We had it good for quite a long time and I'd bet that the active participation of QF here generated much more bookings and word of mouth praise than the cost of providing that service.
I don't think that same level of service can be provided via Twitter/ Facebook/ Instagram and from what I'm hearing the Call Centre service isn't exactly stellar.
Sad days really..........

 

[pagingjoan]

I don't think Red Roo was quite the same once the last incumbent left.
We had it good for quite a long time and I'd bet that the active participation of QF here generated much more bookings and word of mouth praise than the cost of providing that service.
I don't think that same level of service can be provided via Twitter/ Facebook/ Instagram and from what I'm hearing the Call Centre service isn't exactly stellar.
Sad days really..........

Completely agree, PF.
I don't recall ever using the Red Roo PM facility but I did see the positive reports from many who did.

It really does seem a strange approach on QF's part to say, in essence:
"We will eavesdrop on your conversations but we won't talk to you."

 

[Pushka]

I have pm'ed RR and until the last 12 months the service was brilliant. I only used them as 'last resort'. Since this time last year - vacuum. No response at all.

I think Pushka's s-in-l sounds capable of connecting the dots, though?

I think this site has blown her mind. She doesn't get it. She doesn't understand why someone would get a credit card with say a $150 annual fee 'just to get 75,000 points'. So she stays away. Thank goodness.

 

[docjames]

I think the first post in this thread confirms what has been practice for ~12 months.....



Disappointing, although I realise that on a (higher) corporate level, QF probably see AFF as "just another social media" with not enough headcount to matter.

I think samh004's post illustrates what they'll lose (95% of which they rightly or wrongly figure they can probably glean from reading AFF rather than interacting).

 

[get me outta here]

Here's my version of twitface - it's as close as I get ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Indeed, im still not a member of twitface and i dont really look forward to spending 90+ minutes on hold. Online chat is a joke really.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

From a personal stand point I see this move as short sighted. There are many members here with Qantas status who are far more active here than on other forms of social media, and not taking AFF as seriously as those other, largely international forms of social media, despite this being an Australian website with many Australian members just seems like a silly move.

Not every member here uses all the features provided, but I've done a quick count and found at least 20 members with AFF Verified Airline Status of Platinum One... that's 72,000 SC per year, and while they might have their own team, they do post here regularly and have come here to find answers. There's probably far more Platinum members, rough low guess of ~100 would give another 120,000 SC per year. That's a small customer base earning a lot of status that is now going to be overlooked. I'd imagine there's even some Chairmans Lounge members on the board, I remember two in the past had a very public profile at one stage.

And I note those numbers are only AFF members displaying their status publicly, there's probably double the number of Platinum One's and perhaps 500 Platinum members, about the same number of Gold members and perhaps the same number of Silver... that's what, 1,169,000 SC per year posting to this website? Rough estimate. I'd ignore us too.

The previous team that handled AFF seemed to have no troubles giving us a little attention every now and then, and I would think the QF image did well out of it. Shame to throw that all away.

But Twitter has 1000000 members who fly 20SC annually and earn 10,000 points each, thus making it a worthwhile channel to monitor, right? (I'll ignore the geeky stuff like Twitters k-NN analytic ability and how QF may exploit this)

Personally, I feel disappointed QF will not maintain an official presence. samh004 makes an excellent observation about the types of members who frequent the site and the influence on flight and credit card spend they have is not to be sneezed at.

Sometimes, people& companies don't understand the value of a product or service because they've never been shown first hand how the value gets created with their buy in. Think about the time when you were old enough, but always flew economy class and never in biz (if this time ever existed). Most folks don't understand how flying business class justifies the cost, but when you consistently pay for it the value becomes apparent and you can't believe others would ever consider flying in economy class!

Perhaps QF is not understanding where the value of resource investment is justified. As samh004 alludes to - AFF members as a collective audience are highly valuable. Does QF know how to measure and extract the value from this audience? Does their social media team have kpi/okr linked to revenue or increase in loyalty? Just as the Plat1 team is a cost center to the business, the social media team is likely viewed as a cost, or at best, a necessary expense in order to retain call center efficiencies.

Time for data analysis to prove the value of a strong RR presence on AFF?

 

[turtlemichael]

Hooroo Red Roo.