The Qantas call centre now has a different menu

[Peasant]

Good to hear this was a teething issue as part of the roll-out and that the issue has been recognised and resolved. Now let's hope they're looking similarly at the overly time consuming menu structure.

On a side note @trevella, no offence intended to old mate Insider in my facetious remarks.

 

[kiwitripper64]

I called platinum line twice yesterday ( Sunday lunchtime and evening)) for help with multi city booking. Took 40min both times to get through.
But once they answered, the help was friendly and they seemed to take the time to personalise the call.

 

[VPS]

I've spoken to Qantas and they have confirmed that they have been making changes to the call centre, including a new IVR menu. They also acknowledged that there was an issue when they changed the menu which was causing calls from Platinum members to get grouped in with other tiers (and therefore losing priority), but said that this wasn't intentional and has now been fixed.

Details here:

Major Qantas Call Centre Changes

Qantas has overhauled its beleaguered call centre in an effort to improve the quality of the service provided. But there have been some teething issues,

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

Done. See the article above.

Many thanks for doing that - it's great

 

[BD1959]

I've spoken to Qantas and they have confirmed that they have been making changes to the call centre, including a new IVR menu. They also acknowledged that there was an issue when they changed the menu which was causing calls from Platinum members to get grouped in with other tiers (and therefore losing priority), but said that this wasn't intentional and has now been fixed.

+1 in thanking you AFF Editor for taking the time/effort - much appreciated!

Regards,

BD

 

[Bolthead]

Visiting my son in Melbourne at the moment and he was just telling me of his drama with booking a flight to New Zealand using a previous flight credit. He waited 6 hours and still couldn't get through (he has no status) to book his flight so his partner rang the QANTAS Chinese (international) customer service phone number and she got through straight away and sorted out their flights to NZ immediately. She speaks fluent Mandarin so there was no language issues however she believes that you could more than likely speak to them in English as well.

 

[Cognac]

Just called through to sort out a Flight Credit/Booking issue for a new booking, went through the menu and entered my FF details, was immediately put through to the Premium team in Hobart and everything was sorted in no time at all.

 

[Seat0B]

Done. See the article above.

Another thank you. And also from several personal experiences the service in the South African call centre is dreadful - certainly not confident and competent and actually bordering on rude to WP when I have occasionally had to call them. I have practised the skill of HUACA a few times now when being told outright nonsense by staff in South Africa. For example, that there was no way to link my booking with Mr Seat0A's booking on a separate PNR. Or that Mr Seat 0A could not be seated next to me because another higher tier flier "might want that seat so we have to keep it open until 72 hours before the flight." Outright nonsense, which luckily I knew

 

[Peasant]

Another thank you. And also from several personal experiences the service in the South African call centre is dreadful - certainly not confident and competent and actually bordering on rude to WP when I have occasionally had to call them. I have practised the skill of HUACA a few times now when being told outright nonsense by staff in South Africa. For example, that there was no way to link my booking with Mr Seat0A's booking on a separate PNR. Or that Mr Seat 0A could not be seated next to me because another higher tier flier "might want that seat so we have to keep it open until 72 hours before the flight." Outright nonsense, which luckily I knew

I completely agree. I had an experience several years ago with a flight cancelled ex-AKL after a very long 8 hour day at the airport. I was connected through to the South African centre, after a one hour hold, who proceeded to tell me they could not get me a seat in J for three days and I was ineligible for a fare difference reimbursement because I was choosing not to wait until the next J seat was available (!)

I was then told there was no supervisor my complaint could be escalated to until I became firm at how ridiculous this was. A supervisor magically appeared on the other end of the line to say Qantas does not tolerate passengers raising their voice at their staff and threatened to disconnect the call. They're incompetent, rude and demonstrate little empathy for passengers. My experiences with the AKL centre on the other hand have been very good, and almost as good as the superstars in HBA who are one of the biggest marketing advantages QF has in its coughnal.

 

[Seat0B]

I completely agree. I had an experience several years ago with a flight cancelled ex-AKL after a very long 8 hour day at the airport. I was connected through to the South African centre, after a one hour hold, who proceeded to tell me they could not get me a seat in J for three days and I was ineligible for a fare difference reimbursement because I was choosing not to wait until the next J seat was available (!)

I was then told there was no supervisor my complaint could be escalated to until I became firm at how ridiculous this was. A supervisor magically appeared on the other end of the line to say Qantas does not tolerate passengers raising their voice at their staff and threatened to disconnect the call. They're incompetent, rude and demonstrate little empathy for passengers. My experiences with the AKL centre on the other hand have been very good, and almost as good as the superstars in HBA who are one of the biggest marketing advantages QF has in its coughnal.

Actually your post reminded me of an identical experience with South African call centre @Peasant - asked for supervisor to be told there was none. And told I could only have a credit voucher for a flight that was seriously changed by Qantas (pre-COVID days).

I had a day return business ticket CBR-BNE-CBR for a meeting in Brisbane from1100-1400, departing early morning and departing BNE to return home around 1530. My early morning flight was cancelled by Qantas and they rescheduled me to an 11.00 departure from Canberra, totally negating the purpose of my trip. When I said that I wanted a refund, she said that as I was not accepting a reasonable alternative flight, I was cancelling and not entitled to a refund. I pointed out that business class tickets are refundable, no matter what. She then said it was because it was after scheduled departure time (that Qantas had cancelled) and therefore I was a no-show and not entitled to a refund. And into the bargain, it was a DSC flight and I wanted them to transfer the DSCs to the identical trip I would have to take a week later because I still had to meet with my client. You can imagine how that went down. Anyway, she insisted no supervisor, no refund, and hung up on me, saying I was rude.

I did complain to Qantas, and got everything I asked for - full refund, and DSCs transferred to the next flight, but what a drama to get there.

I die a little bit inside every time I get the South African call centre.

 

[PineappleSkip]

It could be worse. I have been advising a Somali "call centre" and top of the advice was that they needed to have (a) staff present during business hours and (b) staff that have the gumption to stop looking at facebook and actually answer the phone when it rings. The next phase will be (c) attempting to answer the question. Getting the answers right is in the vision, but first things first.

cheers skip

 

[bullerdude]

The updated IVR menu seems more complicated in terms of getting to an operator for booking changes unfortunately.

Being only gold I had approx. 1.5 hr wait yesterday for a booking change for travel this week.

 

[Silvia]

The menu has been very difficult to navigate. First time I was on hold for a while, I called about 3 days ago and was put through the premium line after navigating the menu and waited about 5-7 minutes.

 

[Rugby]

On hold now about a booking change, advised of approx 30min wait, doesn’t look like the Platinum queuing issue is resolved.

 

[kiwitripper64]

but the music is so soothing

 

[craven morehead]

Rang last week at 23.00 as a Plat and got through at 00.15 75 minutes!

 

[AIRwin]

Rang last week at 23.00 as a Plat and got through at 00.15 75 minutes!

Did you lose your marbles and glass slipper by then?

 

[craven morehead]

Did you lose your marbles and glass slipper by then?

Definitely felt like a Pumpkin

 

[Mattg]

Have had the same issues recently - held for 20-30 minutes to make a new booking or change existing ones, which was rarely longer than a three minute wait using the old phone menu.

While travelling yesterday my flight was cancelled and I was rebooked with a downgrade to economy as aircraft had Y cabin only. I sorted this all out at the lounge desk, but 45 min later received an SMS to call 1300659115. This got me through to "Qantas Premium" answered in a very strong Aussie accent with less than a 30 second wait.

Despite calling what appears to be a special number, and entering my QFF# and PIN, the rep didn't seem to have any information to indicate what I was calling about - so what is the point of the special phone number? If it's just to connect me to a competent rep without much of a wait, and if the wait time for WPs doesn't improve, I might try call this number again next time I need to make a change...

I received an SMS about a last-minute cancellation last night and it also instructed me to call that number. I did and the call was answered immediately. Unfortunately, I was put through to the South African call centre and it took them almost 30 minutes to reissue the ticket (it was a simple enough change - HBA would have done it in 2 minutes flat...).

As with your experience, the call centre agent didn't know anything about my booking and I had to provide the PNR, explain what happened etc.

 

[mattm199]

This seems to suck significantly, as we can't book using the flight credits without having to call!

 

[RooFlyer]

Had to call re a changed J international booking (" international booking" sounds good!!). After 1 min 20 sec going through the menu, the call was answered by Premium line almost straight away.