[karenlee]

I have written to BA customer services 3 times - a couple of years ago, I wrote to complain about being bumped off the E-Exit row seat for which I had paid extra, and again this week after feeling REALLY fed up that, for the third booking in a row, my flight had been cancelled/rescheduled and the rebooked flight caused a substantial change in my plans which will end up costing me extra money (is this now how they do business? cancel a flight if it's not totally booked up or something?)

In addition, I wrote to them separately requesting some information.

I don't believe any of my correspondence was read. The replies I got were just simply templates of some sort, with very little reference to the points I mentioned.

Even the one requesting information - I got back a template which seemed to have been lifted from the BA website. Customer Service, I am QUITE capable of reading, and I wrote to you for CLARIFICATION of what to me was ambiguous information. My actual question (on page X you say this, but on page Y you say that, which is correct?) was not even referenced, let alone resolved!

Does anyone else get the feeling that replies are created automatically depending on which drop-down heading you select from their form, and that no-one even reads what you wrote?

[jimworcs]

Yes, the airlines employ people with little or no education, who will lie and put you off at the drop of a hat. In call centres and administration centres, the airlines put them on productivity quotas which does not incentivise them to resolve the problem, instead it simply measures the speed with which they respond. This ridiculous system creates perverse invencentives, to NOT solve the problem, but get it off your desk. RIDICULOUS.

[anonymouscomments]

Jimworcs how would you know what kind of people BA employ? Have You ever worked for them? No? Thought not. I'm insulted by the fact that you basically stereotyped all call centre staff. I work for BA in a call centre and i have qualifications including a degree and know plenty of other people that work at BA and also have similar levels of education. The majority of people i work alongside try and do a good job and want to help people. They dont intentionally lie or say anything to get rid of people either for that matter! I dont work in customer relations so i dont know the framework they work within unfortunately. Being honest the incentive scheme may be set up incorrectly but i havent seen how it works for that department. In my own department incentive is based on time between calls being an average of less than 60 seconds. I would also say that people individually may want to do something but ultimately they have to work within BA policies.

[jimworcs]

Yes, the airlines employ people with little or no education, who will lie and put you off at the drop of a hat.

Did you read this correctly? I didn't say every employee has little or no eduction or that every employee will lie to you at the drop of a hat, just that the airlines do employ people in this category...and frankly, this is self evidently true.

If you have a degree and ended up in a call centre for BA though...... I might conclude that it is from a former polytechnic in a mickey mouse subject like "media studies" or "travel and tourism".

My objection to BA is that it operates and markets itself as a "full service airline" with a slogan of "To Fly, To Serve", but it mimics the tactics of Ryanair in seeing every customer misfortune as a revenue opportunity. In the case we were discussing, the airline had an opportunity to make extra revenue, help the customer and live up to its motto.

She missed her flight. That was her fault. BA could have charged her to fly one way to reconnect with her itinerary, transferring the taxes and fees to her new ticket. That is what Virgin would have done. This would have generated extra revenue for BA, but the customer would have been left feeling that they tried to help.

Instead, BA cancelled her whole itinerary, with no refund, re-sold her tickets and didn't even have the decency to tell her this is what they had done. Then they tried to keep the taxes without a refund. To Fly, To Serve my ****.

[anonymouscomments]

Being honest jimworcs im not going to discuss my degree and how i ended up at BA. I replied in the first instance because of the way you were attacking people who work at BA rather than simply the airlines policy. And this time you have now resorted to a personal attack on me. I was really trying to say that working at somewhere like BA you work how the company wants you to and within their guidelines. I certainly see situations where mistakes are made and where customers lost out due to policy. The problem is that no matter how much i may want tp help someone staff are sometimes given limited scope for discretion. For example in the case of say noshows. It isnt that the BA agent is being awkward its simply that we cant bend or change those kinds of ticket rules.

[jimworcs]

You do sound like you want to help, but if you are keen to provide good customer service, you might be better to go and work for a company which shares your values. BA lost its soul when Willie Walsh decided that in order to compete on short haul routes with the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet, they would mimic their very low customer service standards. This strategy is fine, if you also mimic their prices, but unless you are purchasing a ticket at the last minute, your prices are those of a full service airline, sadly, BA no longer offers this unless you are in the front two cabins.

You may be surprised to know that I didn't make up my information regarding perverse incentives within BA. I have received a lot of information over the years from BA employees, some of whom were based in call centres, who agree with me.

The truth is, there is still some discretion... I have heard of cases where BA employees have gone above and beyond for a customer. It tends to be people based at the airport, who can see the distress or anxiety or unfairness... call centre personnel are too remote and too target driven to care. Sadly, even airport personnel are being phased out by BA, where the culture of screen based customer service is now rampent.

The bottom line is this. Ryanair operates a very low cost culture, which is hostile to their passengers. They thrive on taking a combative and aggressive stance with passengers (and their staff) and see any customer problem as a revenue opportunity. I avoid them as much as I can, because I am too old for that nonsense. It is best left to back packers and stag parties as far as I am concerned. It does however have one virtue. It is honest. Michael O'Leary does little to disguise his contempt for his staff or his customers. You know what you get.

BA promotes itself as a full service airline, committed to good service, to providing the passenger with a high standard of comfort. If you are a regular in Club World or First Class I am sure this is your experience.

However, the rest of the poor travelling public, the experience is very different. It is sad to watch the race to the bottom, but the real disconnect is the massive gap between the face they present to the public, the culture of To Fly, To Serve and the reality. They treat customers with contempt. It is simply no use to say, we are only carrying out the policy of the airline.

In the case we are discussing, the call centre staff could have told the customer they were going to cancel the whole ticket, explained that they could get the charges back, etc. They initially implied they had done that, and only after listening to the tape did they admit they had not. This type of response by call centre staff deserves my scathing criticism, it is deceitful and frankly nasty. No-one more senior MADE this CSR do that... it is a sign of a culture that has been created. This customer was distressed and had made a very costly mistake. BA made it worse... it is shameful and if we cannot tell the people who work for the company what we think of it, what is the point of having them?