[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?

[anonymouscomments]

Hi jim . Some very good points there. There certainly is discretion but it very much depends on the situation. I was meaning that from the policy i have to work within in a call centre there isnt the discretion to transfer taxes and fees to another booking as you suggested or other options. Ive never saw a manager do this and honestly if someone calls up and they have noshowed and (unless they have a flexible ticket) its more or less clear cut that they lose the return. BA have got tighter and more limited policy for call centres. Its not to do with the fact that we are remote or dont care. Its that in that situation we would advise that passenger would get refund of taxes and buy an entirely new ticket. And thats because we arent as a call centre given discretion over that issue and that includes a manager. In other situations for example as illness or deaths BA do have good policies to help passengers and they are applied regularly by call centre agents.

As for targets it depends on department. Customer relations are targeted on number of cases closed and sales are extremely pressured to make sales.i
However customer supports current target is just to have an average time between calls of less than 80 seconds. This has therefore no bearing on how long or how an agent should deal with a call. Customer support would deal with changing a current booking and are more than likely the department who should have advised that the return was lost.


Therefore i think its been an individual agent who made the error or wasnt thorough or clear enough in what they advised.


It is possible that they only spoke to a sales agent though who simply may have been too focused on getting a new sale to advise about the other booking. I personally have saw situations where sales agents did not read flts back made obvious mistakes and told lies or made information up just to get a sale and this is a problem. Ive also of course spoke to sales agents who had great customer service and cared a lot about information they gave.


Regardless in this case it was poor service and id like to think majority of agents arent like that. As mentioned before its pretty clear cut that noshows cancel the return and its something i have told passengers many times. This is why im so surprised the agent didnt just advise it was lost and to claim for the taxes. I think in this case then it has been an individual agent rather than BA policy that unfortunately caused the problem. I dont believe its BA culture. In most cases i believe that agents do their best and yes we do go above and beyond to help. Just we are limited by BA policy.



Further to that definetly absolutely agree airport has more discretion and its because BA give them more policies and more discretion. I assume because they are more aware of the situation on the ground so to speak.




I wasnt suggesting you sholdnt criticise staff because by all means we make mistakes. As ive said several times ive seen the mistakes and had to fix them too. However i was just saying not to blame us where its BA policy that limits us rather than our own attitude or customer sevice.