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Many Australian Frequent Flyer readers would be aware that Qantas has call centres located in five different countries. While the Hobart and Auckland contact centres are generally great, the service provided from some of the other call centre locations can leave a bit to be desired at times.
Compared to their Australian and New Zealand counterparts, it seems that some of the offshore call centre staff are not as highly trained in dealing with certain types of problems. Things appear to have improved recently. But some AFF members still report getting incorrect advice or being unable to get a resolution when dealing with some of the offshore call centres.
In one recent example, AFF member Ro0ngi claims to have called Qantas ten times to try to correct a misspelled name on a flight booking. Each time, this person was put through to the Fiji call centre which was unable to help. They wrote on AFF:
I called QF 10 times on 3 different numbers yesterday as I wanted to speak to someone who could help as my name was written incorrectly on a points booking. Every time I got the Fiji call Ctr who could not correct the small problem. They just told me to keep trying until I got someone in Australia that could help.
Extremely frustrating!!
Australian Frequent Flyer understands that Qantas has reached out to this customer after we brought the matter to the airline’s attention. But many other AFF members have reported similar problems over the years.
Having to call back repeatedly to get the same issue resolved is not only a poor customer experience, but also clogs up Qantas’ phone lines unnecessarily.
It begs the question… can less experienced Qantas contact centre agents actually transfer calls to more experienced staff in the event that they can’t help?
Qantas has processes in place to transfer calls
Australian Frequent Flyer understands that Qantas contact centre agents are able to transfer phone calls to escalate them to a more senior or experienced supervisor, or to a specialised team if required. This may involve transferring calls between contact centre sites in different countries.
For example, a contact centre agent can transfer a call to a different department if the request is outside of their scope. One scenario where this might occur is when someone calls the reservations line about a Qantas Club issue. In that instance, the operator can transfer the call to the Qantas Frequent Flyer Service Centre.
Agents can also escalate difficult calls to a supervisor, although AFF members have found that some agents are reluctant to do so at times. It may or may not be the case that the supervisor is based in a different country.
Unfortunately for Qantas customers, agents at offshore call centre locations don’t have a “transfer call to Hobart” button. There’s also no option in the system to redirect a call to another specific person. But calls could still happen to end up reaching Hobart after being transferred under the right circumstances.
Qantas Platinum members are more likely to reach a premium consultant at the Hobart call centre on the first try, compared to frequent flyers with lower or no status.
What should you do if your call to Qantas is getting nowhere?
If you find that the agent who answers your call to Qantas is not able to effectively help you, one option is to ask for the call to be escalated to a supervisor. The agent doesn’t necessarily have to do this, but it can’t hurt to ask.
Alternatively, you could simply try hanging up and calling again. You could end up sinking quite a bit of time into this method, but it can be effective.
Qantas is also in the process of rolling out technology that identifies people who’ve called multiple times within a short time frame and triages those calls to more experienced agents. But it’s not clear whether that system is up and running yet.
