AFF - are we our own self-moderating enemy?

[RooFlyer]

Rooflyer, I am unaware of what here is sold off - have no info nor opinion in that regard. But I am sure that QF do actually monitor this site, and what I was trying to say in the opening post is that the content here makes their choice of no overt involvement make sense.

Re your OP: 'Self Moderating' - can you explain what that means, exactly?? To me its marketing carp.

Personally, I don't care if Qantas monitors this site or not. Its not going to make them improve their product, or lower their prices. I've just flown QR J Australia to Europe, and the experience in service, food, food presentation, seat, seat comfort, IFE, every-damn-thing was so superior to Qantas, AND cheaper to boot, its just not funny.

Qantas have a huge market share in Australia from 'loyal Australians'. I'm not sure if they believe their own hype about having such a world class product/experience. But anyone who flies regularly with other airlines knows that the Qantas product (I'm talking J here) is simply expensive and mediocre.

To expand on my other point. QFF exists within Qantas Loyalty to create a huge database of personal habits and spending patterns of its members (supposedly 10 million or so people). This is marketed by Qantas Loyalty to its actual partners - the companies who buy points from Qantas to flog or give away as to motions. So Juddles - you and I are the product being marketed by Qantas to Qantas' corporate customers. Along the way they throw a few crumbs to us to keep us 'engaged' - a bit like Pavlov's dogs, if you like. They throw P1s like you a few more crumbs because yes, they might make some worthwhile $$ on P1s along the way. But the vast majority of us are a database commodity to be sold by Qantas Loyalty to its customers. Surely you get that?

 

[cove]

Red Roo helped me so I was a fan.
The other day I was booking flights on points and the site experienced difficulties. Next day I looked and those flights on an A330 had gone. I simply booked with the other guys.
I had believed I had successfully completed one flight before the difficulties message occurred but that flight vanished out of My Bookings.
Qantas is a business and not a love in. Their latest devaluation is an example of Qantas just being another business.

 

[Deleted member]

That’s one way of putting it.

I seriously cannot make sense if it.

I can

 

[Deleted member]

Hi all,

I have posted this in the general discussion area rather than in the specific Qantas area as I think the basics apply to everywhere.

Recently Qantas announced some "huge" changes to their frequent flyer system. This created the inevitable storm of debate in such a forum as us here in AFF. People who hated the changes, people who saw them as OK, the myriad suggestions of what would be better, and the inevitable predictions of gloom and how this airline was out of touch and would die.

Earlier this year I attended a Qantas event. As a P1 I sometimes get invited to such things. I had a brief chat there with Miss Wirth, the head of QF Loyalty. During the chat I asked her about the loss of "Red Roo" - the Qantas rep that used to get involved in this forum. She said that there was no need as we were a "self-moderating" forum. Since that chat I have pondered this concept.

I have a belief that we armchair warriors who often "know what is best" severely underestimate the professionalism that big companies such as QF (and even Virgin) actually have. I am really starting to recognize that they run absolute rings around us. Take for example this last announcement by QF. We had so many opinions on it. We knew and identified so many flaws. We had a fest of debating these. But now, soon after, we have, as a group, moved on. It is now a week since anyone posted in the main thread about it.

We are avid flyers, "experts" in all this, passionate. But even we peter out with our complaints after just a few weeks. Maybe we as AFF are not actually ignored by QF, but rather the opposite - we actually fortify their position that they can do whatever and it will ride out any storm?

If you ignore the emotion in any specific thread, I think here we mirror the greater reality. Every week or so yet another person comes out with a straw that broke their particular camel's back - so they are now ditching their airline and moving to the other. So a loyal QF FF spits the dummy and moves to Virgin. And just as often, a Virgin supporter has had enough and threatens to give all their custom to QF. When you look at the bigger, the whole picture, this is all good for the airlines.

I feel that there are sufficient members here to have an impact, yet we do not. Maybe we should not. I enjoy the debate just as it is. But let's see it for what it is.

I would argue that QF loyalty have pulled red roo because whatever we may think of ourselves, it was an ideal place for them to visit and find any holes which need plugging (ASA’s is a case in point). The series of focus groups some of us ( I attended a few myself) were invited to gave Qantas a wealth of information which if outsourced to a research group would have cost a lot more. I also think many companies like QF are watching social media trends more closely as the true barometer of their performance. That said Qantas really need to up their game internationally. As RooFlyer mentioned the QR flight he did recently was superior in every way and cheaper. Our recent J experience DPS-SYD was the single worst airline food we have ever encountered. Qantas seem reluctant to meet this competition head on

 

[Deleted member]

Don’t forget this is a closed group with a small noisy membership, with a diversity of views and interests. The proportion of AFF members to QF FF membership base is extremely small. And I don’t think as a membership we are any kind of barometer of the wider FF community. Insightful we are but we do not set the agenda.

I know of 5 CLPO (Chairman lounge platinum one) who are not AFF members. Two have told me they will be LTWP this year.

I’m sure the airline has a deeper understanding of, and have much more granular information about their FF members than we have.

Noisy yes, closed no, anyone can view (lurk) before joining

 

[harvyk]

<snip> I also think may companies like QF are watching social media trends more closely as the true barometer of their performance.<snip>

No thinking required, QF are certainly monitoring social media, but I doubt it's a person sitting there scanning the web.

It would not surprise me if half the replies on QF' Facebook page are automated, especially the "please send us a PM" messages.

One day there will be no "real person" you can talk to. It will be 100% computer. When that day comes the computer will "feel" so life like that you and I would not be able to tell the difference. Perhaps the only real tell would be that QF's "call center" now picks up on the first ring every time and the "person" you speak with has an unbelievable knowledge of all things Qantas.

 

[I love to travel]

Hang on. Who mourned the loss of Red Roo? Not me. A pleasant person(s), but who crudely tried to influence the influencers here. QF withdrew RedRoo because it ceased to be monetarily positive.

I do want to acknowledge though that Red Roo was great in emergencies. My QF awar on CX did not ticket correctly after a flight schedule change and she was the one that fixed it as the airline check in staff were struggling to get hold of QF.

 

[get me outta here]

Providing the Red Roo was quite an expensive staff cost. Meanwhile, AFF and others provide free advice to all and sundry incl QF in our generous, “ self moderating” way, no need for QF to personally answer mundane queries and be a fixer.
Our little group doesn’t influence them much apparently ergo, no need for a Red Roo.

 

[serfty]

@Red Roo's last real activity with AFF was four years ago, their last post was two years ago.

Red Roo Update

Hi everyone, we’d like to let you know that Red Roo will be taking a break from servicing customers here and other like fora. 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...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

It seems Qantas decided to outsource the entire social media function and eliminate the internal roles at the Mascot campus. The third party had no brief to provide support to members of bulletin board and forums; concentrating on Facebook, Twitter and other more mainstream social media platforms.

Qantas | Twitter

Qantas | Facebook

The @Red Roo handle had several people using the membership over time. The one most were familiar with at the time retained their employment at Qantas, finding another role at the campus.

 

[VPS]

There is a Qantas Point Hacks Facebook group and Qantas seem to respond to a number of questions and complaints on there. Mind you some of the comments on there are just ludicrous.

 

[opusman]

I personally don't mourn Red Roo. Certain users here had trouble with the concept that they were here to represent Qantas, and treated them like just another forum member. And yet they somehow worked out who I was (i.e. my FF number) without me telling them directly, and kept that information on record. Altogether too creepy for me.

To be honest I'm not really sure what the point of the OP is, but I'll take a guess - and my answer is, "we" just aren't that important to Qantas. They have millions of members. They have CLs and WP1s and now LTPs up the wazoo. They lobby politicians and top CEOs directly. A bunch of enthusiasts on a web forum aren't even a blip on their balance sheet (even if some of us do fall into the aforementioned groups).

The trouble with this echo chamber is it's self-amplifying. It's easy to fall into the trap of believing we're special to Qantas in some way because we know some IATA codes or know that toasters aren't the best use of points.

 

[stm1sydney]

I am really starting to recognize that they run absolute rings around us. Take for example this last announcement by QF.

I agree that QF runs absolute rings around QF customers. Given the significant limitations of the QF product, customers still choose to fly with them. That is amazing.

So, yes, QF marketing is a very effective machine. Take for example the recent AirBnB promotion - an incredibly small number of F seats were made available, yet the coverage in the media and on this forum was immense - everyone was very excited and spent days talking about Qantas. How many pages did the thread go for? They are running rings around their customers, and customers either don't realise or don't care.

 

[Forg]

I've just flown QR J Australia to Europe, and the experience in service, food, food presentation, seat, seat comfort, IFE, every-damn-thing was so superior to Qantas, AND cheaper to boot, its just not funny.

To be phair, Qantas has to operate as a standalone for-profit business & isn’t able to rely on the massive oil-profits of royal owners to keep going.

 

[33kft]

While 373 full time and 170 part time QF sales employees globally might sound like a significant number, this is global and across all sales channels, regions, languages, business units, timezones and forms of contact.

Now imagine you put 20 of them at a time on online chat as a sales channel, across all of the QF websites, facebook pages, SMS and twitter. For 24/7 coverage that would be 60 person-days per day (although you would adjust it to scale up/down during appropriate times), You have a reach of 1.4 million people just on the Australian Qantas facebook page alone. Each person who is approaching Qantas is able to do so only by replying to a post or sending a message, which can be farmed out 1 at a time. These interactions are transactional, they allow customers to either clarify doubts or concerns that lead to sales, triage issues or make direct sales on the spot.

Take a few of those (for during and post business hours coverage) and put them on a jaded community of frequent flyers with a reach of almost 50,000 members. This is not a Qantas specific channel unlike all of those listed above, this is a generic FF forum. To be accepted as anything but a gratuitous additional web chat method, this forum member is expected to interact with the community, and this means reading through reams of forum posts and arguments and posting relevant information.

Imagine it's you signing off on this proposal, confident that this approach would help contribute to QF's bottom line.

 

[RooFlyer]

To be phair, Qantas has to operate as a standalone for-profit business & isn’t able to rely on the massive oil-profits of royal owners to keep going.

I get the point you are making, but as a consumer, I don't care how an airline gets to its bottom line. Airline A is just so much better than airline B, yet B insists it is world class, and charges accordingly.

 

[Forg]

Given Qantas only has to answer to the law & their shareholders, I don’t see it as any surprise that if their marketing is allowing them to sell seats at a premium ... well, good on ‘em.

I’m probably a bit mercenary, in that I’ll buy tickets even on Emirates or Etihad or Qatar without worrying much about what nefariousness I’m indirectly supporting while doing it - if the price-to-product ratio is correct. Really the main reason I’ve QF’d of late was the better-half’s lounge access, which increased the price-to-product ratio for me ... without that, I’d frankly probably have Air New Zealanded or Singapore’d.

 

[casanovawa]

I don't miss airlines having reps or information collectors in here and closing loop hole after trick after hack etc... They probably still do, just less obviously announced... In that respect yes less representation from corporates the better... It was getting to a point several years ago that there were proposals for separate spreadsheets or other membership strategies to keep the best Lifemiles routes and other FF tricks secret because they kept being shut down one after another... Now there seem to be very few left and the bloggers keep advertising them till they get eliminated...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I had to google 'self moderating forum'. It means a forum where they have no moderators and the members moderate themselves. (The alternative is that 'self moderating' = 'zero moderating', and it's strictly 'enter with flame-proof suit')

AFF is not a self-moderating forum, we have rules and moderators to enforce them.

What is sounds like Ms Wirth was saying was that QF saw no benefit in being here because they had little influence. We aren't a bunch of naive consumers who will spend our points how QF tells us to spend them (toasters, economy awards, and buying expensive fares in the hope of an upgrade).

Did QF add value by having a rep here? To individuals, maybe. But crucially for me, the the rep was either (a) severely constrained or (b) out of their depth when it came to strategic input. The big cross-cutting issues were totally ignored, or we were told the rep wasn't the appropriate person to take the issue forwrd. (This is a complaint about outcomes, not the person (who many of you met and agreed was a great person)).

On that basis I thought Qantas gained huge knowledge for very little in return.

As to why conversation petered out on the recent changes... it's because they were more hype than substance and only affected a small number of us. It was 'disappointing as usual'.

 

[Pushka]

The comment that we just seem to move on when Qantas seemingly duds us - I’m just wondering what else we can do other than not use Qantas anymore. It’s hardly like AFF’ers not using Qantas will have any impact on profit line.

There is a Qantas Point Hacks Facebook group and Qantas seem to respond to a number of questions and complaints on there. Mind you some of the comments on there are just ludicrous.

That page seems to be owned by Qantas.

 

[harvyk]

<snip>It’s hardly like AFF’ers not using Qantas will have any impact on profit line.<snip>

If every AFFer abandoned QF, yes we would affect them. But we're just not that organised.

It's not like a captain of industry saying "we only fly virgin now" because in that case personal preference doesn't come into it.