No meal service trans-tasman, inquiry to VA about why is bizzare

[Matt_01]

It seems there is an increasing back lash towards VA. I also made a complaint to VA earlier this year after abysmal service in J the response was along similar lines to what the OP received. I have not flown VA since and over the next few years I will slowly move down the status ladder from WP to Red. The only planned Booking with VA will be to redeem the last of my points with SQ.

I switched to VA thinking the the "grass was greener", it may have been at that point but unfortunately it has died and the weeds took over. Switched back to QF last year and have not looked back.

 

[williamsf1]

While the discussions here on fare structures are interesting I think many have failed to listen to what the original post was all about: the inadequate response.

It seems that every similar customer care department does the same: they simply fail to R E A D ( as many here have) .


G.O.M.

In fairness to VA .. we have not seen the original email wording of the complaint. Having read many complaints from the airline side, and anyone who knows about letter writing, words and language used can be interoperated in many ways!

 

[slaussie]

The issue at the core is that VA outsourced guest relationship function to an off shore service provider. I ask myself why, why would any sensible business divorce itself with the most precious connection to their patronage? And it's not that the service provider doesn't care, but nobody can argue they care as much as the business owner would. Further, the service provider at an off shore location cannot relate to the complaint because they don't life life to the same service expectations as are a given in Australian consumer market. So the best they can do, is to 'fight off' our complaints with templated responses that are designed to acknowledge the complaint but not address is, less still resolve it. This is a vicious circle that leads to nowhere. I speak from first hand experience involving a different situation but was exposed to the same treatment. I responded to a Velocity promotion involving BP fuel. I followed the promotion terms to fine detail, only to discover I didn't get what I expected under the promotion terms. In the spirit of helpfulness, I brought the issue to the attention of Velocity (also outsourced to an off shore service provider), even provided an opinion on how the problem came about. For 4 months they have fought me to discredit my feedback, took me on a merry go round, made false statements, send me templated responses, LIED by stating they had tried to contact me by phone to no avail when in fact they had called me and hung up after a single ring, just to be able to demonstrate through phone records 'the attempt of contact' in case if checked on by their superiors of the proprietor. An appalling all round behaviour! When I called them on it, the actual call to me was placed. Throughout it, there was no interest AT ALL to acknowledge value in my feedback less still commit to investigating the core cause of the problem with how BP transactions come across onto Velocity account. Th sole purpose of that call was to **** the case dead and stop me from communicating with them. The conversation went don'd the line of complete disinterest, and the desire to close the case was expressed at least 4 times in the course of our conversation. When I put two and two together, shocked as you would imagine, I actually said to the lady on the phone - it would seem you are really only interested in closing this case, so lets do that and put each other out of the misery. She keenly obliged! I am 52 yrs of age, have extensively travelled for 35 yrs of my life, have worked about 25 yrs in the airline industry, and am utterly ashamed that this breed of 'service professionals' represents the industry that used to pride itself on customer care and memorable travel experience. It's nothing short of heart breaking that this is what our icon airline has come to - AN ABSENT LANDLORD.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

The issue at the core is that VA outsourced guest relationship function to an off shore service provider. I ask myself why, why would any sensible business divorce itself with the most precious connection to their patronage? And it's not that the service provider doesn't care, but nobody can argue they care as much as the business owner would. Further, the service provider at an off shore location cannot relate to the complaint because they don't life life to the same service expectations as are a given in Australian consumer market. So the best they can do, is to 'fight off' our complaints with templated responses that are designed to acknowledge the complaint but not address is, less still resolve it. This is a vicious circle that leads to nowhere. I speak from first hand experience involving a different situation but was exposed to the same treatment. I responded to a Velocity promotion involving BP fuel. I followed the promotion terms to fine detail, only to discover I didn't get what I expected under the promotion terms. In the spirit of helpfulness, I brought the issue to the attention of Velocity (also outsourced to an off shore service provider), even provided an opinion on how the problem came about. For 4 months they have fought me to discredit my feedback, took me on a merry go round, made false statements, send me templated responses, LIED by stating they had tried to contact me by phone to no avail when in fact they had called me and hung up after a single ring, just to be able to demonstrate through phone records 'the attempt of contact' in case if checked on by their superiors of the proprietor. An appalling all round behaviour! When I called them on it, the actual call to me was placed. Throughout it, there was no interest AT ALL to acknowledge value in my feedback less still commit to investigating the core cause of the problem with how BP transactions come across onto Velocity account. Th sole purpose of that call was to **** the case dead and stop me from communicating with them. The conversation went don'd the line of complete disinterest, and the desire to close the case was expressed at least 4 times in the course of our conversation. When I put two and two together, shocked as you would imagine, I actually said to the lady on the phone - it would seem you are really only interested in closing this case, so lets do that and put each other out of the misery. She keenly obliged! I am 52 yrs of age, have extensively travelled for 35 yrs of my life, have worked about 25 yrs in the airline industry, and am utterly ashamed that this breed of 'service professionals' represents the industry that used to pride itself on customer care and memorable travel experience. It's nothing short of heart breaking that this is what our icon airline has come to - AN ABSENT LANDLORD.

This is why I only complain through twitter. That isn't outsourced. Yet.
And the initial conversation is public so they respond with concern for their reputation.

 

[aussieboozer]

The issue at the core is that VA outsourced guest relationship function to an off shore service provider. I ask myself why, why would any sensible business divorce itself with the most precious connection to their patronage? And it's not that the service provider doesn't care, but nobody can argue they care as much as the business owner would. Further, the service provider at an off shore location cannot relate to the complaint because they don't life life to the same service expectations as are a given in Australian consumer market. So the best they can do, is to 'fight off' our complaints with templated responses that are designed to acknowledge the complaint but not address is, less still resolve it. It's nothing short of heart breaking that this is what our icon airline has come to - AN ABSENT LANDLORD.

Seems to be the way of the world now! I have had a similar ongoing saga with Woolworths about their rewards system. I no longer shop at Woolies and it sounds like Virgin is heading down the same slippery slope. I rarely fly Virgin these days and prefer to accumulate QF points wherever possible. As an aside I use Emirates for Brisbane-Auckland as they provide a much more comfortable service on their A380 than the Qantas 737.

 

[Mattg]

The issue at the core is that VA outsourced guest relationship function to an off shore service provider. I ask myself why, why would any sensible business divorce itself with the most precious connection to their patronage? And it's not that the service provider doesn't care, but nobody can argue they care as much as the business owner would. Further, the service provider at an off shore location cannot relate to the complaint because they don't life life to the same service expectations as are a given in Australian consumer market. So the best they can do, is to 'fight off' our complaints with templated responses that are designed to acknowledge the complaint but not address is, less still resolve it. This is a vicious circle that leads to nowhere. I speak from first hand experience involving a different situation but was exposed to the same treatment. I responded to a Velocity promotion involving BP fuel. I followed the promotion terms to fine detail, only to discover I didn't get what I expected under the promotion terms. In the spirit of helpfulness, I brought the issue to the attention of Velocity (also outsourced to an off shore service provider), even provided an opinion on how the problem came about. For 4 months they have fought me to discredit my feedback, took me on a merry go round, made false statements, send me templated responses, LIED by stating they had tried to contact me by phone to no avail when in fact they had called me and hung up after a single ring, just to be able to demonstrate through phone records 'the attempt of contact' in case if checked on by their superiors of the proprietor. An appalling all round behaviour! When I called them on it, the actual call to me was placed. Throughout it, there was no interest AT ALL to acknowledge value in my feedback less still commit to investigating the core cause of the problem with how BP transactions come across onto Velocity account. Th sole purpose of that call was to **** the case dead and stop me from communicating with them. The conversation went don'd the line of complete disinterest, and the desire to close the case was expressed at least 4 times in the course of our conversation. When I put two and two together, shocked as you would imagine, I actually said to the lady on the phone - it would seem you are really only interested in closing this case, so lets do that and put each other out of the misery. She keenly obliged! I am 52 yrs of age, have extensively travelled for 35 yrs of my life, have worked about 25 yrs in the airline industry, and am utterly ashamed that this breed of 'service professionals' represents the industry that used to pride itself on customer care and memorable travel experience. It's nothing short of heart breaking that this is what our icon airline has come to - AN ABSENT LANDLORD.

I sent an email to VA a while ago asking why the Virgin Australia logo (or even the name of the airline) doesn't appear once on the Frequent Flyer card. It wasn't really intended as a complaint - more a suggestion that they consider this next time the card is redesigned.

I got a canned response informing me that all of VA's partner airlines knew what Velocity was, and therefore it was not necessary to include the airline name or logo.

Never mind the fact that as a VA customer, I've had at least 3 experiences with partner airlines where the ground staff didn't even know that Virgin Australia existed, let alone the name of its loyalty program. But what would I know - I'm just a customer.

 

[kevrosmith]

I sent an email to VA a while ago asking why the Virgin Australia logo (or even the name of the airline) doesn't appear once on the Frequent Flyer card. It wasn't really intended as a complaint - more a suggestion that they consider this next time the card is redesigned.

I got a canned response informing me that all of VA's partner airlines knew what Velocity was, and therefore it was not necessary to include the airline name or logo.

Never mind the fact that as a VA customer, I've had at least 3 experiences with partner airlines where the ground staff didn't even know that Virgin Australia existed, let alone the name of its loyalty program. But what would I know - I'm just a customer.

The Global Wallet Velocity membership card does not have the VA logo, however, the non-Global Wallet Velocity card does have the VA logo. I purposely requested a non-Global Wallet card (I don't use the cash card anyway) when I went overseas as I had heard friends who had been denied entry trying to access DL lounges in USA with their Platinum membership card, which didn't have a VA logo on it.

 

[N860CR]

Unfortunately this is becoming a serious issue with many organisations now who outsource "thinking" roles to the third world. There is no doubt a place for cheap Indian/Fillo call centres for dealing with basic day to day calls etc, however they simply don't work for serious issues.

The online agents like Expedia etc are the best examples. Their customer service when there are problems is absolutely awful and it stems from people being paid slave labour rates to deal with us westerners complaining about issues at $500 per night hotel rooms. I fought with an Indian customer relations department for months after an expensive hotel overbooked and moved me to another (far worse) hotel and the final statement I received was "you weren't left on the street, you were given a room so you weren't inconvenienced". Unfortunately these people simply don't get the way we live here and it's not appropriate to have them dealing with these issues. Virgin is certainly going to lose a lot of customers with this sort of behavior.

 

[bean]

Unfortunately this is becoming a serious issue with many organisations now who outsource "thinking" roles to the third world. There is no doubt a place for cheap Indian/Fillo call centres for dealing with basic day to day calls etc, however they simply don't work for serious issues.

The online agents like Expedia etc are the best examples. Their customer service when there are problems is absolutely awful and it stems from people being paid slave labour rates to deal with us westerners complaining about issues at $500 per night hotel rooms. I fought with an Indian customer relations department for months after an expensive hotel overbooked and moved me to another (far worse) hotel and the final statement I received was "you weren't left on the street, you were given a room so you weren't inconvenienced". Unfortunately these people simply don't get the way we live here and it's not appropriate to have them dealing with these issues. Virgin is certainly going to lose a lot of customers with this sort of behavior.

It is getting ridiculous-just the other day I called Amex to see if I was eligible for reward points for signing up for their card. I'd had a Amex card in the past but couldn't remember how long ago Id cancelled it and therefore whether I would be valid.

I called and explained my situation to which the lady responded no I was not eligible. I asked when I would be, she replied NEVER. After questioning her she said that points were only eligible for people who had NEVER held a Amex card. I asked if there was someone else I could speak to-her response was 'no, its 3AM in the morning here in India and there is no one else'. I laughed and said I'm surprised a company the size of Amex only has a single lady working for them.

I then asked her if she was sure that I would neve be eligible as the terms and conditions state 18 months. She ummed and ahhed and asked if I could call back later. Unbelievable, though you get what you pay for I guess...

 

[GaryBne]

Unfortunately this is becoming a serious issue with many organisations now who outsource "thinking" roles to the third world. There is no doubt a place for cheap Indian/Fillo call centres for dealing with basic day to day calls etc, however they simply don't work for serious issues.

.

.. and its a situation that wont change. Not only are the education systems based on wrote learning and creativity quashed from kindy level, staff in these call centres are usually college graduates, above average English and paid double the wages of a Nurse - but kept on a very short leash. Fail to follow the script and its automatic dismissal. No "unfair dismissal" rules in those countries.

Subcontracting CS is just plain insane: you cant write a contract that defines "fair, common sense, logical" etc

Gary

 

[Milefest]

This is why I only complain through twitter. That isn't outsourced. Yet.

I thought VA's Twitter was outsourced. Isn't their Twitter is run by Carat media agency? en | Carat Global

 

[FatBoyNotSoSlim]

I thought VA's Twitter was outsourced. Isn't their Twitter is run by Carat media agency?

Yep. I used to work for a sister agency and was there just after one of the interns used the VA twitter to tell Kanye West some kind words himself. Such a shame too, internally (except for HR) thought it was hilarious.
mumbrella.com.au/carat-virgin-australia-tweet-kanye-west-telling-eat-dick-347292

That said, there are processes in place to get important messages escalated to the correct internal team.

 

[esseeeayeenn]

I thought VA's Twitter was outsourced. Isn't their Twitter is run by Carat media agency? en | Carat Global

Well if it is outsourced then it must be the public nature of the medium which results in a higher quality of response.

 

[williamsf1]

Well if it is outsourced then it must be the public nature of the medium which results in a higher quality of response.

I don't know about that ... some of the facebook / twitter responses have been factually incorrect .... most of the other ones are " HI xx_ we are sorry for the inconvenience! Please fly with us again ... Jane ... "