Qantas off shoring FF loyalty call centre

[roomer]

Does Qantas want to alienate its customers ( even further, some may say) but having you trying to fathom out the accent of a " English as a 2nd language" person and not understanding what the hell they are saying, let alone them understanding what we are saying. Aussies and Kiwi's "get it" when we make a joke or they can explain something in our vernacular.
If this is being done to reduce costs, then it won't be too far away when we will be dealing with synths ( refer the to show Humans) and then being met with " I am sorry Laura, I don't understand the question" Anyway, perhaps by then it comes to this, when flying, we will be all be put in a medically induced coma and packed vertically like bottles in a crate , unloaded and then awoken in the arrival hall. Think of all the savings! No meals to be served or flight attendants required! Just a paramedic or two to monitor the customers!

 

[Le Clair]

This has prompted me to post my first comment.
We are fast becoming strangers in our own country where the cost of living, housing specifically, forced up by economic immigration to shore up our bankrupt governments, makes it so expensive to do anything that we are fast finding ourselves doing nothing. This on the same day that Intel in the USA announced a US$7 billion investment to create 10,000 new jobs in America.
Having just navigated the Telstra quicksand of moving office (10m next door), the Philippine call centres haven't a clue. Culturally, linguistically even the way of solving problems is so foreign that a simple "I don't have a dial tone" takes 2 weeks to result in an Aussie technician visit who solves the problem in 5 minutes.
Qantas is OUR airline a national icon, a symbol of Australia and for many of its customers, the call centre will be their first Aussie experience. Do we really want that experience to be a Philippine one?
Sad, annoying but sadly inevitable.

 

[Limewood]

I thought by now the likes of ACA would have this offshore customer "service" centre move by Qantas and a raft of big businesses by the horns.

 

[Tassieoptom]

Is that closing the Hobart centre too?

matt - my intel is QFF to be off shoring by June this year with majority of work going to Manila and some to NZ - probably I would say Plat level to NZ and the remainder to Manila...

 

[Basalt]

What you have to remember, this is the Frequent Flyer service centre, not reservations.

Even more reason not to move it. You have to realize, at it's core, it's essence, a FF (or any rewards) program is a two-way relationship between a service provider and a customer; service being an operative word and, in the particular case of a rewards program, what are by definition return customers, are absolutely entitled to good service. Off-shoring to an English-as-second-language country is fundamentally poor service. For starters (and this is human communication 101) I and all my colleagues struggle to understand the name of a Filipino call center operator almost every time, even when I ask 3 times (then I give up). Bad start to a conversation, ask any professional.....If I was German, I'd expect the Luftansa call center to be answered by a native speaking German, ditto Air France, Iberia, Philippine Airlines, etc etc.

Like many others here, so far I've had nothing but excellent service from the Melbourne FF team and it's sad that I don't expect that to continue. And it must be said that the good service IS related to local nuance and understanding.

 

[theweaselsteve]

Just because an IT services contract may be with IBM Australia, do not assume that all aspects of the actual service will be delivered by on-shore resources. The term "blended rate" gets a lot of use in such service delivery.

This. I sell software. I have a large multi-national currently outsourcing IT to IBM. Everyone I've dealt with is in India, and whilst it's now under control, the project went massively off the rails because they didn't want to engage my company's services to implement. The "we're IBM, we can do it ourselves" attitude sent things spiraling very quickly and communication between the end users and us as the suppliers was non existent.

My feeling is, you can't just hand over everything and expect it to work like clockwork. It might have worked for one business, doesn't mean it's going to work for yours. Qantas are still going to need to invest a lot of time and effort into making sure this works. I have the horrid feeling that they won't.

 

[RichardMEL]

One very disappointing aspect of closing Camberwell and BNE (and whatever is to come) is the loss of experience and knowledge. How many times have we, in the past, dealt with agents with some silly little thing like a booking stuck in the "far queue" or some arcane issue and the agent's known instantly what to do to sort it out and/or understand some of the more subtle things within the system and the like.

Quite apart from the loss of jobs and we've all felt for many of the great agents already gone ( ) but the value to us when we need these people who "know their stuff" they're just not there as much as they used to. If one assumes the whole lot disappears to outsourced companies you can assume that these front line call takers will be able to do the basics but probably have to refer the more complex stuff back to HQ or to others and you can just tell pain will be involved.

I'm ALL for reducing call wait times to reasonable levels. I'm ALL for the web work experience kids to add features so we can sort out our own stuff. I'm ALL for making ALL partner awards viewable and bookable via the website etc etc... (as in if I can manage it myself I want to!) but I don't want to, when I have to call a live person, to have a basically useless operator who can't help me. Now of course I am making an assumption here, but I think we've all seen other operators offshore to agents who just can't do much more than the basics (just go look at AA and UA boards for complaints.... for example).

As a customer if I have to call I don't want to wait long (which doesn't happen with my P1 status tbh) and I want agents who can sort out stuff for me., Currently they can and do a pretty good job... the future? who knows....

 

[Melburnian1]

Oh, boy!
Now we have to learn to speak with an American accent for them to be able to understand us.

That is nonsense.

Anyone who has ever interacted with Filipinos knows that the younger segment of the population easily understands most Australian accents.

The hypocrisy of people criticising this move is that we simply are no longer competitive for this type of work. It's an indication of our cost structures here, including triple time for public holiday work and double time for Sundays, plus 9.5 per cent compulsory superannuation (often into an industry fund where the trustees rip off contributors through hefty 'insurance' monthly debits) and many other oncosts not found in much of Asia.

Qantas might derive 40 per cent of its revenues from overseas tourists and businessmen, so it's not totally an Australian-centric company. It's also about 48 or 49 per cent foreign owned if I recall. What percentage of QF's passengers on its recently launched SYD - PEK - SYD flights would hold an Australian passport? 20?

Trade is an exchange where both sides win. We win in supplying advanced services like architecture, legal and accountancy to places like Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines. In return, it's only fair that they supply some services to us including if need be call centre operators or back office operators, given a post above that suggests NZ will actually be handling the calls and Philippines the back office work.

And by the way, I've found some Australian-based call centre agents - particularly in energy utilities - to be absolute shockers when it comes to being even slightly empathetic or efficient.

In contrast, many Filipinos appear to do a pretty good job. It will be up to QF to train them (or the Kiwis) properly and ensure that the supervisors are sufficiently robust in their knowledge to solve some of the more difficult questions FF users will come to them with. And of course reliability and quality of the lines from Philippines down to Oz will be important.

Probably some of the above negative remarks are from those who still believe we should be manufacturing cars in Australia.

Let's celebrate what Australia is good at, but not deny emerging, fast growing economies that have good relations with Australia (and Philippines happens to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world) the chance to also enjoy the material fruits that so many of us in Australia take for granted. Things like having the disposable income to save, or - close to many AFFers' hearts - to travel internationally.

 

[artcom]

I loathe making calls that end up in a Philippines call centre - listening skills are appalling - attempts at rapport building are smarmy - the entire experience is sub-standard

 

[Danger]

I know that your post relates to the frustration of using (overseas) Call Centres.

As an aside, I can find a day-rate at that hotel within about one minute, on the web. Is there an advantage in making bookings/enquiries by phone, or maybe you didn't have web access at the time? I find the Oz accent is no good for calls to the USA (and other places).

The day rates showing online are only between 10am and 4pm which to me is a long way from a "day". I wanted to see if calling would provide an option to have a longer stay.

 

[RichardMEL]

There have been a few sweeping and generalised statements here (and I've probably done it too!)... I mean I think it's unfair to suggest ALL outsourced call centres are terrible (as I posted I had a surprising good one.. once ) just as it is unfair to say all Aussie call centre operators are the best. I think Melbournian1 made some pretty good points - like it or not our cost structures are ridiculous compared to many other places. It's just a fact through history, union actions over the years and any number of other factors (not trying to become political on this issue!). In many ways I see QF's downsizing and moving of res and QFF functions in the past (eg BNE/MEL->HBA) and into the future have been functions of this, as has been the reduction in staff numbers leading to massive call wait times. Yes, QF is in the black for now, but we all know this is related mostly to a previously stronger AUD vs USD, low fuel prices and some other factors. I don't think it's right to just say well QF's making profits again so let's put in more phone staff here.. because in 3 years those profits could be gone again.

Like it or not, if you're a business and you can provide more for less, and/or more efficiently, then you'll do it. Outsourcing of the call centre is the 787 of phone operations.

As an Australian I'm all for jobs here and all of that - absolutely - but I'm a realist too and the fact is that outsourcing will provide a faster service in terms of call wait times and at a cheaper cost. As mentioned earlier - it's all about the training and what they can do that will influence how well this works out in reality - no point getting a call answered in 15 seconds if they can't help you... but the proof will be in the pudding. As I noted a lot of generalisations floating around... by all means knock it when it happens and it's bad, but until then.... let's wait and see.

 

[Pushka]

I think most of us have experienced call centres from The Philippines to know what the experience is like and I suspect they are all almost housed by the same company.

Our offices were right next to the call centre for the local TV stations (all of them) and the Doctors after hours network and several other large business. Just depending on what colour light or some other signal as to what business name was used when answering the line.

 

[Melburnian1]

Although as indicated above the voice calls may be answered by Kiwis and not Filipinos (so some of the above discussion criticising the latter may be academic), I assume that those who are critical of offshoring functions to Asia have always paid every hotel, restaurant and attraction staff member they have encountered in Bali, coughet, Boracay, Cebu and its islands, the Maldives and Langkawi the difference between the rate per hour that the local employer pays them and the Fair Work Australia EBA agreed rates, including penalties, superannuation and oncosts - in cash - on the spot.

Must make a holiday to southeast Asia or the subcontinent pretty darn expensive, but hey, we who criticise Asian call centre staff can afford to back our sentiments with cold, hard cash, can't we?

This especially applies to the 14 per cent of Australians - yes, it truly is that low - in the private sector who remain members of unions.

Ask Mr Shorten about how he 'assisted' the workers at Chiquita Mushrooms and Cleanevent. He sure 'cleaned' someone out there to the benefit of - no, not the workers, but his union. All on the public record. I wonder what the Australian Services Union officials think of that?

 

[Pushka]

With respect that's not a logical argument. The price we pay for goods has factored into account the cost of Aussie salaries to provide those goods in Australia. So cost of living here is very much different to those overseas countries. Try buying a sack of rice for $2 - the price we were told was the going rate in Langkawi.

On the other hand the salary and benefits that Holden workers extracted through Union 'negotiations' was eye watering. So I get what you are saying but we already pay top dollar for the privilege of flying Qantas based on existing contracts. It's not like salaries have increased recently.

 

[aurelia]

I have been a loyal QF flyer, but recently flew Etihad Business and First Class to the UK and I think I am about to switch loyalty.

 

[Deena]

Not good Qantas. Rarely have I had good experiences with call centres originating in the Philippines with various organisations. Sure calls are promptly answered but I find it difficult to understand them. Put forth a question other then a simple one frequently involves multiple transfers to get someone who can assist you.

My girlfriend was involved in setting up and training a large organisations off shore call centre in the Philippines, she returned praising how marvellous they all were. She has now changed her opinion, virtually none of the original staff are still there, high turnover of staff is the norm. Frequent stuff ups that need to be corrected by Australian branches.

Some years ago I had to cancel a flight at the last minute due to a family emergency. I would say it was obvious speaking to me I was highly distressed. I spoke to a very compassionate staff member, who should have charged me huge fees, he refunded via voucher with no fees or charges. I also had another excellent experience with call centre, efficiently dealt with and problem sorted.

i get saving money, just can't see how this is going to be positive for a company who prides themselves on being Australian.

 

[jetpack]

This thread reminded me of when I called Qantas FF and the phone agent hung up on me because they couldn't be bothered looking into my query. A couple of years later it happened again over a separate matter but again while calling Qantas FF.

I don't recall any phone agent from any other company, local or foreign, hanging up on me. Although I agree that foreign call centres does not fit with the brand that Qantas is selling, I can't say that it would bother me at all if the local call centre is shut down. I realise that not all Australian phone agents for Qantas FF are rude but in my view it reflects poorly in the training or hiring activities that they do in the local call centre.

 

[Pushka]

I've not had Qantas hang up on me. I have had Telstra and Origin hang up on me when I couldn't understand what they were saying.

 

[Melburnian1]

I've also experienced quite rude Australian-based airline call centre staff, and others who were borderline: couldn't really care and generally lackadaisical. This contrasts with the National Australia Bank where almost every time the call centre staff (based in Oz) are pleasant, helpful and with rare exceptions, efficient.

Filipinos should be easy for most Australians to understand, and Kiwis obvious that they're not Australians if you can pick the nuances - not just 'fush and chups.'

 

[Pushka]

True about NAB. They are probably the best actually.