QF lounge angel - a lesson in service recovery

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OzEire

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Just another minor travel irritation I thought as my preselected seat disappeared and the lounge angel who had just checked me in handed over a BP for seat 22B on a B738.

So, despite being 5:20am and before coffee, I mentioned this to the lounge rep in the most un-DYKWIA way I could phrase it.

Being the J Lounge, I guess the angel was surprised to see a BP issued for anywhere beyond the over-wing exits. The rep said "so sorry, I can see you selected a good seat". They started tapping the computer - I presume to find me a better seat. I replied 'don't worry, these things happen and it's only a domestic sector'.

A few mins later, sitting with a coffee, the angel approached and told me there was another problem with my seat and I had to be moved ... then handed me a BP for row 1 :)

THAT'S how you keep your very frequent customers happy, immediate service recovery which costs the airline almost nothing but means a lot to a tired and cranky pax who had a minor service failure a minute ago, and is now happy again, probably moreso than before the failure.
 
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"A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed".
Basil Fawlty

Indeed OzEire, if you were willing, perhaps your life-size replica could be displayed in all QF lounges, so that younger staff who had never seen a satisfied customer could have that opportunity. And we pax could reminisce about what we used to look like.
 
Great to hear you had a win and I hope her efforts acknowledged by her employer.
 
My "special one" who called me Darhling (!!!), also used her magic touch to get me from a 737 to a 767.
A lot of the time, its a good thing to be a member of the QP, no matter how $$$ it is, annually.
Outside in GA (General Access), one of the QF girls said, no, you have to contact QF FF if you want to change and there is a change penalty, which we all know is 5,000 QF FF points.
When my SG runs out in 11.99 months time, I will renew QP via here, thats for sure.
Of course, thanks to RichardMEL, who asked me to try, and lucky too, I saw his reply on the "retirement" of the 767 thread/post.
 
I've mostly had positive experiences with QF staff, they are usually very accomodating in helping resolve issues as they arise.
I only really had one negative experience on a full flight which was cancelled to BNE and 3 flights got combined into one really claustrophobic 737, there was no way to get me a window seat which I had selected for the original flight but it's underst as they were trying to deal with some significant delays. That's one bad experience balanced by more exeriences like the ones the OP mentioned than I can count.

If I were to compare the service here to what I've had in the past from IB, or more recently from BA, QF has a great standard of service. If someone can tell me of an airline which treats their customers better, I'd love to hear which!
 
I’ve had 2.5 times when QF has had to fix an issue because of something on their end.

The .5 was last November when BA screwed up and caused a misconnect to QF at DXB. Was left to EK to sort out on the ground. BA (cause of problem) didn’t pick up when EK tried to call. Neither did CX (ticket issuer). When they got in touch with QF, it was fixed within 10 minutes.


One of the first flights I had with QF, back in 2004, before I joined QFFF. CBR-MEL. I was on the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] MEL flight of the day. Aircraft went tech in MEL, never departed to CBR. Both MEL-CBR-MEL were cancelled. All the CBR-MEL pax were moved to the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] flight. QF claimed they called and “left a message”. My phone showed no missed calls and I don’t use voice mail... Arrived at airport for now cancelled flight. Was on standby for 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] flight. Almost got on, but last pax turned up just before door was to close.
Let into Qantas Club for most of day while waiting for a seat to open up.


In August last year, was flying CBR-SYD-NRT. When on short return international trips, I normally book W, then put in for point upgrades to J (QF, your lack of W on the 330s will only lose you $$$). For this flight I didn’t as it was an older 744 with the lower deck J cabin being sold as W. Checked in at CBR to find I’d gotten an op up to the upper deck.
When I get to the lounge, I start seeing delays out of SYD. Weather in SYD had been causing problems all afternoon. As the posted delays (both on the lounge monitors and on online tracking sites) started getting longer, I asked the lounge staff what was going on. They said “we’ll put you on whatever SYD flight gets here first.” When I pointed out the connection to QF21, they said “… cough” and started poking away at the computer. At one point they had the desk staff from both the lounges and one of the station managers working on it.
The first option (hotel in SYD, then JL next morning) wasn’t going to work. JL was booked out.
They said they’ll get me to MEL, then from there, either the JQ flight via DRW (and MNL) (which would mean a 2am connection in DRW, and a downgrade to single class A320), or CX via HKG. I took the CX option.
They had bags retagged and new boarding passes just as the MEL flight was called for boarding.
Then when I got to the MEL CX lounge… op up. :D
 
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