FlyingPhoenix

There seems to be a general agreement that, if you can reach them at all (which is unlikely), the contact centre is torture to deal with. I thought it might be useful to list some alternative ways to get our problems resolved, but that don't require some sort of inside contacts or bugging the BA Flyertalk rep (if they ever come back).

So, this is some information I have compiled from around the office, which I thought maybe others could add to, or make easier to use.

general complaints: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...ent=contact_us
Manchester Call Centre: [email protected]
Executive Club Member Services: [email protected]
How to respond to emails with 8-digit references, and no reply option: http://www.britishairways.com/travel...breplies&case=
Requesting a copy of your receipt: ba.com/receipt
Baggage Claims: ba.com/baggage
Flight compensation: ba.com/disruptionclaim
Reservations: [email protected]
Customer Relations: [email protected]

BLHD

I strongly suggest the bamanchesterdocuments email is removed, this is the email that is used to send in Documents in circumstances such as a mid travel death of a family member, where a passenger needs to get home fast (Just one example!). Lets keep it to what it is meant to be, please... Its unfair to clog it up because you don't wish to make a call. Also some of the email addresses that you surmise to be for certain functions are just wrong.

Anonba

Indeed i agree if you try to send e-mails to this or to the newcastle documents email you will just get an answer asking you to cal. If lots of people start trying this it will cause potential delays for those who need to use it genuinely.

******These are only to be used if you were advised to by an contact centre agent to send documents.*****

worjackie14

The same applies to the send.documents email. That's social media's equivalent to the Manchester/Newcastle email. Only we won't give you the courtesy of a response if you haven't been asked to send anything to that email address.

*edit*

The same applies to the contact.ba email, that's for the Delhi office and the same purposes as the others, they definitely won't respond if you email them without being asked to do so.

zkzkz

I find it remarkable how much effort BA goes through to ensure their customers cannot reach them conveniently.

Fwiw I don't find the contract centre staff hell to deal with. The main problem is that they just don't answer the phone promptly. When the deign to take my call they're mostly pleasant enough.

It's still pretty hellish to have to explain things over the phone, wait for them to do the million key strokes everything seems to take with BA systems, then explain the next thing to try, etc. And then most of the time they tell you they can't do it and need to send things to anther department. But it's not the staff that's the problem, just the nature of dealing with things over the phone and the decrepit state of BA IT.

Anonba

Is it not just airline IT/processes in general?? I've been at BA a few years and yes i've seen problems with the website and know that for example bookings have to sometimes be sent to the fares department for quotes or other departments etc. But my experience has been that when i've spoke to other airlines about bookings (mainly AA) that they equally have problems with IT in their systems and website and their processes are in many ways similar ie they have a fares team and other departments they sent bookings too.

zkzkz

On other airlines I've been put on hold while they call the fare dept but I've never been told they can't quote me a price and I'll have to wait an unknown number of days. That's ridiculous.

And we complained with AC when there were weather disruptions and we had to wait 20-30min. But on a normal day a normal business picks up the phone promptly. BA's hold times are longer on a good day than anyone else on their worst. And on a bad day BA just says sorry and hangs up on you.

rossmacd

No, there are many, many airline's contact centres that are light years ahead of BA - in no particular order: MH, EK, JL, LX, CX are all fabulous to deal with in my opinion. The person that answers your call handles your query, whereas with BA you get passed pillar to post until you find someone who is able to assist, then have to wait for the dreaded 'call back' because something cannot be done instantaneously.

FlyingPhoenix

It's not the IT processes, for me, that are the most maddening problem. It's the difficulty of getting to someone who actually is empowered to depart from the marketing-speak script, or when you need something, the difficulty of reaching someone who is empowered to help you. The phone numbers have been suffering from "Unusually high call volumes" for years, it seems. You say if we email the departments in question directly they will ignore us. They don't follow this forum anymore. The twitter people seem somewhat limited in their ability to help, particularly with Executive Club issues. The ba.com form responders either stick to a script or provide nonsensical replies. I suppose that only leaves snail mail or fax, unless you can exploit a personal connection at the airline. Do you feel that is a reasonable level of engagement with BA's customers?

Paren

I just tend to Tweet them now. You tend to get a quicker response than if you were holding in the queue (assuming you can even get through to them on the phone that is).

Anonba

Im aware that there are long call wait times to get through to BA and its clearly something that needs action.

With regards to the email i realise people are looking for alternative ways to contact BA because of the call wait.

My point was that the documents emails have been setup and are used for specific reasons they aren't for general enquiries or any other type of emails other than if you were asked by an agent to send documents.

Really its important people know that they wont get a response from those emails before they waste time emailing to those documents emails.

Also if people do try this its also causing delays to genuine emails!

Im surprised to hear you mention that you cant get "someone who will depart from marketing speak script" as we dont have any script for calls!

I guess sometimes there are only so many ways to answer a question!

BLHD

No script at all, BA only recruits people that already know how to speak to customers without needing a script.

It seems FlyingPhoenix is sadly, a little bit adverse to dealing with problems the same way that everyone else does.

paul4040

"Departing from the script" is usually a byword for "using discretion", which in itself is a byword for "breaking rules that apply to every other customer but me".

That isn't to say that some of the rules BA have aren't completely asinine - they bloody are! That however isn't the fault of individual agents, whom I often feel a bit sorry for.

zkzkz

I'll give an example. I was caught by yet another example of a flight change that hadn't been reticketed. I called from the airport and to my surprise actually got through to an agent in "only" 15 minutes. The agent looked at my reservation and said because there had been a UuA on the return segment two weeks later there was nothing he could do to the ticket.

I informed the agent that I was at the check in desk, the flight was leaving in minutes, and if he put me on hold I would miss the flight.

He put me on hold, I waited thirty minutes with no answer. I bought a new ticket (which he could have issued of course) and nearly missed the flight anyways.

I've had exactly the same problem with AC with less time available and it was stressful but they called their internal help desk and got the ticket fixed.

FlyingPhoenix

That comment was referring to how the agents respond by email if you try to contact BA using the form on the website.