FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Long Call Center Hold/Wait Times, Post-March 3 System Integration
Old Mar 9, 2012, 9:20 pm
  #10  
joel67
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: ORD
Programs: UA 1K/MM, MC Life Plat, HH Gold
Posts: 722
Originally Posted by udondenver
OK, so an update on my meltdown. Standard Reservation line stated est. 13 minute hold. At 25 minutes, recording comes on at 10:17pm EST to state that they are closed and call tomorrow! OK great. Gold line CS currently on hold for 2 hours, 14 minutes.

Hey 1K's, Globals. How are things?
I've been holding off calling at all recently, but finally needed to call today about a couple of things, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. A few observations:

1) Nice that they didn't change the 1K number, although it no longer recognizes my phone number and there's no indication that you've actually reached the 1K line (just a generic Premier greeting).

2) Even after entering my OP number, there's no greeting by name or other indication that it recognized the number. It asks for my zip code, but there's no indication that it recognizes that, either, and neither of the agents seemed to know who I was until I gave them record locators.

3) As a matter of how low my expectations have dropped, I was happy to discover that they've reduced the volume of the droning voice on hold so that he's easier now to tune out without missing the agent coming on the line. (I still find the stupidity of torturing anyone like this, let along your best customers, totally mind-boggling.)

4) Both of my calls were answered in under a minute. When I was transferred to the MP desk to resolve one issue, that also happened quickly, so no complaints about that.

5) All three agents I spoke with were incredibly pleasant and it became clear over time that they were all PMUA, trying quite hard to hide their own frustrations as they navigated the complexities of the "new" systems. One in particular kept thanking me for my patience quite sincerely, but I finally told her that she was the one who really deserved the thanks if this call was typical of her day.

6) I must have spent an hour with each agent. Although they seemed to be navigating their systems better than I might have expected and were finding things and making ticket changes fairly quickly, they kept needing to contact supervisors and other departments for routine stuff like recalculating taxes for ticket changes, tracing the history of pre-merged reservations, or getting me the record locators for segments on other airlines. In that last case, I believe the agent had to call another department who was authorized to then call the two other airlines to have them look up the reservations in their own systems that had just come from UA!

The bottom line is that I'm quite annoyed about management for having foisted their archaic system on us, but am finding that the spirit of the many fine UA employees I've enjoyed working with in the past still lives on, and they seem to be doing their best with whatever tools they have to help their customers like me.

Last edited by joel67; Mar 9, 2012 at 9:37 pm
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