i asked about dedicated GS phone reps and mentioned that the car rental question being asked by agents usually suggests that these are not "true" GS agents. (flyertalk 101) he smiled, but not in a "you got us" kind of way, but more in a way that indicated he may not have known what i was talking about or that he didn't recognize this as a cross selling technique united agents were required to use. he segued into talking about how many agents UA has and how many calls a day they get.

i'd rather not quote the specific data, but that is what i found rather hard to believe, having had decades of experience in the call center industry myself. the math just didn't add up. he either quoted the wrong figures or has been regularly misinformed by his call center team or united has a call abandonment rate in excess of 90%. (i don't see how that is even remotely possible.) he may have confused the number of calls taken a month with the number of calls taken per day, but even then, with the number of agents he said they have, that would still mean that each agent would have to take an astronomical number of calls a day.

he did acknowledge that call center ops was not something he felt UA has excelled in and that there are opportunities there. But, he added, "you guys get straight through." he said that in the past they have just said, "hey, so and so would probably be good for this... let's get so and so to head up the call centers..." without actually looking for somebody with a call center background.