Teplane

Have any other Concierge members noticed a distinct dip in service quality from the dedicated Concierge team in recent months?

I used to find them fantastic, easily the best benefit of Concierge, but my interactions with them the last 2 months have been pretty poor, by and large. Yesterday it took 30 minutes to change a flight and they insisted on charging an uplift in fare despite the changed flights being cheaper than the original flights as "they don't have access to the same fares as online" (negating the Concierge benefit of no change fees).

Email responses have been very poor lately as well - mostly just cut and paste stuff that ignores the question asked, when they used to send high quality responses that actually solved the customer problem.

Anyone else finding this, or have I just had a run of bad luck recently? I really hope I've just been unlucky lately, as the Concierge team has always been a massive credit to Aer Lingus and a real differentiator.

Edit: Just remembered that the decline started when they shifted the opening hours from 9-5 to 8-1am. I wonder have they made a change in the team? The service quality has become very like the regular line - i.e., nice people, but clearly given none of the tools needed to do the job properly

DELLAS

I have to say I have had excellent service over the last few months but it depends on when you call and more important what call center you get. The US one is 50/50 the Bulgarian one is 60/40 but sometimes you need to be polite but firm in escalating something you know is incorrect. The Irish team are by far the best 90/10 and at least they fully understand what you are on about.

Teplane

Oh, that's interesting, and matches my experience. I've not spoken to the Irish call centre in the last few months, so seems I've just been unlucky. Good to hear they're still there, as they're fantastic.

When you say is depends 'when' you call, what kind of times of day do you find yourself more likely to get good help?

mailliW

A couple of interactions last few months which were positive both irish and US call centres.

Think both callls were Lunchtime

DELLAS

Definitely daytime Irish time so around 10am - 4pm roughly . If they are busy you still get the over flow but have a very high chance of getting Dublin .

modularmayhem

Just to echo this, the irish call centre seem to be empowered to do a little more than the other call centres, or perhaps its just that they are more experienced and know the ins and outs of the system.

alserire

I’d say it’s the latter.