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Feedback response for a "self-service" First

Feedback response for a "self-service" First

Old Feb 6, 2019, 9:25 am
  #1  
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Feedback response for a "self-service" First

I usually don't bother with writing reviews or giving feedback but last week I spent a good half an hour at the Pier F drafting a somewhat comprehensive report for BA’s customer service on BA27 me and my wife had just arrived from as the experience was quite bizarre.

We sat at the gate doors closed at LHR for a good 1.5h because of snow related issues. Our LPGS glasses were cleared without offering a top-up 10mins before scheduled departure. Shortly after the captain announced that’s we’d be sitting at the gate for a good while longer so after about half an hour without the cabin crew offering either of us anything we pressed the call button which I hate to do as I feel like I’m “bothering” the FA’s. Well on this flight it became very clear that it was the only way to get any service what so ever. Luckily I slept 7 out of the 13 hours onboard so the button didn’t wear out completely.

The highlights were:
  • not being offered any help while undoing the bed in the morning with two FA’s walking past with nothing on their hands
  • not being offered a bottle of water when going to bed (I got it after pressing the call button, the wife didn’t get one at all)
  • not being asked if I wanted anything after being up for over half an hour with FA’s roaming the cabin otherwise, we both pressed the call button to get a glass of water and a cup of coffee, my wife was never even offered breakfast (she woke up almost 3h before landing)
  • CSM/CSD never welcomed us or came around for a chat for us to give any feedback on the flight onboard
  • we were attended total of two time each without pressing the call button on the flight, first for the PDB’s and second time when asking for our dinner orders which we both skipped and went straight to sleep
  • minor issue but still woth mentioning: they ran out of LPGS with a half full F cabin
The feedback I sent to BA was replied to today with an extremely generic “we are sorry” message. I don’t know what outcome I was expecting but that was a slap in the face after going through the trouble of writing the feedback in the first place. I guess I expected a somewhat more personal touch when two GGL’s on the same flight experience this level of “service”.

Is this the standard these days?
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 9:43 am
  #2  
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Most of your writing suggests a rather passive approach. If you want something, there is a call button, you may flag CC down in the aisle or use the occasion to walk to the galley.

This sounds as though it was a night time flight in which case most passengers would vastly prefer to be undisturbed unless they seek attention.

If you do send something to BA, keep it to 2-3 short declarative sentences.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 9:54 am
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by Often1
Most of your writing suggests a rather passive approach. If you want something, there is a call button, you may flag CC down in the aisle or use the occasion to walk to the galley.

This sounds as though it was a night time flight in which case most passengers would vastly prefer to be undisturbed unless they seek attention.

If you do send something to BA, keep it to 2-3 short declarative sentences.
That sounds dangerously close to victim blaming.

OP made it clear they made frequent use of the call button. Personally I see this as a tool to be used by exception not as SOP. After the first couple of instances, the CC should have woken up to the fact that this pair of passengers were looking for a reasonable amount of service, rather than just shun everything in favour of sleep.

Being proactively offered any kind of service just twice on the whole flight is not First standard service. Or at least it shouldn't be.

How can it be acceptable for a passenger to not be offered breakfast for three hours after waking? That'd be pretty poor in any cabin, let alone in F.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 10:12 am
  #4  
 
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I had different and very good experiences on my last and recent F flights. A380, 777 and 747 between great and outstanding service
​​​. Sorry for you.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 10:21 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by Vasco Pridat
I had different and very good experiences on my last and recent F flights. A380, 777 and 747 between great and outstanding service
​​​. Sorry for you.
Yes, it appears the OP was unfortunate in having to endure a less than stellar service. I was on the BA27 ten days ago and had a great flight, good crew and some of the best food I'd eaten in BA for quite some time. I've also had two trips to SIN and one to LAX in January (all on the A380) with the service being very good on each of them.

The breakfast service on the HKG/SIN flights is usually started a little under 2 hours before arrival.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 10:33 am
  #6  
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Originally Posted by Vasco Pridat
I had different and very good experiences on my last and recent F flights. A380, 777 and 747 between great and outstanding service
​​​. Sorry for you.
Luckily this was somewhat of a one-off for us. Our SCL-LHR F flights a month ago were nothing to complain about and shortly after that I gave not just one but two golden tickets flying SIN-SYD in CW. I’m just put off by the way BA’s customer service handled the issue.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 11:04 am
  #7  
 
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Originally Posted by Often1
Most of your writing suggests a rather passive approach. If you want something, there is a call button, you may flag CC down in the aisle or use the occasion to walk to the galley.

This sounds as though it was a night time flight in which case most passengers would vastly prefer to be undisturbed unless they seek attention.

If you do send something to BA, keep it to 2-3 short declarative sentences.
definitely not the case on BA. on a flight last spring LHR-MIA in CW, the staff were similar and while i had to rely on my call button for almost everything, it resulted in the crew notifying the CSD about my use of the call button. he sat next to me as i listed everything i had to ring for (water, refill, beverage offer, to have tray taken away, scone that never materialized, more water etc etc). these were not unrealistic, but truly a poor showing of the crew on that flight.

so as someone noted--victim blaming is not the solution here where BA has repeatedly shown such service standards on numerous occasions and via many reports here.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 11:21 am
  #8  
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Originally Posted by VSLover
definitely not the case on BA. on a flight last spring LHR-MIA in CW, the staff were similar and while i had to rely on my call button for almost everything, it resulted in the crew notifying the CSD about my use of the call button. he sat next to me as i listed everything i had to ring for...
That sounds very strange indeed. The crew must have felt justified in informing the CSD otherwise they would have risked exposing their own dereliction of duty.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 11:56 am
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Personally it kind of annoys me being bothered every 5 minutes by CC. I have to stop and rewind my movie, which is not so easy. This would be my personal dream. Except for the LPGS running out: I would not be having that!

As this was out of LHR, would be interesting to know if LPGS actually ran out and the return flight had no LPGS, or perhaps the crew were saving bottles for the return flight?
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 2:05 pm
  #10  
 
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Since I learned to use the call button unashamedly, I haven't had a so-called bad crew.
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Old Feb 6, 2019, 3:51 pm
  #11  
 
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Originally Posted by mario
Since I learned to use the call button unashamedly, I haven't had a so-called bad crew.
Agreed. We can sometimes be too 'British' for our own good and yet it is only to our own detriment. If you want something, ask (politely of course). The cabin crew are just people, they have good days and bad days, they can fatigued or very motivated, so its better to appreciate the above average crews when they occur and the rest of the time just ask for what you want and make sure you get it.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 1:59 am
  #12  
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I think it’s just one of those ‘there are all types of crew - most good, some great, some mediocre’ threads which in my view apply to most airlines.

My flight yesterday (day flight in J) was not dissimilar - not offered a toiletry bag, not offered a bottle of water, brought the wrong starter, forgot to hand out immigration form, etc and mid flight, a lady casually walked up from wt+ and sat herself in one of the many empty cw seats and crew did not even notice. As it happens, they were actually nice crew, some of them even really nice, just not very much on the ball, so I went to ask for the toiletry bag after the meal so I could brush my teeth, told them about the starter, and went to help myself to water in the galley. As for the lady when the second snack came, someone finally asked her if this was her seat and sent her back to wt+ after a few hours of enjoying the cw seat and bedding.

So no, op’s experience is not the new standard, just something that is within the broad range of crew quality one can expect.

On this forum, you’ll find many people who think BA crew are the best in the world. You find the exact same comment on LX crew on the LX forum, on AF crew in the AF forum, on KL crew on the KL forum, just as on all those fora you also find people complaining about the service they got on their BA, LX, AF or KL flight. The BA crew are just more British basically, and many BA pax for many reasons find that this works best for their personal preference/comfort zone (exact same goes for kl crew being more Dutch and many of their pax enjoying that, qf crew being more Australian to the delight of many of their pax, the AA crew more American etc. The world is quite a well conceived place sometimes! ), but basically, the quality is neither better nor worse than average forkefacy airlines which expanded in the same period. For all of them, a vast majority of crew members are good, competent, and pleasant professionals who will try hard to give passengers an enjoyable journey within reason. A few are exceptionally good, with original, pro active initiatives that make a real difference to passengers, and a few are not very interested and/or not very efficient.

What is, however the standard is the customer service response. That side of the business is pretty abysmal and shows ‘individualisation’ through formula: repeat your complaint, empathises, say they are sorry and will pass on your comments to relevant people who won’t get and/or read them, say they look forward to welcoming you back on (next flight). I rarely get in touch with them nowadays as there is frankly zero point unless you are effectively wanting a few avios which might or might not come.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 3:07 am
  #13  
 
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Sounds similar to our experience just this week to KL, my wife didn’t even get Breakfast. Whilst the crew seemed friendly enough, they just didn’t have a clue how to provide a first class service, it was very disappointing. In First, there should be no need to use a call bell in my opinion.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 3:21 am
  #14  
 
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Flights to and from SFO in December/January the crew regularly and actively roamed the cabin, making eye contact and also making it very clear that nothing was too much trouble - they actually seemed genuinely happy to serve. It was very nice indeed to be able to ask for a pot of tea just when it really hit the spot. Very poor show in the OP's case
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 4:57 am
  #15  
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Originally Posted by TRISTAR1979
Sounds similar to our experience just this week to KL, my wife didn’t even get Breakfast. Whilst the crew seemed friendly enough, they just didn’t have a clue how to provide a first class service, it was very disappointing. In First, there should be no need to use a call bell in my opinion.
Why did she sit there and miss out on breakfast? Surely if she wanted breakfast she'd alert the crew if she had somehow been missed?? I appreciate the crew should have asked her, but why sit there and say nothing if she wanted to eat? I agree there should be no need to use the call bell when travelling in First, but at the same time if the crew have forgotten to do something, use the call bell!
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