Unhappy first First experience - how long to wait for a reply from Customer Relations
 

I travelled First for the first time last Saturday on a longhaul from LHR but unfortunately not everything went well. There was an issue with a broken IFE system that never did get resolved. Unfortunately, this was made far worse by the attitude of the CSD, who I found to be dismissive, unsympathetic and - worst of all - patronising. I may be a female past retirement age but I spent my career teaching people how to use complex IT systems and didn't need a 'Janet and John' walk through of how to use the system when it was quite clearly broken!

I told the CSD I didn't consider his approach or his proposed recompense satisfactory and I asked for the issue to be raised with Customer Relations. Of course, I don't know what the CSD's report said but will hazard a guess that it didn't include the feedback I gave him! I received an automated acknowledgement the next day (and added an additional information note to say I wanted to speak with someone) but haven't heard a peep since.

So - a question please to this very helpful forum - how long should I expect to wait for a response? I am only a humble Silver, but have been for many years.

If you've left it to the CSD to raise it with Customer Relations, you can be sure it's not going to happen.

I'd suggest allowing up to 2-3 weeks for BA to respond.
You mentioned that you have received an automated response, so it means it has been registered on their system.

Well, it seems he did as the OP has received an acknowledgement...

So what was this? Knowing this might solicit responses regarding whether CR will offer you a better deal.

Hello Gertie, and first of all, Welcome!.

What a shame to hear that your first First experience did not go as planned. Even more frustrating I am sure was the CSD's reaction - sometimes it baffles me as to how common sense and general good manners are lacking in customer facing roles. In relation to your issue, personally I have found that a quick post on Twitter to the British Airways feed with a mention of a bad experience will generate a near immediate response (from a real person, not a Bot). You can then be guided to provide more information and try to get this resolved as soon as possible. No harm attacking this issue on two fronts.

Hope you get a good response from BA and are not put off flying First / BA again.

Welcome to Flyertalk GetawayGertie, and welcome to the BA Forum as well. It's good to see you here, though the circumstances are less impressive. I hope this gets resolved, but condescension to older people is unfortunately so endemic that I'm not sure that is going anywhere soon. On a personal level I catch myself doing it too, though I strive to be different.

There are a few specifics which aren't clear from your post. Was the IFE completely down (on some systems there is a limited service loop)? Was there another seat with a working IFE in First? And did the CSD offer you 16,500 or 20,000 Avios on their iPad? The offer is intended to provide a swift remediation beyond that of Customer Relations, and is supposedly pitched at the top end of what CR would offer.

I'd agree with others to leave it a few weeks, given 4 bad irrop days in the last 2 weeks, CR must be overwhelmed at the moment. If you do want to chase it up thereafter you have two options, one is to call CR in the UK afternoon office hours; the alternative is to email YouFirst and ask them to chase it. And yes, Twitter is another approach too, you'll have to do a DM on it and someone from the Social Media Team will follow up within a day or two.

You learn something new every day
 

what is 'you first' and how does one contact them?

My bad

YouFirst is a department based in Manchester that looks after those booked in First. If you have a First booking, you should get the email address of the team in both the preflight email and also in Manage My Booking. UK based bookings also get a telephone number they can used.

Thank you corporate-wage-slave. The IFE wasn't completely down, it worked initially when I watched a film (although with much struggling to access it, the controller was very, very erratic and the touchscreen didn't work). When I tried to watch TV, I got either random selections on the controller or a list of gibberish instead of programme names. The only vacant seat had the same problem. They rebooted the system for both seats without any improvement. I finally got a TV programme showing on my screen by interrupting my husband's viewing to count through the options on his programme list to something I wanted to see (yes really!) and then choosing the gibberish that was in the right place on mine; but then the screen kept flashing up the control bar along the bottom every 20-30 seconds and interrupting the picture. I gave up at that point.

The CSD first said "what do you want me to do?" I said perhaps some Avios - he offered 5,000 which I didn't think was satisfactory. From memory, that was when the condescending explanations began. He came back a few minutes later and offered 10,000 but by that point I'd had enough of his attitude, to be honest.

Sounds like a call to YouFirst might be my next step. I don't want to be unreasonable but I do think it was handled very badly.

Thanks for the replay babats. Please see below above and forgive me if I've done this wrong, I'm new to the forum!

(Edited as I now see where my previous post appeared)

I've never flown in First so also wondered what that was. Thanks to c-w-s for the explanation.

I have also now learned that asking for Avios as compensation is what you should do. A few years ago the entire first row of CW (row 10) on our flight to Philadelphia had no IFE at all. After two attempts at rebooting the system the CSD gave up and offered all 8 passengers something out of the Duty Free on board sales catalogue (excluding booze!). I would have much preferred Avios. I did ask if I could be upgraded to CW from WT+ on my already booked flight to IAD for the following month but that was denied. I should have persisted. Oh well that was in the past, lesson learned.

5k then 10k Avios offered to OP sounds derisory especially from the figures c-w-s quotes.

For reference, I recently received 15,000 Avios after a LHR-SIN flight in CW (redemption) where the hinge on the screen was faulty and the screen did not stay in place, managing at best 45 degrees but still moving. May sound petty, but it didn't lock in place in front of me, and I wasn't about to lean forward and to the side to watch it head on for 13 hours. Raised it with crew who did their best to fix it with wooden stirrers to no avail. The guy did promise to send the CSD over but that didn't happen. Filled out the web complaint form when we got home and I was immediately offered 15,000 Avios which I thought fair.
Initial response took about a week, and for some reason Avios didn't appear initially so I followed up and they appeared the following day.

They did also tell me they valued my Blue membership, so perhaps that had something to do with it ;)

Yes, 5k is way too few, and 10k wouldn't sound right unless you had something like it was ok to watch some things but not full functionality. So the CSD should have been more customer focused, in a way the next step is the way forward since hopefully CR can assess this better.

I've had this issue with the screen on UD on the 747 quite a few times. Luckily the CSD on the first flight had a trick up her sleeve and she used a wine bottle cork to wedge the sliding mechanism in place (it worked perfectly). Every time it's come up as an issue since, I've told the crew of this little trick which they've then tried and it works every time. ... it didn't occur to me ask for Avios... wish I had now as I'd have prob another 60k avios in the account. :-)

I think we've come to expect it on those old birds, but this was a 4 year old A380. Good to know there is a fix, though; that is information that I may or may not choose to deploy in the future ;-)

The cork trick sounds a better idea than the swizzle stick I got given...which would suddenly snap and bits of plastic flying through the air. Maybe I should carry a cork with me but flag it up for avios purposes!! :-) You really do wonder if general planned maintenance is carried out these days.

IN general, it is really not good enough that people have a poor flight in First - myself included. Are there cabin crew specifically trained for First or can anyone just bid for these flights?

Out of interest can I ask what route this was? LHR to ???

I've flown in Club World and First where there have been issues with the IFE system. It's so common that cabin crew try and fix it and, if it can't be fixed, just move on and apologise. Nothing they can do. Often it will affect the entire plane, irrespective if you're in Economy or First. So frustrating though if you didn't prep your iPad in advance - I've learned now to make sure I have at least one movie stored on my iPad....just in case.

Yes, understood - technology is often the problem in all walks of life ;-)

It wasn't so much that it wasn't fixed, it was much more the way the whole situation was handled. This was my first time in First and I'd been really looking forward to it, but the attitude I encountered definitely spoiled my experience (and for my husband, too, who'd wanted it to be a real treat for me). I was left feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable, which wasn't at all what I was expecting.

Probably bucking the trend here but I've had good flights in First recently so submitted positive feedback to Customer Services and received a reply within 24 hours from GGL Customer Services.

Have we had an answer yet as to whether there were other seats available with working IFE? If there was then I'm not sure any compensation would be offered.

Post 13

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=31414276&postcount=13

OP indicates just one spare seat but that it suffered the same issue, so unfortunately moving doesnt seem to have been a solution this time

Oh my! I'm not doing very well this morning. I'd better go and have a lie down :)

corporate-wage-slave. I have upcoming iad/lhr F flights in feb. and april.. Looked on the mmb and couldn't find any contact info for you first?

There should be a link to this area, and right at the end is the contact link:

ba.com/youfirst

I've always used this page here to contact you first:

https://www.britishairways.com/trave...d=youfirstform

I'd definitely call if it's urgent, the email form responses often take more than day for me to hear back.

Thank you corporate-wage slave and lilly23. I appreciate your prompt response and will give it a try.

I filed a complaint online w/BA in early July - never heard a response.

Sadly this is how it often goes. When I first made Gold with BA in a heavy flying year (all economy/prem ec) it was noticeable how some random (CSD? iono back then I had no idea!) would come and care about how terrible my food was or whatever and offer compensation immediately. I never got it tbh and being a rookie just didn't follow up (what are these points worth anyway etc...).

While that's sad that i was so 'dumb' it's also how most non-frequent flyers are - you just don't know how much you're entitled to and that it's totally worth chasing until... you know.

I feel dumb now but chase it up - esp if you were in First. It's a joke to not have a great trip, with everything working there.

Outbound from LHR or inbound?

Did they resolve your issue?