Wait time on the phone with reservations
 

DL phone recording on reservations says one hour wait time...need to make some quick changes on a reservation....a 1 MM now on the new DL but the phone recording says wait times of an hour.....had to fly home from NYC to ORD Tues before the storm and as a 2MM on AA they got me there and upgraded me to first....DL is like Aeroflot....AA was dealing with a blizzard everywhere but boy did they deliver....on the phone now for 24 minutes and holding...what's up....is this the new DL???????

DL is notorious for wait times. I never waited more than 1 min as a PE with NW. I average ~20/call with DL...

Second time I've waited over 30 minutes today and hung up. Kind of irritated :/

Medallion wait times were ridiculous overnight. I have never, ever, had a wait time longer than 15 minutes.

First call to rebook: 20 min wait (not so bad)

Second call to rebook after that flight was canceled: 37 minutes

Hold time while reservations trainee went for help and never returned: 30 minutes and then I hung up.

Hold time when calling back in again: 42 minutes and then the A17 SC opened up so I hung up.

Questions I have:

I haven't had to wait more than a minute or two in the last couple of years.

I called Wednesday night (had a thursday flight to JFK) and got through in about 30 seconds.

Are you guys putting in your skymiles number correctly when prompted?

I used to have long wait times many years ago before I was a PM, but as I said, I haven't had any problem getting through recently. Getting what I need done can be more difficult of course.

Like PMMMDL, I have had little trouble over the years with telephone wait time. However, yesterday morning, after checking my flight on dl.com, I left for the airport. As soon as I sat down in the limo, I dialed the PM line. During the 20 minute ride to the LGA Marine Terminal, they never came to the phone and, lo and behold, while I was riding over on hold, my flight was cxld.

so much of this would be a non issue if you could simply do this on line yourself.

What irks me, sometimes DL autocomputer asks for my skymiles#. WHen it does, wait is SHORT. When it doesn't, wait time is LONG.

Dave

Funny story: after I left my last message I forgot to log off of skype and went out to dinner.

Got back from dinner and I was still on hold. It's been 2:53.

It's not just Delta this week:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...sk-2-11-a.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...ain-later.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-number-4.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/south...ontact-wn.html

I was surprised how quickly DL answered my call to inform them I switched my return to AA yesterday. Wait time was <2 minutes.

After waiting 25 minutes to talk to my travel agency (Amex Travel) before giving up, then reaching a busy three times with the AA PLT line before a 20 minute wait, I was shocked how quickly DL elite line was answered. Must have just got lucky. This was ~ 8AM yesterday.

And I guess that I must add that all of my other calls about this weekend were answered fairly promptly. I was able to squeeze in a quick business trip to DCA on what had become dead days for me because of a cxld flight to FLL.

I am totally shocked that Delta had unusual wait times on the phones in a week where the NE and their main hub got nailed on a busy travel weekend...:rolleyes:

I just called Delta this morning and waited exactly 0 seconds.

But you guys do have to remember with all the cancelations they are swamped with calls.

I rarely defend Delta, but +1.

I agree that during a weather situation like the current one, with JFK and ATL flight affected, DL should have longer wait times than usual.

Unfortunately, for me, "usual" with DL has been 35+ minutes. These calls were not made during storm events (I was amazed at the wait times and checked to see what was up, but nothing stood out).

In my opinion, here's what DL needs to do to fix the issues with Res. hold times:

1) Make the website such that you don't have to call DL for everything. Right now, there are many things that can not efficiently be done online that require you to call into DL (including booking international award tickets apparently). Just because the feature is available on your website, does not mean that it works well!
2) Adequately staff the elite call centers. After getting through to an agent following 40+ minutes of hold time, she actually confessed to me (this was a former NW agent in the SEA call center) that the call centers were woefully under-staffed due to "retraining". That's poor management, in my opinion. Even during extreme weather situations, you should be able to at least answer the elite line, even if that's followed by an extended wait time. Apparently that wasn't the case during this storm. Several people reported getting the "system overload" fast busy signal when calling the platinum line...Just shouldn't happen!
3) Empower your agents to take care of the issues themselves, instead of requiring customers to be transferred back and forth between several departments. The current system may look good on paper because no individual agent spends more than 5-10 minutes with one customer, but in reality, that customer spends 20 minutes talking to four different agents, and 20 minutes on hold...again, not acceptable!