Terrible Emirates Customer Service Experience
Aug 17, 2007, 9:04 am
#47
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 5
What exactly does Emirates Customer Affairs actually DO???
My brother and I had a bit of a weird experience on 13 June 2007 at JFK International - it's fairly minor compared to the other complaints. Anyway, i'm a real stickler when it comes to customer service so i reported the incident to Emirates Customer Affairs almost immediately when i arrived at my destination. All i wanted was a reasonable explanation for what had happened. The response i received after an "investigation" was conducted was extremely generic and ignored the facts i had presented in my complaint.
I've been battling with Customer Affairs for over 2 months now and their responses remain vague and do not acknowledge the validity of my case. In my search for similar cases or experiences, i found that most airline websites don't have e-mail addresses for customer service comments/complaints and it appears that the treatment of complaints is the same across most airlines: Ignore the facts, give the passenger a generic response.
I first tried getting a straight answer from the Customer Affairs rep who was dealing with my complaint. I eventually mailed my complaint to every email address i could find on the internet for the Emirates - still no joy. Every response i got from the rep was pretty much the same and EVERY time i responded to her i kept correcting her statements with the facts to show her that she was getting the story wrong (seemed like it was on purpose).
The rep chose to play down the incident and stuck to quoting their overbooking and Denied Boarding Options policies which implied that I was a liar and the airline was not at fault with the initial incident.
She kept ignoring my emails and so i resorted to an alternative means to get her attention: I went to the Emirates website, looked up every magazine that had given them an award in 2007 and submitted the ENTIRE thread of communication to them.
Two hours later, i received a response from the rep and upon reviewing the complaint again, she was pleased to let us know that "As a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice or admission of liability" they would offer us a return upgrade to any destination of our choice on the airline's network. I promptly responded and told her that it was still unacceptable as we would still have to buy a return Economy class ticket to "benefit" from this gesture - this is money we shouldn't be spending in the first place. Furthermore, she was STILL refusing to acknowledge ANY fault on the airline's part for what had occurred at JFK. Her generic response to that email simply stated that they had no further comments to add. I kept re-sending this response to her daily until she replied.
On 7 Aug 2007, i also mailed the email thread to their Customer Affairs branch in New York as well as the senior vice president (Mostafa Karam) of Customer Affairs and Service Audits for the Emirates. I've asked them to kindly provide me with some insight as to how customer service investigations are conducted. I am failing to comprehend how customer service managers reach their conclusions – I’ve been informed that investigations have been conducted and reports have been reviewed, yet my story is still being denied completely. I’ve got confirmation from Delta proving my side and have the name of the clerk at JFK who was instructed to offload our luggage, but what does the airline have on their side proving me wrong? Absolutely nothing from what i can see.
I have a read-receipt from the senior vice president's email account, but not one email from him. In the last 2 months, i've been searching the net and am very surprised to find the most appalling experiences being handled extremely poorly (if at all) by airline customer services - what does service mean to them? The responses to passengers are very much of a "copy & paste" nature which leads me to believe that the complaints are barely being read thoroughly. The aim here seems to be to ignore or frustrate complaining customers to the point where they give up trying to get somewhere with customer services.
I kept re-sending my emails to Customer Affairs indicating that there was no way I could reasonably accept their “compensation” and eventually they responded to me on 14 Aug 2007, simply reiterating their position. My final email to them was on 15 Aug 2007 – I sent the mail to Customer Affairs in Dubai, New York, South Africa as well at their Media Relations department AND the Senior VP of Customer Affairs & Service Audits again. I’ve received read-receipts from the Senior VP (again) as well at the New York office, but I doubt I’ll get a response.
Initially this was a crap experience we had endured at JFK and ALL we wanted was to be treated fairly – eventually, in time, we would probably be able to get over it. We thought that reporting it to Customer Affairs would yield some kind of constructive solution – it turns out that this is a joke. The rep's vague, inaccurate, inadequate responses have only made things worse. Even if they weren’t willing to give us what had initially been promised to us, they could have simply said “Sorry, we screwed up, we’ll try not to let something like this happen again” and we would have been happy with that. But no, they wouldn’t even do THAT.
It truly amazes me how Emirates play down customer complaints – all I wanted was an explanation, and they couldn’t eve give it to me. By handling my complaint poorly, they’ve really marred the impression I had of them as I would have thought they would welcome customer feedback to try and be a better airline. Their crap responses to me have made me rather frustrated, but at least I know I tried my best to get their attention and let them know what I think of them – the Senior Vice President is the top of the ladder and I can’t go further than that. I battled with them for TWO MONTHS and still no real progress. I’d be very interested to find out if anyone who has complained to them has ever gotten a reasonable response and/or reasonable compensation (if applicable). I seems to me that the Customer Affairs staff as grossly overpaid as they don't really perform a service of any value.
I've been battling with Customer Affairs for over 2 months now and their responses remain vague and do not acknowledge the validity of my case. In my search for similar cases or experiences, i found that most airline websites don't have e-mail addresses for customer service comments/complaints and it appears that the treatment of complaints is the same across most airlines: Ignore the facts, give the passenger a generic response.
I first tried getting a straight answer from the Customer Affairs rep who was dealing with my complaint. I eventually mailed my complaint to every email address i could find on the internet for the Emirates - still no joy. Every response i got from the rep was pretty much the same and EVERY time i responded to her i kept correcting her statements with the facts to show her that she was getting the story wrong (seemed like it was on purpose).
The rep chose to play down the incident and stuck to quoting their overbooking and Denied Boarding Options policies which implied that I was a liar and the airline was not at fault with the initial incident.
She kept ignoring my emails and so i resorted to an alternative means to get her attention: I went to the Emirates website, looked up every magazine that had given them an award in 2007 and submitted the ENTIRE thread of communication to them.
Two hours later, i received a response from the rep and upon reviewing the complaint again, she was pleased to let us know that "As a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice or admission of liability" they would offer us a return upgrade to any destination of our choice on the airline's network. I promptly responded and told her that it was still unacceptable as we would still have to buy a return Economy class ticket to "benefit" from this gesture - this is money we shouldn't be spending in the first place. Furthermore, she was STILL refusing to acknowledge ANY fault on the airline's part for what had occurred at JFK. Her generic response to that email simply stated that they had no further comments to add. I kept re-sending this response to her daily until she replied.
On 7 Aug 2007, i also mailed the email thread to their Customer Affairs branch in New York as well as the senior vice president (Mostafa Karam) of Customer Affairs and Service Audits for the Emirates. I've asked them to kindly provide me with some insight as to how customer service investigations are conducted. I am failing to comprehend how customer service managers reach their conclusions – I’ve been informed that investigations have been conducted and reports have been reviewed, yet my story is still being denied completely. I’ve got confirmation from Delta proving my side and have the name of the clerk at JFK who was instructed to offload our luggage, but what does the airline have on their side proving me wrong? Absolutely nothing from what i can see.
I have a read-receipt from the senior vice president's email account, but not one email from him. In the last 2 months, i've been searching the net and am very surprised to find the most appalling experiences being handled extremely poorly (if at all) by airline customer services - what does service mean to them? The responses to passengers are very much of a "copy & paste" nature which leads me to believe that the complaints are barely being read thoroughly. The aim here seems to be to ignore or frustrate complaining customers to the point where they give up trying to get somewhere with customer services.
I kept re-sending my emails to Customer Affairs indicating that there was no way I could reasonably accept their “compensation” and eventually they responded to me on 14 Aug 2007, simply reiterating their position. My final email to them was on 15 Aug 2007 – I sent the mail to Customer Affairs in Dubai, New York, South Africa as well at their Media Relations department AND the Senior VP of Customer Affairs & Service Audits again. I’ve received read-receipts from the Senior VP (again) as well at the New York office, but I doubt I’ll get a response.
Initially this was a crap experience we had endured at JFK and ALL we wanted was to be treated fairly – eventually, in time, we would probably be able to get over it. We thought that reporting it to Customer Affairs would yield some kind of constructive solution – it turns out that this is a joke. The rep's vague, inaccurate, inadequate responses have only made things worse. Even if they weren’t willing to give us what had initially been promised to us, they could have simply said “Sorry, we screwed up, we’ll try not to let something like this happen again” and we would have been happy with that. But no, they wouldn’t even do THAT.
It truly amazes me how Emirates play down customer complaints – all I wanted was an explanation, and they couldn’t eve give it to me. By handling my complaint poorly, they’ve really marred the impression I had of them as I would have thought they would welcome customer feedback to try and be a better airline. Their crap responses to me have made me rather frustrated, but at least I know I tried my best to get their attention and let them know what I think of them – the Senior Vice President is the top of the ladder and I can’t go further than that. I battled with them for TWO MONTHS and still no real progress. I’d be very interested to find out if anyone who has complained to them has ever gotten a reasonable response and/or reasonable compensation (if applicable). I seems to me that the Customer Affairs staff as grossly overpaid as they don't really perform a service of any value.
Aug 20, 2007, 5:09 am
#48
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,257
Hi there, while Gulf Air are the underdog in the Gulf they are now full partners with American Airlines (earn and redeem points, lounge use etc) and their in-flight service, food and seating are superb. Ground staff have always been eager to assist me when in bother.Although no airline is perfect. You wont get a fancy amenity kit nor 500 video channels but the basics you will get to an exceptional world class level.
I also have to agree that this part of the world is hardly as polished as the west and near enough is always good enough is mostly the attitude. The work ethic is poor generally-otherwise why would sooo many expats be needed there?
Good luck with your future trips and sorry to hear about the traumatic experience.
CJ
I also have to agree that this part of the world is hardly as polished as the west and near enough is always good enough is mostly the attitude. The work ethic is poor generally-otherwise why would sooo many expats be needed there?
Good luck with your future trips and sorry to hear about the traumatic experience.
CJ
Aug 21, 2007, 12:32 pm
#49
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: SNA/LAX/LGB
Posts: 101
Well, I guess there's one thing that Emirates does well -- consistently treat customers like garbage. I'm sorry to hear of your experience MM79. When I think back to our ordeal, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've thought of ways to torment the Emirates rep. and others higher up in the food chain but it's just not worth my time and effort. What a shame!
Aug 21, 2007, 1:38 pm
#50
Ambassador: Emirates Airlines
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 18,618
I think generally, the whole of the Customer Services industry has been cut back to the bare bones (and not just the airline industry), and weighted towards the bigger/better customers. I doubt an EK Gold would have been fobbed off.
As a BA Gold, I've found the CS to be very helpful. I wonder if I would same the same if I were a Blue?
I think that sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take your business elsewhere.
Cheers,
Rick
Aug 21, 2007, 3:21 pm
#51
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: All over
Programs: Most
Posts: 10,839
You can file a complaint against Emirates if you travel started in US with the DOT. Just email a concise letter with details of no response from the Emirates part to [email protected].
Aug 26, 2007, 12:56 am
#52
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 5
What exactly does Emirates Customer Affairs actually DO???
I've just mailed my entire thread of communication to the DOT (thanks for the addy holtju2!). Not sure if it'll yield any results, but no harm in trying. Thing is, I know that Emirates will argue that they:
a) Responded to my complaint within the standard time-frame;
b) Reviewed all reports and concluded that the steps they took to address my complaint were adequate.
My complaint is recorded in their system under: DXB/X/NC/180607/6574095 so they'll have proof to show the DOT that they were in contact with me - but they will NOT be able to explain how they've consistently "missed the point" in all of my emails to them.
If anyone's interested, here are the relevant email addresses I used in my Emirates Customer Affairs debacle:
Customer Affairs (Dubai head office) - [email protected]
Customer Affairs (JFK) - [email protected]
Customer Affairs (Johannesburg) - [email protected]
Mostafa Karam (Vice President of Customer Affairs & Service Audits) - [email protected] or [email protected]
Emirates Media Relations - [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
The Customer Affairs rep who initially dealt with my complaint was Naomi D'Cruz (although Rowena D. Leitao was the first to acknowledge receipt of my complaint and assured that someone would be looking into it). After Naomi gave up with my constant emails to her, Sue Clemson responded to me merely reiterating their position and added: "In closing, our response remains unchanged and we have nothing further to add to that outlined previously. We consider this matter closed and will not be in a position to correspond further."
One thing's for sure: They can take their "generous" offer of a free return upgrade and shove it. There's NO way we're ever spending money on this airline again unless we absolutely HAVE to.
a) Responded to my complaint within the standard time-frame;
b) Reviewed all reports and concluded that the steps they took to address my complaint were adequate.
My complaint is recorded in their system under: DXB/X/NC/180607/6574095 so they'll have proof to show the DOT that they were in contact with me - but they will NOT be able to explain how they've consistently "missed the point" in all of my emails to them.
If anyone's interested, here are the relevant email addresses I used in my Emirates Customer Affairs debacle:
Customer Affairs (Dubai head office) - [email protected]
Customer Affairs (JFK) - [email protected]
Customer Affairs (Johannesburg) - [email protected]
Mostafa Karam (Vice President of Customer Affairs & Service Audits) - [email protected] or [email protected]
Emirates Media Relations - [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
The Customer Affairs rep who initially dealt with my complaint was Naomi D'Cruz (although Rowena D. Leitao was the first to acknowledge receipt of my complaint and assured that someone would be looking into it). After Naomi gave up with my constant emails to her, Sue Clemson responded to me merely reiterating their position and added: "In closing, our response remains unchanged and we have nothing further to add to that outlined previously. We consider this matter closed and will not be in a position to correspond further."
One thing's for sure: They can take their "generous" offer of a free return upgrade and shove it. There's NO way we're ever spending money on this airline again unless we absolutely HAVE to.
Sep 15, 2007, 11:45 am
#53
Join Date: Sep 2007
Programs: AA, DL, EK
Posts: 1
No as bad as you suggest
Regarding your experiences with Emirates, I personally think you are being very vindictive because you did not get the free tickets from New York. As a person who flies from South Africa to the New York 5-6 times a year and mostly on Emirates I think you are being a little silly. I have had the same experience twice in the past year, first time I got the tickets but the second time, like you they said they had seat at the last minute, so I had to travel. So it was just a case of bad luck. Maybe next time you will get the tickets.
Putting all those e-mail addresses on the web is very callous, not sure what business you work in MM79 but how would you like it if we put your e-mail in the forum for anyone who has a complaint about your company? I’m not sure if you are a frequent traveler but we all know that sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes not. In both cases when it happened to me the guy said if we have seat then you won’t get the free tickets so we thought what the heck it’s the luck of the draw. As for Emirates I think it one of the better airlines out there. I tried other airlines and have not found anyone better. Emirates are safe, reliable and have new aircraft. As for the DOT you won't have any luck with them, did you sign a contract - no, so you dont have a leg to stand on
Many passengers book and don't bother to travel so airlines have to overbook flights to stay in business, so you can’t blame the airlines? I hope you have better luck next time. As for me I would recommend Emirates and don’t take too much notice of MM79 comments as they are just peedoff that they did not get the tickets.
From a regular flyer who still enjoys air travel.
Putting all those e-mail addresses on the web is very callous, not sure what business you work in MM79 but how would you like it if we put your e-mail in the forum for anyone who has a complaint about your company? I’m not sure if you are a frequent traveler but we all know that sometimes it works in your favor and sometimes not. In both cases when it happened to me the guy said if we have seat then you won’t get the free tickets so we thought what the heck it’s the luck of the draw. As for Emirates I think it one of the better airlines out there. I tried other airlines and have not found anyone better. Emirates are safe, reliable and have new aircraft. As for the DOT you won't have any luck with them, did you sign a contract - no, so you dont have a leg to stand on
Many passengers book and don't bother to travel so airlines have to overbook flights to stay in business, so you can’t blame the airlines? I hope you have better luck next time. As for me I would recommend Emirates and don’t take too much notice of MM79 comments as they are just peedoff that they did not get the tickets.
From a regular flyer who still enjoys air travel.
Sep 15, 2007, 5:10 pm
#54
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Programs: Skywards Gold, Star Alliance Gold
Posts: 122
Re:
My sentiments exactly CPT Flyer.
cw
cw
Sep 16, 2007, 2:55 pm
#55
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: London, UK
Programs: Centurion, VS Gold, BA Gold
Posts: 567
Sep 16, 2007, 3:53 pm
#56
Join Date: Dec 2004
Programs: UA-1K, MM, Hilton-Diamond, Marriott-Titanium
Posts: 4,432
I think I will go on VS to Dubai or maybe LH. I have had nothing but excellent service on them. If I'm paying the price for J I want the whole package, planes, lounges, customer service, etc. Sounds like EK is dropping the ball on the latter.
Sep 17, 2007, 12:57 am
#57
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 5
In response to CPT flyer:
I am not making a big deal out of it because i am vindictive cos we didn't get the free tickets - i'm making a big deal out of it because they refused to take responsibility for what had happened at the airport. I don't care if there was nothing they could do about it and i understand their rules perfectly. It was the WAY my complaint was handled that really got me going and i never ONCE got a "Sorry we screwed up, we'll try not to let something like this happen again".
As for posting their email addresses - if you had taken the time to research the customer complaints process you would have noticed that it is a bit difficult to get customer care contact details for airlines. it's only fair that people have access to it. If someone posted my email address so that people could complain about my company, i would simply forward the messages to our CEO who WELCOMES customer feedback in order to improve service as customer service is a number one priority here (and he frequently answers customer complaints PERSONALLY).
I myself am an auditor and find it unacceptable that they say that an "investigation" was performed as i perform investigations all the time and they have never provided any proof of an ADEQUATE investigation on their side (aside from system reports which does NOT constitute an investigation).
As you may have noticed by now, my post is not about Emirates service in general as i have flown with them frequently and have never had any complaints. The post is PURELY about their CUSTOMER SERVICE when it comes to reporting complaints and you can check the posts on the following websites which confirm that their customer service department leaves a lot to be desired: http://emiratecomplaints.blogspot.com; www.hellopeter.com; http://flyertalk.com/forum/archive/i...t-666374.html; http://www.reviewcentre.com/review229481.html; http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic......-Dubai.html
They can keep telling themselves that Customer Affairs has handled my complaint to the best of their ability and within SLA time-frame requirements. However, it has now been my experience that this has been a completely fruitless exercise as:
- I still DON’T have an explanation for why Emirates failed to ensure that our luggage was off-loaded despite being instructed to do so twice; and
- There has NEVER been any reference to any solid evidence CONTRARY to what we had experienced and they KEEP quoting policies which didn't apply to the questions i had posed instead of acknowledging the validity of our story. They return upgrade offer made to us was "As a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice or admission of liability".
Would you call the above a good example of SUCCESSFULLY addressing a customer enquiry??
I am not making a big deal out of it because i am vindictive cos we didn't get the free tickets - i'm making a big deal out of it because they refused to take responsibility for what had happened at the airport. I don't care if there was nothing they could do about it and i understand their rules perfectly. It was the WAY my complaint was handled that really got me going and i never ONCE got a "Sorry we screwed up, we'll try not to let something like this happen again".
As for posting their email addresses - if you had taken the time to research the customer complaints process you would have noticed that it is a bit difficult to get customer care contact details for airlines. it's only fair that people have access to it. If someone posted my email address so that people could complain about my company, i would simply forward the messages to our CEO who WELCOMES customer feedback in order to improve service as customer service is a number one priority here (and he frequently answers customer complaints PERSONALLY).
I myself am an auditor and find it unacceptable that they say that an "investigation" was performed as i perform investigations all the time and they have never provided any proof of an ADEQUATE investigation on their side (aside from system reports which does NOT constitute an investigation).
As you may have noticed by now, my post is not about Emirates service in general as i have flown with them frequently and have never had any complaints. The post is PURELY about their CUSTOMER SERVICE when it comes to reporting complaints and you can check the posts on the following websites which confirm that their customer service department leaves a lot to be desired: http://emiratecomplaints.blogspot.com; www.hellopeter.com; http://flyertalk.com/forum/archive/i...t-666374.html; http://www.reviewcentre.com/review229481.html; http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic......-Dubai.html
They can keep telling themselves that Customer Affairs has handled my complaint to the best of their ability and within SLA time-frame requirements. However, it has now been my experience that this has been a completely fruitless exercise as:
- I still DON’T have an explanation for why Emirates failed to ensure that our luggage was off-loaded despite being instructed to do so twice; and
- There has NEVER been any reference to any solid evidence CONTRARY to what we had experienced and they KEEP quoting policies which didn't apply to the questions i had posed instead of acknowledging the validity of our story. They return upgrade offer made to us was "As a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice or admission of liability".
Would you call the above a good example of SUCCESSFULLY addressing a customer enquiry??
Sep 17, 2007, 12:00 pm
#58
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Pennsylvania
Programs: AA Platinum Pro, AC *S, Marriott Gold Elite, Hyatt Explorist
Posts: 9,689
FWIW this is a cut and paste response that they like to include sometimes even when they have previously admitted that it was their screw up. I once email Emirates and their follow up #1 was "we are sorry that the Emirates car didn't show up but it's also Tristar's fault because they are the outsourced company etc etc" I responded saying that I wanted the cost of the cab (that we had to take) refunded and the return email came with the the whole "as a gesture of goodwill" hoopla before offering the cab fare back.
Cheers,
Sep 17, 2007, 12:53 pm
#59
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 5
At least you got an acknowledgement from them that they were partly responsible for whatever reason. In my scenario, they were very selective about the "facts" and basically ignored the points i had raised (and in some instances seemed to imply that i had misunderstood or was ignorant of their policies and procedures).
i honestly didn't think that sending a complaint to them would end up running for that long. Thing is, the incident was one thing that would have been forgotten in time (i have a pretty high bull-s*** tolerance level) - but the way they responded to me when dealing with the complaint only made the matter wayyyy worse than it needed to be. That's what REALLY yanked my chain - them responding to me and not addressing any of the points i repeatedly kept correcting them on.
i honestly didn't think that sending a complaint to them would end up running for that long. Thing is, the incident was one thing that would have been forgotten in time (i have a pretty high bull-s*** tolerance level) - but the way they responded to me when dealing with the complaint only made the matter wayyyy worse than it needed to be. That's what REALLY yanked my chain - them responding to me and not addressing any of the points i repeatedly kept correcting them on.
Sep 19, 2007, 1:35 pm
#60
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: SNA/LAX/LGB
Posts: 101
On the surface, Emirates is the best airline I've ever flown -- clean and ultra-modern airplanes and on-ground facilities add greatly to the appeal. However, don't count on an ounce of sympathy or customer service when things go wrong.