Leumas

Just want to share a recent experience with the QFF call centre...

(Not word by word reflection...)

QFF: Qantas Airways
Me: I'm having trouble with redeeming some points. The web site won't take my billing address. It keeps saying the address must be 2 and 40 characters long.'
QFF: The address can only contain numbers and letters.
Me: How should I enter an apartment address? Something like 2<slash>45 Main Street?
QFF: Unit 2 45 Main Street
Me: So 'unit 2', space, '45 Main street'
QFF: Yes, the address can only take numbers and letters
Me: Oh OK, the error message is a bit misleading that's all
QFF: So why did you ring me then?
Me: OK, thanks for all your help.
<I hung up>

To say her tone from the get-go was 'cold' would be generous. I probably would have worked around the error if I was less tired that night, but it just led me down the wrong path.

Anyway, I don't know if I'm over-reacting, but I was rather annoyed with this manner. I've never dealt with someone from a Call Centre like that before.

Yes, I've sent this feedback to QF, and asked them to review the recording. (I don't know if they record every phone call...)

I haven't heard back from them yet. Interestingly, previous occasions where I used that web site form to provide feedback, positive or negative, I'd hear back the next working day (often the next working day morning).

P.S. I haven't asked for any compensation - just some training for staff so this doesn't happen again.

serfty

They do (unless you ask them not to), but not all calls are replayed.

Some get flagged for review as would be prompted by your feedback, others targeted by an algorithmic tonal analysis, others at random, etc ...

DownUnderFlyer

Really? Wow, that is quite advanced.

everywhere

This sounds like fun

Kiwi Flyer

You haven't booked on the QF website for a while! That change came in over a year ago IIRC (my address also has a special character in it).

og

If this gives you the sh!ts, then try entering the advance passenger information for travel to the USA. It seems to specialise in not accepting anything that I'm inputting. But maybe it doesn't believe me!

tinkybelle

I just went to book some flights got to put in the amex number then the prompter went to ask about carbon neutral and then jsut went round and round for about 10 mins i refreshed and it kept going back to the payment page which was strange but the carbon neutral kept going round and round so I called the res line

this rude b---h told me that I had timed out

yes I had I think but it was because the website wasnt working properly

then by the time I logged out and back again the seats were gone
those females need a kick up the you know what!
what she should have done was book the flights for me and not charge the booking fee
but they put everything down to user error they dont realise that a lot of us know more than them.

Leumas

Yeah, I have actually. I booked another redemption just 2 nights prior. I just have different cards with different billing addresses...

Great...! I will be doing that in the next few weeks... All this crap is making travel less and less fun...

serfty

I had this problem - even had back and forth dialog with web support.

In the end I shortened the "Destination Address Street No. and Name"
from:

'Doubletree Hotel LAX 1985 East Grand Ave'

to

'Doubletree hotel lax'

and it went through OK.

nonce

For the advanced PAX information just skip this and do it directly https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov

Anyway I think poor res needs to have some slack cut for them as they are not responsible for the website and I don't think it is really fare to blame them for something which they probably know little about.

The reason for the lack of special characters is because some characters such as ? / ' " & ! have special meaning and can result in the compromise of the computer system if not handled correctly by the website. As a result these characters have been blocked. There are methods for enabling these characters safely however they also come with quite a high price tag and for the life of me I cannot see a business case which says that the lack of special character support is costing QF money. Personally I think the 1/2 million to a million dollars QF would need to spend to enable special characters is better spent bringing back hot breakfasts on cityflyer in economy.

og

This may be the case, but it (IIRC) is not explained before you start inputting information. You only discover that there are problems after it is rejected. Therefore, QF need to credit the punters with a little more intelligence and set out the rules before they do what the web site asks. This will cause a reduction in crankyness and beer consumption since we will spend less time thumping the keyboard (and desk) when things don't work.

Leumas

I don't mind them blocking special characters as long as they provide an appropriate error message.

VH-RMD

it's that 5 * QF service that we all love...

serfty

Yeah - I forgot to mention the Voice recognition software that scans all recordings for specific key words ... flagging those recordings containing such for review.

justin_krusty

UK call centres (even if they are mostly outsourced to India) have been highly advanced ahead of Australia for years... From over 5 years ago most corporates were employing voice recognition technology to automate calls - I was always amused orally entering my bill numbers and CC number when I could have just used the phone keypad.

Tagging calls based on conversation keywords is pretty cool. Unfortunately the biggest problem in call centres is the staff turnover, so despite training and retraining, you will still have a bunch of sub-optimal operators.

EDIT: sorry this has nothing to do with QF really...