carrotjuice

Calls nowadays, whether you press 1 for cash booking or 2 for redemption booking all go to cash booking agents who can’t do anything but take down your details for a callback. But in my experience they’d say callback is within the same day hence not so bad. Maybe they’ve had a sudden influx pre July 5 that they’ve now extended it to 72 hours - which is ridiculous.

SilverChris

I've had four unfulfilled callback requests in a row. Best to just HUACA until they can connect you immediately to a redemption agent.

amok

Had issues with callbacks not being made. After the second time, I started to insist that they connect me to a redemption booking agent right now, and that I was willing to wait if needed. Realised just accepting whatever promises they gave was not going to work.

invisible

They DON'T connect you to a redemption agent. All I was hearing was that 'no redemption agents are available now'.

amok

Yes, I had to tell the cash booking agent repeatedly and very insistently that I wanted to speak to a redemption agent and that I would wait. Otherwise they just try to foist you off with the standard 'No redemption agents are available now'.

demue

One would hope they can train up redemption agents, not like it is rocket science though sadly many of us know the rules and ins and out better than the (redemption) agents we are talking to - if we manage to get connected to one.

freed0m

It is not worth the effort to train redemption agents. It should all be done by computers if rules are well defined.

However, IT employees are of shortage now in Singapore. So any IT improvement won't come in quite a while.

carrotjuice

Fully agree. If SQ allows to be done online (1) multi city redemption bookings and (2) redemption booking changes beyond dates - this would've stemmed a significant chunk of calls to their call centres.

IT improvements aren't done in Singapore. Surely they'd have thought of outsourcing to a cheaper location. I know the company they engaged in their much-derided last website upgrade, while the account management folks they engaged with were physically in Singapore, all their development team were in India.

freed0m

There were shortage in India, too, til recently.

It should get better in the next 6 months.

davidj1

Instead of piss farting around with digitizing the onboard food menu, and wayanging Krislab, they could repurposed that time and investment on the core website functionality over the last year, if not before covid. They have plastered covid notifications all over the site, so there is no excuse for not performing other website enhancements. Complete lack of foresight.

It should have been better 6 months ago.

demue

Agreed on the website and app functionalities to make redemption bookings and needed changes more easily, but in absence of that we have no choice than use agents so what gives.

There are plenty of ongoing (often known) issues on SAA (website) hat SQ has not addressed for years. Heck, I have simple one-way KF redemptions booked on app a few months ago using my KF miles (naturally my KF details are tied to the booking) that show up on the app, but not the website. Then I tried a simple date change (that should have been free) and "computer said no" and I had to call in. Dropping a waitlisted flight on PNR with a confirmed segment can't be done either, only canceling the entire booking, having Miss vs. Mrs (title) difference for a pax can cause association issues to KF profile and even updating pax details and adding KF manually doesn't fix it (though you get a confirmation email, it doesn't stick), the list goes on.

As long as basic stuff like this goes on (and it ain't getting fixed in a few months), we need redemption agents so train up more for interim at least. Let's not even talk about multi city redemptions or mixed class redemptions which won't get offered online any time soon.
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carrotjuice

Looks like 3 months from the last post, SQ's chat service STILL hasn't changed.

Tried to initiate a today a few seconds before 9 AM SG time, got this message "Our customer service representatives are offline at the moment. They’ll be available again from 9am to 1am (GMT +8). For urgent assistance, get in touch with us here [singaporeair.com/contactus]."

So waited to a few seconds after 9 AM SG time, and got this message "All our customer service representatives are currently engaged and we are unable to attend to you at the moment. For urgent assistance, get in touch with us here [singaporeair.com/contactus]."

Seems they can't even staff up their people properly and meet publicly communicated service times.

terbangalways

Actually. From my experience, the chat agent is way better and has improved since 3 months ago. They are given more authority now to override things. Previously it was such a pain. The CS was just there to pick up calls and solve the long waiting time KPI. And nothing else.

Sam Drucker

Was trying to purchase some seats online the other night for me and my wife. They had some Business Lite fares available for our travel date BKK>JFK. I got through the booking, selected seats, entered passport info, then entered my CC info, and when trying to run the credit card, the system showed "Declined". I thought it was probably the bank, but when I called them they said they didn't even see a purchase was attempted, thus they did not decline anything.

So the website said I should call SQ reservations. I really wanted to use that specific card (not any others I have) because it is a Schwab Bank card that has no foreign transaction fees. So, I called SQ reservations. Didn't have to wait long at all to get a live person. Explained the situation, and in spite of not yet having completed the purchase (which would have given me a record locator), she was able to find what I was attempting to purchase. She said it showed up as a "failed booking". So she said she could rebuild it from scratch herself, but it was going to cost me the $50USD agent booking fee for each ticket. I complained that It wasn't my fault that the system choked, and it wasn't my bank that declined the purchase. So she backed off on that point.

Next problem . . . she tells me there's no more Business Lite fares on that date, and wants to book us with higher-bucket Business fares that cost $1000USD more. Not going to happen. Figuring that my failed purchase may not have returned the Business Lite inventory I was attempting to purchase again, I asked if she could check with inventory control (heard that term decades ago with a US carrier) and explain the situation, and ask them to restore the two Business Lite seats I was attempting to purchase so I could complete purchase. She seemed surprised at the request, but said she would check. I had quite a wait, and in fact the whole call took more than an hour. She came back and said she got them, but for some unexplained reason the fare total was now up about $100USD for the two tickets. I relented and said go for it, and we completed the purchase. After getting the receipt, I saw where the extra $100 came from: two $50USD agent booking fees.

Kind of annoyed at that when I said earlier (and she agreed and backed off) that I shouldn't have to pay that when the website fails and advises you to call an agent. But, I did agree to the total when she came back to me with it, and she did spend considerable time and effort to get my Business Lite fares back, so I'm not making an issue of it.

Left me with mixed feelings over the experience. But will be happy at the surprise for my wife when she gets on the plane and is directed to Business class for such a long flight (she's never flown Business class before.)

carrotjuice

That seems to be the general sentiment of SQ agents these days. They don't proactively offer solutions, and to think in the shoes of the customer.

You as the customer have to keep plying them with suggestions and keep pushing them to the outcome you want.