LA2CDG

I've had to reach out to MP customer service twice this past week and noticed that the call are being answered by an offshore call center. This is a change from just a month ago. The call pertains to ORC.
Calls that used to take 2 minutes now are taking 25 minutes. Monday's call had to be escalated to a supervisor who just repeated what I said and nothing happened. I am on the phone again and approaching 19 minutes.

Aaaaaghhhhh! MileagePlus Unfriendly!

Update: The call lasted 21 minutes. I was told that it will take 5 days for the correct flights to post to my account.
In the past, this use to take no more than 24 hours. We'll see what happens.

WineCountryUA

What time of day were you calling. The domestic office is open " 7 a.m. – 12 a.m. (CT), 7 days a week"
Also sometimes if the phone delays are too long, it will roll over to another call center.

mp2

This is one of the reasons I use email to contact customer service for ORC. One has to share a lot of details and it is much easier if done electronically, in my experience.

JDS747

I second this... I always use the online form so I can attach all the backup (emails, screen shots, pictures of boarding passes etc.) with the form. So far it's always worked great for me when doing it that way.

LPDAL

Sometimes, you can ascertain the location of the call center by just asking the agent where they are.

Before I became a Premier Silver I called up United regarding changing a flight as I kept getting an error message. While the reservation was being re - ticketed by the rate desk, the agent and I shared a friendly conversation and at one point I asked where they were, to which the agent responded Jakarta, Indonesia. It was pretty cool to be speaking with someone halfway across the globe from Florida. ^

After I became Premier Silver I had another ticketing issue and called up United once more, getting an agent at an actual ticketing office Detroit!! I remarked that it was a bit strange that they had a publicly usable ticketing office in a city with minimal UA service, to which she laughed.

So I guess it depends on the time that you call up and maybe your status. I've heard that status doesn't actually send you to another agency, however, it just puts you higher up in the hold queue.

-LPDAL

kseaflyr

Had a similar experience this past Tuesday at around 2pm PST. Called the premier line to add my KTN to my reservation for next week.

Last time I did this (about a month ago) it took maybe 2 min. This time I got an offshore call center. It took about 15 minutes, a hold, and all my personal information (which it seems like when I call the premier line any other time they already know).

Still got it done, but definitely not as quick as I've become accustomed to.

LA2CDG

I was calling around 10 to 11 AM Pacific time.

LA2CDG

Thanks LPDAL, The First time I called, I knew it was offshore as soon as the agent picked up. She just kept repeating what I said and telling me irrelevant info. I broke my own rule, I should have made an excuse and kindly hang up.
When I called back today, it went to the same call center. Now I know there is something up. MileagePlus Customer service calls never went offshore previously.

WineCountryUA

Incorrect -- they always have when the domestic center was closed --- it is not a 24 hour operation (but based on your time that likely not the issue). And non-elites when off shore regularly. And during peak demands, even elites occasionally when offshore. You may have not experienced any of the above but it has been that way for a long time. We will need to have addition reports to determined whether or not there is a recent change -- but there is always the first to report.

JackieC2

I called today when my GPU's from a cancelled flight did not redeposit. I got someone in the U.S. I called about 9:00 am CDT.

It only took about 5 minutes to resolve except that the agent was very friendly so we chatted for another 5 minutes.

bnarayan1511

I've called the MP desk 5 times in the past 3 days since I've had to make numerous changes to itineraries with GPUs attached. It was complicated in every case but not one call took longer than 5 minutes to resolve, completely to my satisfaction. All the agents were wonderful, courteous and professional.

LPDAL

You're welcome.

WCUA is correct, however, that the outsourcing call center concept has been around for a long time. I can't think of any corporation with a significant domestic call center (here in the US, I mean). The call center industry is largely based in the developing world -- Indonesia, India, rural China, The Philippines, Pakistan, etc. Here's how it works:

Most companies outsource their customer service duties to off shore call centers, which is dictated by a contract between e.g. United and the call center. The contract often mandates that, in order for the corporation to pay the call center the most money, each customer must be dealt with as quick as possible so as to fit as many customers as possible in each block hour, which is how the call agencies are paid. Most commonly, the sweet spot for this is spending no more than 12 minutes on any one customer. If the agent spends more than 12 minutes on a customer, they are missing out on the opportunity to deal with another customer within that block hour, thus, they are losing money. The more customers they help within the block hour, the more money the call center makes.

This is an over simplification for the sake of brevity, and does not apply to call centers owned by eg United itself being worked by United employees. However, even in that case, agents are given bonuses for dealing with as many customers as possible in a specified timeframe.

One recent trend in the customer service industry is to return call centers back to the US for premium customers -- for example, JP Morgan and Chase maintains all - US call centers for MileagePlus credit card holders.

-LPDAL

luckypierre

This blanket statement about US based corporations is not entirely correct, at least for the airline industry. I believe SWA is still majority US based call centers for their entire customer base. They were looking for 650 additional agents over the summer to staff ABQ, SAT and PHX. That said, pmUA was a pioneer in transferring responsibilities for customer service to third parties.

MSPeconomist

DL seems to have largely USA based call centers. As a top tier elite, I don't think I've ever dealt with an agent from overseas. The same was true for PMNW.

I've also had good experiences with AmEx.