There's not really the concept of "regularly monitored" in United's CRM environment. The rest of what I'm about to say is slightly better than an educated guess but I could be a little off:

An email to 1KVoice gets ingested into (one of) UA's CRM tool(s) and should (about 80% of the time for me) automatically respond from [email protected] -- the subject being "United Customer Care -- 168710307xxxxxxx" where the horrifically long number is the case/ticket number. Nothing like a number that's larger than 100 billion to make you feel like your business is valued...

At this point it's basically handled the same as any customer care contact -- via a form on the website, via an email to the peon customercare@ address, via snail mail, via fax, carrier pigeon, etc.

The CRM tool skims the email to try to figure out what it pertains to and routes the email to a queue to be worked. Certain keywords automatically force the email to certain queues [for example: maybe it has been fixed but a few years ago just mentioning Global Services in an email -- even an email sent to the 1KV address -- got it routed to GS agents even if it otherwise had nothing to do with GS]. In theory the 1KV email should bump the priority up in whichever queue it gets routed to (if the tool can confirm you're actually a 1K) -- not 100% convinced that's the case. Probable examples of queues: Future Travel, General Compliments, General Complaints, Baggage, Ticket Refunds, Ancillary Refunds, MileagePlus, Legal, etc..

If the tool can't figure out what queue it belongs to it essentially gets dumped to a reject bin where a human has to do the same thing and either deal with it or put it back in the right queue. If it gets dumped in the wrong queue, same thing.

Obviously both of those cases increase time to response/resolution because I suspect the queue reshuffle puts you at the back of the new queue.

Some queues seem to get worked faster than others but I don't have nearly enough of a sample size to make a detailed assertion. Sometimes an agent will work an item in the queue and kick off another automated process. Sometimes the agent assumes that the process will communicate the result (e.g. refunds) and doesn't actually enter a customer-facing reply to the ticket leaving you hanging -- unless you follow up -- even though it's been dealt with.

Funny note: If you set a Read/Delivery receipt on a request to 1KV you will get a "was deleted without being read" after about 90 days even if the issue was fully addressed. Seems like there's an odd interaction between records retention and the Exchange server DB there.

 

I would add that some percentage of correspondence gets an automated "robo-reply" based on what their system can deduce from your query. And the percentage is only going to go up as all the contact centers play around with AI and Chat bot. Huge growth in this area.

There was a thread with clear bot misses resulting in humorous / frustrating replies, but I can't ever seem to find it when searching.

 

From what I am lead to believe the 100% robo reply is turned off for now (or maybe just for certain elites) -- however I understand that the system does have a collection of form letters that it may suggest that a human may execute in a single click. I also wouldn't surprise me if agents trying to hit certain productivity requirements may just go with the first option presented without considering the content of the missive.

Slightly off topic but partially amusing/illuminating anecdote: If you ask Google Bard who I am about 60% of the time it identifies me as a Captain at United who lead the team responsible for the design of the new Polaris seat (and sits on the UA's Diversity and Equity council, among other laurels) -- and that I'm a graduate of the US Air Force Academy (when I'm not a US Naval Academy graduate) -- in addition correctly identifying my actual job. (The other 40% of the time it comes up with similarly outlandish alter egos)...While that sounds like a work of fascinating person, none of it is remotely true. While my first name happens to be in common with a from about 150 years ago, my full surname is globally unique (1/2 of it there are maybe a dozen of us on the planet...and none of them are UA captains either) so it's not like there's another "LincolnJKC" that its getting confused by,

My wife's employer had a hours long meeting about why ChatGPT cannot be trusted for any business purpose and including extreme fail examples (not to mention the lawyers who were just sanctioned for letting GPT do their homework with spectacularly bad results)

If that's what the engineers at Google and OpenAI can spit out for a predictive text AI... I'm really worried about what would happen if UA went full speed ahead with the current state of the art.

 

lincolnjkc appreciate for the insights and detailed write up.

I had my MP#, trip confirmation # and very short description of the inquiry in the email subject, and followed with details in the body of the email. Is there any best practice to ensure the inquiry stay in the same queue number?

Anyway, I know better now. Calling and chatting regular United line of communication are probably better methods given you are likely to get faster feedback.

Thanks again!

 

I'm not sure that there is a "best practice" -- and probably the only one who could answer that would be someone working for United (hopefully no one is contacting customer service frequently enough to get a valid sample size, particularly since that aspect is a bit of a "black box"!) -- when I've followed up I'll just reply/forward my original message with a "I sent this X days ago and wanted to follow up"-type note at the top -- and I can't think of a time where that has failed to get a response within a few days (It's also been awhile since I've needed to follow up).

I will note that some acronyms/abbreviations seem to have slower response times than the more public facing versions -- e.g. "Original Routing Credit" works better than "ORC" -- but with a limited sample and a number of uncontrolled variables that could just be coincidence.

 

Hey Everyone, I figured I'd add a data point to this thread. I normally wake up quite early naturally and make a lot of my customer service calls at the beginning of my day usually pretty quickly.

This morning, I called the Premier 1K member assistance line at 4:30am Central. After the prompts, the automated voice stated that call volume was higher than usual and quoted a hold time of 2 hours. I was quite surprised and decided to do an immediate callback just to reinitiate in case there was a queuing error (or something else). The quoted wait time is 30 to 40 minutes now.

Has anyone experienced these types of hold times early in the morning recently? Is there generally better time to call? Or is this just a reflection of the challenges this summer for United?

Best,
no1racer

 

Most of the better trained agent will be working nominal USA business hours. You'll probably see better response after 5-6AM CT Except on a meltdown day, most 1Ks waits should be under 5 minutes. That's what I see as a Plat.

 

I called yesterday (Saturday) at 12pm and was through in seconds

 

Thanks MileTrek. The agent I eventually spoke to (42 minute total wait time) stated that they'd had a lot of calls overnight due to bad weather in Chicago and the East Coast. Glad you got through quickly!

Thanks WineCountryUA. Yes, I think I hit it at a bad time. You're right about agent start times. I likely received such a high number based on a reduced number of available agents working so early coupled with the bad weather impacting operations that I'd mentioned above.

I appreciate all of the feedback. Thx!

Best,
no1racer

 

Just tried calling here in AMS at 09:30 (so 03:30 EDT), Hung up after 10 mins on hold, will try again in a few hours.

 

calling US number or UA European phone number?

 

US number from US line. Didn't think to try EU number, good thinking.

Called back at 14:30 CET / 08:30 EDT and immediate pick up.

 

Called 1KVoice on Sunday afternoon. After the initial roboblahblah I was picked up straightaway and Tony moved my SIL to E+ on a flight where we are up front and she is on a reward ticket in E.
Whole call was just a few minutes.

 

Has anyone been able to send an email to 1K Voice and get a response? I sent one three days ago, but did not get the typical automated email confirming receipt.

 

I sent an email five days ago but didn�t get any response - I thought it was because my 1K status is expiring on 31-Jan, so they�ve stopped responding to me