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Agent to me: "You are making fun of me because of my accent" ????

Agent to me: "You are making fun of me because of my accent" ????

Old Jan 19, 2019, 1:46 am
  #31  
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 3,359
If I'm in the unfortunate situation of having to deal with an agent for a booking, I'll generally have the flight numbers at hand and reference them during the entire conversation. If they ever bring up where I'm going to/from I'll just say, "I've got no idea those are the flights I need!" That being said, your experience is unacceptable. While you may have been a bit snide, that was due to being frustrated with having to repeat yourself several times. HUCA seems to be the best way to get good customer service at UA, it's sad but true! I've had some agents who I didn't have to say a word, they knew exactly what's going on and did it for me. I've also had others who didn't understand the *A rules for rebooking and I had to cite the page # and paragraph from them to double check.

Safe Travels,

James
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 1:52 am
  #32  
 
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Im mostly with you, OP. First of all, the appropriate response from the agent after your second time correcting him should have been sorry for misunderstanding you, not questioning your motives for doing so. Not only is it none of his business, it honestly sounds as if he was being defensive, feeling indignant about having to be corrected so many times. Of course none of that should matter to you as a customer on the phone, whos just trying to get his flights booked.

And as a non-native English speaker, I find it ridiculous and shameful that he decided to pull the accent card on you, of all things. I mean, is he not working as a customer service agent at an English call center? He doesnt get to play that card when hes the one that has struggled to understand what youre saying, and thus failed to do his job properly.

Thats a ludicrously bad agent, and I pray that I never come across him. Obviously being courteous and nice to the agent is a good practice, but that doesnt absolve the agents blame for his incompetence, and its understandable that you lost your temper.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 2:41 am
  #33  
 
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One other thought: UA may train their agents to push callers to book on UA metal.

"You want to go to Amsterdam via Lisbon? Well we can get you there through Newark entirely on UA planes..."
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 3:01 am
  #34  
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
If you hang up, the call center agent wins as they can quickly go to the next call (good for their stats) while you must start over.
True, but Id rather deal with an agent who is interested in what I want and not what he/she wants.

I agree with J2simpso upthread, who always has the desired flight numbers at hand when making a call. I generally do the same thing.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 3:25 am
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by raehl311
One other thought: UA may train their agents to push callers to book on UA metal.

"You want to go to Amsterdam via Lisbon? Well we can get you there through Newark entirely on UA planes..."
This has generally been my experience when trying to book something with a partner airline. I remember one time back in the days of BusinessFirst on CO, being asked a number of times why I wanted to fly X airline business class when CO offers BusinessFirst which is a higher class of service.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 3:42 am
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by raehl311
One other thought: UA may train their agents to push callers to book on UA metal.

"You want to go to Amsterdam via Lisbon? Well we can get you there through Newark entirely on UA planes..."
logic dictates that if you call united to book a ticket then theres a high probability that you want to fly on United. Someone over the phone cant read your mind and assume that you are calling United to book a flight on TAP. The agent went through the most logical thought process for the situation and presented a better option that the majority would consider reasonable. There is no excuse for the OP to treat the agent rudely, especially when hes literally the only person in the world who will ever make that request, and they cant understand why.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 7:33 am
  #37  
 
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I feel for the OP and for the CS rep. I call in as I cannot do what I want/need to do on-line so I am starting from a place of frustration, so no matter how angry/confused/upset I am, I do realize it has not been caused by the person who picked up on the other end of the line. I am hoping they will help me. So after greeting them and asking about their day I explain my issue(s) and reassure them I know they did not cause it and would appreciate their help in resolving it. Most of the time it goes well. Sometimes people on FT help me when I get a bad/wrong answer.

I truly believe you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and hope I can make soneone's job a little less stressful. CS agents are generally dealing with people with problems which they did not cause. In fairness neither did the pax. :-D
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 7:42 am
  #38  
 
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Not read everyones replies, but Id say that you should have started the call by saying that you wanted to be on the inaugural flight for that route so you were going to be asking for unusual routing. It seems like the agent was trying to find you a better route based on normal requirements for an airline ticket, e.g. saving time and/or money, so perhaps more patience and a better explanation from you would have been appropriate. It sounds like agent quickly jumped to the accusation of you making fun of them because of their accent, but without hearing the call recording its impossible to judge.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 9:04 am
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by zrs70
Me (now kind of frustrated): Are you listing to me???
This is rude, condescending, and unnecessary. You should have left it out.

What you said after makes sense, but you could have made it more polite - eg. "I'm sorry, it must be a bad connection - I'm after a very specific routing and I'd like to go XXX-YYY-ZZZ. Can you try that please?"

I don't think the agent's behavior was particularly stellar but these folks are human and when you said the quoted sentence, you'll tend to lose something at that point. Just hang up politely if you don't get an agent who can meet your needs - we do that here all the time and there's no unnecessary anger on either side.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 9:48 am
  #40  
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Sorry - not fun. Once agent makes clear that they’re not listening to you, there’s no choice but to HUCA or HUACA.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 10:46 am
  #41  
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I totally understand the anger or frustration. Who trains these people? And what agent has NOT ever heard I want to go here, through this airport?

FAHA fire and hire again
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 11:12 am
  #42  
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Originally Posted by seanp7
This is rude, condescending, and unnecessary. You should have left it out.

What you said after makes sense, but you could have made it more polite - eg. "I'm sorry, it must be a bad connection - I'm after a very specific routing and I'd like to go XXX-YYY-ZZZ. Can you try that please?"

I don't think the agent's behavior was particularly stellar but these folks are human and when you said the quoted sentence, you'll tend to lose something at that point. Just hang up politely if you don't get an agent who can meet your needs - we do that here all the time and there's no unnecessary anger on either side.
I agree. It was wrong of me. And I wish I could turn back the clock.
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 11:28 am
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by seanp7
This is rude, condescending, and unnecessary. You should have left it out.

What you said after makes sense, but you could have made it more polite - eg. "I'm sorry, it must be a bad connection - I'm after a very specific routing and I'd like to go XXX-YYY-ZZZ. Can you try that please?"

I don't think the agent's behavior was particularly stellar but these folks are human and when you said the quoted sentence, you'll tend to lose something at that point. Just hang up politely if you don't get an agent who can meet your needs - we do that here all the time and there's no unnecessary anger on either side.
Well it is rude to not listen when someone is speaking, particularly in customer forward positions. This is known as 'blowing someone off'. OP had a specific request, clarified it, and the agent still blew the OP off, feigned offense for something that was not implied (at least from that what was written), and still did not accomplish what the OP/customer requested then finally acknowledged what the OP was asking. So the agent was rude by not listening. It happens a LOT
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 11:35 am
  #44  
 
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Originally Posted by seanp7
This is rude, condescending, and unnecessary. You should have left it out.

What you said after makes sense, but you could have made it more polite - eg. "I'm sorry, it must be a bad connection - I'm after a very specific routing and I'd like to go XXX-YYY-ZZZ. Can you try that please?"
Not to be nit-picking here too much, but to me (slightly depending on tone though) "Are you listening to me?" is much more honest and to-the-point in this case than: "I'm sorry, it must be a bad connection. <snip> Can you try that please?"
The latter sounds rather condescendingly facetious.

I have a feeling if OP left out two of the three question marks after "Are you listening to me" in the original post, there wouldn't be so much criticism in this thread.
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Last edited by narvik; Jan 19, 2019 at 11:40 am
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Old Jan 19, 2019, 11:39 am
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by narvik
The latter sounds rather condescendingly facetious.
I disagree, as what I suggested is an attempt to de-escalate the situation rather than confront. Kind of like getting upset at a check-in or gate agent and playing the DYKWIA card. It's just confrontational and more likely to be met with resistance. Being nice gets you further

I see your angle, though. As I said, I think we are all in agreement on HUACA.
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