US Int'l Gold Line Not Taking Calls Today 2/1

 
Old Feb 1, 2007, 10:12 am
  #1  
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Thumbs down US Int'l Gold Line Not Taking Calls Today 2/1

Have been calling for the past four hours and receive a message "Due to heavy call volume, US Airways cannot accept your call now. Please try later."

Looks like they have too much international revenue on their hands or they don't have enough international CSRs at Gold or below.

Sad, sad, sad.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 11:27 am
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Update

Looks like call queue overflow due to SE USA bad weather is affecting the Int'l lines. Wow, I can't imagine having overflow into their international res queues, if it were me I would be protecting those CSRs from weather calls. I suppose that people are getting frustrated and punching international since they can't get through on domestic queues.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 1:49 pm
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Originally Posted by KevAZ
Have been calling for the past four hours and receive a message "Due to heavy call volume, US Airways cannot accept your call now. Please try later."

Looks like they have too much international revenue on their hands or they don't have enough international CSRs at Gold or below.

Sad, sad, sad.
Kev
Please check the weather channel. Your reaction is very typical of those living in the wonderful desert SW. Please be aware that right now the concern is dealing with thousands of customers dealing with a winter storm heading up the east coast.

Your response is out of line AND sad, sad, sad!!
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 2:12 pm
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Originally Posted by flight62
Kev
Please check the weather channel. Your reaction is very typical of those living in the wonderful desert SW. Please be aware that right now the concern is dealing with thousands of customers dealing with a winter storm heading up the east coast.

Your response is out of line AND sad, sad, sad!!

What winter "storm"? It's cloudy in PHL. Raining in CLT. Yes, there is a forecast for maybe a couple of inches of snow and flights are presently delayed coming into PHL 57 minutes. That's a headache, but it's nothing major, and it does not adequately explain the US Gold International number being shut down.

Also, I'd recommend that you keep your personal attacks to a minimum.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 3:26 pm
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8 hour update

After eight hours, US still does not want to sell international tickets. (Too late..... my wife booked with UA).

At 15:20 MST after beginning her calls to the Gold Int'l line at 06:55, she gave up and got straight through to UA and booked her flight to LHR. Why couldn't she do it on the US web site? Do I really have to go through all of that?!?!? If she could've, she would've.

Weather in the SE should not shut down any major US carrier's Gold Int'l reservations for over 8 hours. They aren't accepting ANY calls. That's just very poor management. I managed a large int'l express carrier's contact center business in the USA and even when our main hub was shut down due to weather, we managed much better than this. A 5 min wait was the worst it got. And we had 4M ships/day. Oh, and I've booked through other carriers with total shut down of the East coast and the entire Midwest at the same time. It's called Call Center Management 101.

And flight 62, you are out of line. I'd love to change the finger on this to a different one than my thumb...^
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 3:28 pm
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Originally Posted by KevAZ
After eight hours, US still does not want to sell international tickets. (Too late..... my wife booked with UA).

At 15:20 MST after beginning her calls to the Gold Int'l line at 06:55, she gave up and got straight through to UA and booked her flight to LHR.

Weather in the SE should not shut down any major US carrier's Gold Int'l reservations for over 8 hours. They aren't accepting ANY calls. That's just very poor management. I managed a large int'l express carrier's contact center business in the USA and even when our main hub was shut down, we managed much better than this. A 5 min wait was the worst it got. And we had 4M ships/day.

And flight 62, you are out of line. I'd love to change the finger on this to a different one than my thumb...^
Just curious, why couldn't you book it online?
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 3:40 pm
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Actually the south has been pretty bad overall lots of delays and misconnects. CLT is taking some delays but the little airports are not doing so good. ATL is also a mess with over 200 DL flights cancelled at last count.

US as the other southern hubbed carrier is dealing with problems but not to their scale. All agents are trained to take calls outside their normal queue if the situation warrants it.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 3:43 pm
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Originally Posted by tommyleo
What winter "storm"? It's cloudy in PHL. Raining in CLT. Yes, there is a forecast for maybe a couple of inches of snow and flights are presently delayed coming into PHL 57 minutes.
Its not the snow but the ice underlying the snow that get us.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 3:51 pm
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a
Get Skype and try one of the international reservation numbers.

Europe Telephone
Austria 43-1-581892270
Belgium/Luxembourg 32-2-712-6437
Greece 30-210-900-6080 / 83
Poland 48-22-455-38-21
Switzerland 41-44-286-99-22
Scandinavia Telephone
Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway 45-33252527
Middle East Telephone
Gulf Region - Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, UAE 9714-3341026
Israel 972-3-547-9333
South Pacific Telephone
Australia 02-8644-1886
New Zealand 09-359-8397
Latin America Telephone
Argentina/Uruguay 54-11-43-141600
Brazil 55-21-2517-4800
Africa Telephone
South Africa 27-11-289-8111
Asia Telephone
China - Shanghai 8621-6289-8867
Hong Kong 852-2375-4775
Chennai, India 91-44-28588954
Mumbai, India 91-22-851616
New Delhi, India 91-11-23730864/65/66
Japan 03-3597-9471
Korea 82-2-753-9114
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Singapore 65-3767-6966
Taiwan 886-2-2776-6769
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 4:20 pm
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Originally Posted by sdlevi27
Just curious, why couldn't you book it online?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I tried to book a ticket on the great website last night but had to call when I got the famous error.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 4:39 pm
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Originally Posted by Alysia
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I tried to book a ticket on the great website last night but had to call when I got the famous error.
Sorry, sarcasim doesn't carry well over HTML. But I never said usairways.com, it could have been Expedia, Orbitz, whatever.

Lately my only problem with usairways.com is when you click on the "View" link on the list of booked reservations, it never works. But if you copy and paste the record locator into the home page, it works fine. I'm sure Ma Kettle can figure that one out...
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 4:55 pm
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Some people prefer the phone. Or perhaps the website is just "a tad" unreliable. One should be able to book however they want to without difficulty. I think it is unacceptable that the international phone line was unavailable for hours. Domestic weather-related issues should be handled by the domestic flight phone agents.

Last edited by me4yankees; Feb 1, 2007 at 4:57 pm Reason: Add more comments!
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 5:08 pm
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Originally Posted by sdlevi27
Sorry, sarcasim doesn't carry well over HTML.

I'm sure Ma Kettle can figure that one out...
Uh yeah, I agree about the sarcasm. "Ma Kettle" deals with pharma benefits computer systems all day long and "Pa Kettle" works with airline res systems and many other web enabled eCommerce customers every day (among other things). I can't get into details why.... neither one of us likes to call, we do everything on the web. But she can't due to "client restrictions." That's all I can tell you. Expedia, etc won't help.

So yes, darn it, she needed to buy a ticket over the phone to LHR but couldn't. And am I bit touchy about people that have never run a call center acting like this isn't a big deal? Yes! I've run them and the fact they can't sell an int'l ticket to a FF customer tells me everything I need to know about their call center mgmt. Short of a coast to coast shut down of all the major cities US serves, there's no reason not to accept calls, pay the $0.02/minute to leave the customer in a queue and eventually get to them. To tell them to go away and don't bother us sends a solid signal. Especially when it's been all day long

I doubt that Doug Parker and Scott Kirby are aware of this, so I'll give them some details as well as suggestions on how they can prevent the same in the future.
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 5:09 pm
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Originally Posted by KevAZ
After eight hours, US still does not want to sell international tickets. (Too late..... my wife booked with UA).
Welcome to UA ^
Have a good flight.
Hint-Sometimes UA will offer an upgrade to C (business class) for $550. make sure to ask at checkin.

Ben
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Old Feb 1, 2007, 5:14 pm
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#10 thanks very much for that! ^ ^ ^

I am slapping my forehead!

We've lived all over the world but never thought of US as having overseas offices. We're HP customers but have done all of our int'l travel with other carriers. And I have $0.01-3/minute int'l rates, so cost of calling isn't a problem.

Truth is that I was very busy today, she called the Gold # because her client directed her to use US and it didn't work out. She cleared UA with her client and that was the end of it.

As I said above, I am pointing out that it appears that they don't have a solid understanding of call center mgmt when the service is this poor for int'l FFs with a less than coast to coast shut down.

Again, many thanks for the suggestion. We will keep this in mind since she will be working with this client for a few months at minimum. ^
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