Is the call center outsourced?
 

Just wondering if the US Airways call center (where you make reservations, deal with Dividend Miles, etc.) is outsourced, or domestically based?

Some of them are. The International Awards Call Center seems to be in Mexico City. I think there may be some general reservation lines in Manila too.

The CP line is Winston Salem, NC. The Gold and Plat line are both Tempe based I believe.

I feel like US does less outsourcing offshore than other airlines, particularly UA.

The Silver Line is US based as well and I hardly ever have to wait on hold. ^

The DM service center is in FL (used to be in NC until last year.)

Me neither! :) I wonder how non-elites fare with hold times on the normal reservation lines? Perhaps this is one of the underappreciated benefits of being an elite.

It is not just a matter of waiting, but the outsourced agents are not well-versed in handling issues beyond the norm and there is sometimes a language issue as well.

I went to Mexico City in May, and I was very surprised at how few people in the tourism industry could speak more than just a few words of English, considering Mexico's proximity to the U.S. If what I experienced was any indication, it must be very difficult for US to populate its offshore call center with people who are fluent in English.

I haven't had that experience in the Mexico City call center - they all spoke English very well.

And the same might be said for the low number of native English speakers in the US that do not know Spanish! ;)

I at first thought the peon call center was India, but since someone said Manila, that makes a lot more sense given the accents I was hearing. They're still awful...is it normal for an airline CSR to not be able to tell what the previous leg to mine is so I can track the aircraft?

I have heard that Shares does not provide as much flight info as Sabre did.

Yes…parts of it are outsourced to a company in Florida…it is not outsourced to a company in India, Philippines or etc. but I considered it outsourced since you are not talking to a US Airways employee. If you want to book reward travel, you will be talking to an US Airways employee. If you have a general question such as the elimination of the 500 miles Web Bonus, you will be talking to a minimum wage employee that is working for a ‘telemarketing’ company.

Yesterday on this forum, I learned about the elimination of the 500 Miles Web Bonus for individuals booking their reservations on their website (which it is going to cost me a minimum of 25,000 miles per year). Since I never receive any communications from US Airways about this elimination, I called the 800 number on the back of my 2007 Platinum Preferred Dividend Miles card to find out. Once the message started, I selected "2" which is questions about Dividend Miles. Since this is an automated service, I hit “0” since I wanted to speak to a person about the elimination of the 500 miles web bonus. It prompted me to enter my FF # and when someone came on; they said "Chairman and Platinum Dividend Miles Line."

When I made my first call, I asked where this person was located since her English was extremely poor and I thought it could be India, Philippines or etc. She said Florida and I said to her “that is strange because I thought the FF program was administered in Winston-Salem or Tempe.” She couldn't give me an answer so I asked if she was an employee of US Airways...not a sub-contractor or etc. working for a telemarketing firm...and she said very clear three times (I asked two additional times) that she was an employee of US Airways.

Since she couldn’t provide any answers about the elimination of the 500 Miles Web Bonus, I asked to speak with a supervisor. She put me on hold...a minute later, she said that I was # 7 on hold waiting to speak with a supervisor and asked me if I wanted to wait and I said 'Yes.' A few minutes later, the phone line went dead.

A few seconds later, I received a phone call on my Blackberry with the telephone of 954-984-3000. It was her calling me back. When my call was dropped again for the second time, I called this number and it is a telemarketing company. I made a digital recording of the automated recording but since I am new member to Flyer Talk, I don’t have the ability yet to post this digital file of the company announcement to this forum yet.

I called back and spoke with a second person and she didn’t know anything so I hang up on her and call back for the third time. The third person that I spoke to admitted that she was NOT an employee of US Airways and they are a telemarketing firm.

By the way, I was told that an e-mail was sent out in October 2007 announcing the elimination of the 500 Miles Web Bonus as well as it was posted on their website and it was still there. When I asked this person for a copy of this announcement\e-mail, she told me that they have no access to any of the information such as press releases and announcements in regards to promotions, policy changes and etc. plus I had to send an e-mail requesting the e-mail. When I asked for the page address, they couldn’t give it to me and the line went dead.

Do you want to talk to someone that is probably reading from a script, probably has never been on an airplane or has limited air travel experience, don't care it they resolve your problem since they are paid to handle calls not to resolve problems and etc? I can see why US Airways has poor customer service.

It's not a telemarketing company, it's a professional call center. As i've mentioned before in the forum, I work in Direct Marketing and work with a lot of call centers. They are usually well trained for about 90+% of what a company needs. Yes, if it's a US based call center it probably is someone making near minimum wage. Usually there is a mechanism to escalate difficult calls.

However, there's no satisfying people - they don't want call centers in India or the Phillipines they want to talk to Americans - and when given that option they find something wrong with that. The fact of the matter is, no matter how well trained the call center is, sometimes the answer is going to be "I don't know" - and that's a legitimate answer regardless of whether they work for US or for a call center. Do you know absolutely everything that everyone asks you at your job? Does anyone? I know I don't and sometimes I just can't get an answer for someone.

Let's face it - call centers went abroad to keep costs down. NO ONE is going to pay big bucks to call center people - they can't afford it and remain competitive. Keeping a call center staffed, particularly for customer service, is very difficult. It's low pay work that requires people to get yelled at, abused and treated like crap for much of the day. People often take out their frustrations on CS reps. Even the CP line professionals will get yelled at when things aren't going a passenger's way.

The bottom line is: you're very angry about a decision that US made that will cost you miles. Taking it out on call center people or blaming the fact that it's an outsourced company isn't going to get you the answer you want. Like so many other airlines both outsourced call centers and bonus mile elimination are cost cutting measures US has now adopted. No matter who you talk to in CS, that's not going to change.

In summary...?

Reservations:
Chairman's - Winston-Salem, NC
Platinum and Gold - Tempe, AZ
Silver - also US-based, but not sure where
General Reservations - Manila and Mexico City

Dividend Miles Service Center - P.O. Box 025458, Miami, FL 33102

I'm not sure I agree. in the case of USAirways, I'd say the number is way less than the 90+% of what the customer needs.

My biggest complaint is that the call center agents seem to be trained to NOT escalate the difficult calls even if you ask them to. And if you ask for the call to be escalated, your call will either be mysteriously dropped or you'll be put on hold so long that you'll eventually give up.