Meet Alan!

bobcat

Senior
Feb 21, 2004
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Res has a new employee...his name is Alan and he IS the perfect new employee. He is scheduled 24/7, takes no breaks, never calls off sick, takes no family leave, needs no vacation time, doesn't need medical benefits, 401k, pension or flying privileges. He will not argue with passengers though he will transfer if he can not make certain types of reservations. He is perfect! USAirways answer to the perfect employee!

Congratulations management for stabbing us all in the back again!

Where is the CWA?
 
bobcat said:
Res has a new employee...his name is Alan and he IS the perfect new employee. He is scheduled 24/7, takes no breaks, never calls off sick, takes no family leave, needs no vacation time, doesn't need medical benefits, 401k, pension or flying privileges. He will not argue with passengers though he will transfer if he can not make certain types of reservations. He is perfect! USAirways answer to the perfect employee!

Congratulations management for stabbing us all in the back again!

Where is the CWA?
Can someone fill us in on who the heck he is talking about, Alan-I don't get it, and what does the C W A have to do with it?
 
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"Alan" is USAirways new automated DM Res agent. He books Dividend Mile award tickets, seats, record locator and all. Granted there are some award tickets that he is not yet capable of booking and those calls he transfers to Res. YIPEEE!

This was our surprise this week. This started this week along with internet booking ONLY for off peak award travel. There is no FX fee (fee for booking award tickets within 14 days of travel) for either type of booking.

So....these two new sources of booking, outside of a human agent, is supposed to help aleviate the need for Res agents...why are there still over 200 calls on hold?

What are the poor Res. agents to do? Automation is the key to GREAAAAAT customer service!!!!!!

NNNNNNOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!
 
bobcat said:
"Alan" is USAirways new automated DM Res agent. He books Dividend Mile award tickets, seats, record locator and all. Granted there are some award tickets that he is not yet capable of booking and those calls he transfers to Res. YIPEEE!
Oh wow, I need to give this a try. I wonder how well it works.
 
USFlyer said:
Oh wow, I need to give this a try. I wonder how well it works.
Julie, at Amtrak, was frustrating at first, but has recently been pretty easy. But, I'm sexist, I'd rather do business with a simulated man, than a simulated woman. :huh:
 
bobcat said:
"Alan" is USAirways new automated DM Res agent. He books Dividend Mile award tickets, seats, record locator and all. Granted there are some award tickets that he is not yet capable of booking and those calls he transfers to Res. YIPEEE!

This was our surprise this week. This started this week along with internet booking ONLY for off peak award travel. There is no FX fee (fee for booking award tickets within 14 days of travel) for either type of booking.

So....these two new sources of booking, outside of a human agent, is supposed to help aleviate the need for Res agents...why are there still over 200 calls on hold?

What are the poor Res. agents to do? Automation is the key to GREAAAAAT customer service!!!!!!

NNNNNNOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!
This phenomenon is not isolated to this industry. Automation to eliminate the human element is something I have seen at work for over the last 30 years. I remember a high school teacher telling us that machines will do away with humans, therefore people will need higher educations to survive. I have a couple of trade skills and in one, the automatic machines have all but eliminated people, all that is required today are button pushers to feed the machines, no brains required and they are working on eliminating the button pushers now as technology increases even further.

Like Bill Cosby says, EDUCATION is what is needed, because angry doesn't pay the bills, the only payment received from anger are bleeding ulcers and migraine headaches.

I have seen the world change 10 fold over my working career and the ones not constantly going to school or learning many different skills are getting left in the dust. It's sad, it’s tough, it's life, but we have a choice to sit by and rot or move ahead with the world. In third world countries they don't even have that choice and that’s why our borders are busting over with immigrants trying to reach that, choice.
 
cav,

It's rare that we see eye to eye on anything, but I agree 100% with that post.
 
Are you people insane? Automation has been replacing the human element of labor since the industrial revolution. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you go on a rant about automation? Labor lost this argument back in 1825 :lol: .
 
I believe the dedicated res agents of us will be happy to have alan on board. He will be able to look for what you ask for and if not available he will not "try this" or "try that". He will give alternate dates if avail close to what you ask for or just advs not avail. Alan will not keep searching endlessly for award seats. Our res agents will then be able to spend more time doing what they do best! SELL USAIRWAYS! I'm sure for awhile there will be the psgr who doesn't believe Alan and will want to speak to a "real person". As time goes on they will learn that res no longer can search and search for them.


So Etops, quit qloating. This will not be the end of reservations. Maybe now they can spend more time SELLING seats. :p
 
Kind of like Flight Engineers on airplanes or Firemen on deisel trains...

Still gotta have pilots for the planes, engineers for the trains and res PEOPLE to answer the tough questions.

Eastern Airlines installed an automated baggage sort system in ATL when we moved to the new terminal. I don't know if it saved them any money over paying people to do that job but I do know that neither EAL nor that sort system is still around.
 
Well I had the pleasure of chatting with Alan tonight... Tried a simple Itinerary ... PIT/MDT made sure seats were available... Well after about 10minutes of him not understanding 15th or 16th he started searching...While listening to some hold music he would pop in and say still searching this went on for about 5 minutes just for him to tell me he was unable to assist and please hold for a representative...The seats were there and he could'nt even handle something this simple..........then the next thing I heard at 11:30 pm YOUR CALL WILL BE ANSWERED IN 45 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!! My guess is that Alan is going to get furloughed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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We in Res would all like to know what is going on with this company and who is actually running the show? Everthing is getting worse as the days go on. Res is nothing but a joke anymore. It's no more than a "passenger screamfest" anymore.

Last night around 11:00 pm a call came in on the reissue line and the poor man was beside himself with frustration. He had a reservation on hold for him and his family for DM tickets that had needed to be processed earlier that day or would expire. He said he had been trying all day to get through to the DM dept to buy the tickets and couldn't. Well, since this was a DM call and not a reissue call it needed to be transfered of course, to the never ending transfer loop. I decided to check the hold time first and almost fell off my chair...103 minute hold time at 11:00 pm. Not to mention 245 calls still on hold. Needless to say, even with the possibility of getting written up for not transfering the call if I was being monitored, I took care of the poor man and he was quite grateful.

The hold time and transfer policy is really getting out of hand. It's rediculous! Who in their right mind would hold that long? It's become a Catch22. Either waste your entire day holding for USAirways or no ticket, no change, no refund or what ever. Even the new automated system and the internet hasn't eased the situation. The sad thing about it is no one gives a damn.

Our customer service has gone down the toilet. How much longer can we survive doing business this way?
 
hldgmacey said:
Eastern Airlines installed an automated baggage sort system in ATL when we moved to the new terminal. I don't know if it saved them any money over paying people to do that job but I do know that neither EAL nor that sort system is still around.
Why would it be?? It'd be over 25 years old now. By and large, the automated baggage systems have helped immensely (sans PHL!). Hiring enough people to handle the increase in baggage/travellers over the last 20 years would have been prohibitively expensive.

100+ minutes hold times and 200+ calls waiting is, however, completely unacceptable. I'd love to see one of those people in CCY sit around for 100 minutes waiting for a simple task to be performed.
 

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