What's Going On With You Guys?

[Severed-N-Happy]

Just thumbing thru the investments news(life after US), and came across this tidbit..did they ever replace/fire the VP of CUST SVC or RES ?

American Airlines Achieves Highest In Customer Care Quality In VocaLabs SectorPulse Airline Report

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., Apr 19, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Vocal Laboratories, the authority in measuring customers' experiences, issued its quarterly SectorPulse Airlines report measuring how well eight different airlines handle calls to their toll-free phone numbers.

Of the airlines studied for this quarterly report, American Airlines (AMR) was the winner in customer service quality, earning a "B" ranking in Caller Satisfaction, and an "A" in Call Completion. No company scored an "A" in Caller Satisfaction. The other companies generally scored across the range of VocaLabs' grading system.

-- Continental Airlines (CAL) scored a "C" in Caller Satisfaction and Call Completion -- Delta Air Lines (DAL) scored a "C" in Caller Satisfaction and a "D" in Call Completion -- JetBlue Airways (JBLU) scored a "B" in both Caller Satisfaction and Call Completion -- Northwest Airlines (NWAC)scored a "B" in Caller Satisfaction and a "C" in Call Completion -- Southwest Airlines (LUV) scored a "B" in Caller Satisfaction and a "D" in Call Completion -- United Airlines (OTCBB:UALAQ.OB) scored a "C" in Caller Satisfaction and a "D" in Call Completion -- US Airways (UAIR) scored a "D" in Caller Satisfaction and a "C" in Call Completion. BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

There was a substantial variation in the quality of customers' experiences among the eight companies. Raw scores for Call Completion varied from 71% to 88%. There were also dramatic differences in automation rates, with the percentage of callers' problems handled without a live agent ranging from none to 18%.

United and American had the highest automation rates, and given that American also had one of the highest overall satisfaction scores, there seems to be no negative impact from properly designed and implemented call automation. American, United, JetBlue, and Southwest all reported frustration rates under 10%. The three companies with the highest frustration rates are also the three companies with the lowest overall satisfaction scores.

The most often mentioned complaint was long hold times, which was also the most significant driver of caller frustration. One participant commented, "Make it easy to talk to a live person! I waited 7 minutes on hold and gave up! UNACCEPTABLE." This was the most common complaint for Continental, Northwest, Southwest, United, and USAir customers, but infrequent at American and JetBlue.

The second-most-common complaint was about poor automated systems. Another participant commented, "The voice recognition software requires improvement. Wasted considerable time trying to explain to the automated system my name etc, which it was not able to discern after repeated attempts. Accomplished the objective very quickly and pleasantly with the live representative."

Data in this report was gathered between February 10, 2004 and March 31, 2004.

About SectorPulse Airlines:

VocaLabs SectorPulse reports compare the customer service quality for different companies in the same industry, using data and call recordings from the companies' customers.

VocaLabs has recruited over 60,000 individuals to provide feedback on customer service experiences, from which we drew the participants for this study. VocaLabs panelists who are customers of one of the companies included in this study were asked to participate by initially completing a survey before calling the airline's customer service; having their calls recorded; and completing a second survey after the call.

An Executive Summary and SectorPulse Wireless data report are available by subscription. Please contact Jessica Ament at [email protected]

About Vocal Laboratories

Vocal Laboratories delivers statistically reliable feedback on the user friendliness of telephone based customer service whether delivered via traditional call centers or self-serve technology. Clients are end user enterprises, call center consultants, application providers and equipment vendors. Only VocaLabs has the unique methodology to evaluate a customer contact application at any stage of development from prototype through existing services quickly, cost effectively and with maximum accuracy.

SOURCE: Vocal Laboratories, Inc.

Vocal Laboratories, Inc., Eden PrairieJessica Ament, 952-941-6580 X [email protected]

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Copyright © 2004 Business Wire. All rights reserved.

 

[AtlanticBeach]

Where to begin????

The study design does not appear to be valid, the folks paying for the study have something to sell the airline industry and did anyone else notice the company's home town?

Yes, there are problems from time-to-time with US Airways reservations agents, but they appear to be few and far between. From a personal standpoint, waits for telephone res agents have been minimal and solutions to problems are usually offered quickly. The same can not be said for the people handling support for .com reservations. Delays of up to 30 minutes have not been unusual.

The delays waiting for someone to pick-up at Delta and United are insufferable. The only folks who always seem to answer without a hold are at Southwest (sorry).

I do agree that the menu for the automated service could be improved. But, a big plus for the special menu option during irregular ops.

Now, if something could be done about the staff at the Boston US Airways Club <aargh>.

 

[bluetoad]

Seems valid to me. Last time I called to make a reservation on US Airways, the computer voice told me it would be 27 minutes until my call could be answered. Obviously, I hung up in disgust :angry:

 

[4merresrat]

Yeah, this is definately an one area that ican not be blamed on the employees. Dave, or whomever is in charge has made it extremely un-user friendly to call U. I think it is done on purpose to discourage customers from calling. They want customers to go on-line. Managements mind set is that the unsavy people who still use the phone don't spend enough dollars anyway-they are the "price-sensitve" shoppers. Management doesn't care. They discourage callers by making it an ordeal to get thru-push this button, push that one... if you are priority gold press this one, if you are buying NOW with a credit card push this one. . . if you are spending more than 1,500 dollars push this one. . . if you are calling about our 49.00 rt fare please hang on and someone may eventually get to you once all our important people get thru. . . AND remember, your call IS important to us!

 

[geo1004]

Let's not forget the "differences" between reservations booked online and those booked thru the phone. Yikes!

 

[Light Years]

*Mass layoffs of thousands of res agents, customer service agents, and other customer service related and support staff resulting in nearly half of the company gone.

*Insistence on using technology (kiosks, website, voice recognition) as replacements for rather than convienient additions to customer service, and forcing them upon all customers rather than just the segment they help.

Save a penny, lose a million dollars. *sigh*

A dollar gets spent and is gone, a customer that stays results in many more dollars and many more customers and so forth. Duh.

 

[reznc]

Try not enough employees to handle the calls, too many people being told to multi-task and take all types of calls without specialised traing of any quality, and too much info being released on .com before we are informed about it in res, just for starters.

 

[ErinSaoirseOBX]

If I had a dime for every time I got a call that started "I just booked a reservation online...." I could start my own airline. I don't care HOW user-friendly the website is, people want to talk to a PERSON. Websites don't listen. Websites don't make alternate suggestions, and don't care if 95 year old Aunt Flossie, who only speaks Bolivian, is seated in row 32E and the rest of the family is in row 6.

And as far as automation goes, when is res going to get a computer that wasn't used to write the original Gettysburg Address? We're still using Windows 95, for cryin' out loud!! The reissue program is a joke - I could handwrite a ticket faster!

If res was given 21st century technology, we wouldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel in customer satisfaction. I wonder if management uses old 286 computers with ONLY a floppy drive? But we're supposed to do 10 times the work with a third of the equipment! How about taking the 4.5 million and making a deal with Dell? Or shall we just sell the res centers on E-Bay and give the money to our new CEO?

 

[mweiss]

If you're running Windows 95, you're not using a 286. And, if the machines you are using are primarily barely-intelligent terminals, even a 386 is adequate, though a slow Pentium would be inexpensive and easy to put in as replacements. What you don't need is a multi-GHz Pentium 4 with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB HD. The primary speed issues will be on the other end of the wire; the extra horsepower on your desk would go to waste.

 

[BoeingBoy]

mweiss,

You are correct about the dumb terminal. Of course, when I go to RIDC several times a year and see all those Pentium III & IV computers with 21" monitors sitting on the desks acting as dumb terminals (other than e-mail and word processing) it makes you wonder where the priorities are.

Jim

 

[youngblood]

People think I am exaggerating when I say we get up to 200 calls on hold a night. The majority of my calls are handled thoroughly within three minutes. A purchased rsv and booking will usually take approx 5 minutes max and that's because I am personable. On the other hand, the number of calls I get that begin with the 4 minute reprimand for holding on the line for 30 minutes obviously adds to my call handle time. Not to mention recycled calls bogging down the line. I have made it a policy to only transfer someone if I cannot handle them and am not equipped to do so. There are two types of calls that are exclusive to specially trained agents - international and reissues. Why can't everyone handle the call if they can regardless of what line it comes in on. i.e. sales - if they are just shopping handle the call, service - if they are booking DM tkts handle the call, etc.
It seems to me that simplicity is the best approach.