Advertising is like SARS (It''s the revenue stupid)

Phoenix

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Apr 16, 2003
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(US Airways doesn't need your money, they are too busy counting the money they already have.)

True story.

Mom and Dad are traveling to Montgomery next month form TPA and call US Airways to get a ticket. On three different occasions throughout the day Thursday, they had their credit card out and ready to buy but had no one answer their call. They did of course listen to the nice recording from Mr. Seigel about how much he values their patronage and encourages them to use USAirways.com. (No my parents aren’t stupid enough to believe that load of “we careâ€. They understand this is a business and they want to buy a ticket. They are buying the right to rent a seat on an airline from point A to point B. They aren’t buying a friend who cares. When I pull out my wallet are you ready to sell a seat or do you want to chit chat about being friends?)

“Please use USAirways.com.†Fine. FOUR times they picked a two hop flight on USAirways.com and entered all their credit card info and pushed the “PURCHASE†button, only to have it crap out and give them an error code. “We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later.â€

SOOOOOOO, they called SouthWest and had a real live friendly person on the phone after two rings. (no, they did not get to hear a recording from Herb about how much he valued their patronage, but I think a live person on the phone in two rings puts it all in perspective). One hop to BHM and rent the car there instead of MGM. After a leisurely drive to MGM they are there in the same time it would take to two hop “Austin Air, We Care†airlines. (Who was unavailable anyway when the wallet was out.)

Mom and Dad went to work the next day and told all their co-workers (some of whom recounted the exact same experience).


Advertising is like SARS. Good or bad, it is spread from person to person.
 
May I add,

My mom’s conclusion was, “It is sad! It is so sad.â€￾

She knows how much the employees have sacrificed to give Mgt. the tools they claim to need in order to make US Airways profitable.

She knows how hard all the employees work everyday to do a good job for the customer.

And She sees that the people at the helm, are not even able to grasp such a simple concept as “When the man has his wallet out to give you the money, you gotta be ready to immediately hand him his receipt.â€￾

No matter how hard employees work or how much they take pride in their company, they cannot affect the collection of revenue. They simply cannot.


[SIZE= 12pt]“It is sad! [/SIZE]It is so sad.â€￾
 
While I don''t work in res, my good friend worked in MCO and before they closed that office, there were calls on hold a lot. She said Dave wanted to save costs and closed MCO, but guess he doesn''t mind that the passengers are waiting on hold. Maybe this is Daves way of forcing the passengers to use the website or call another airline.

My friend now wants to transfer to PIT or INT but the company told her that they are not accepting transfers now. This doesn''t make any sense, especially when you have agents wanting to work again and help reduce the call volume.

Who is in charge of the reservations centers? They should be fired, since it appears that they aren''t doing a good job in this area.
 
The newest way to bypass any long hold times......press ZERO 4 times fast. Gets you right in. I had to do this with UA reservations recently. After almost a 15 minute hold time I called back and miracuously was put right into an agent after the 4 ZEROS. Try it next time.


Oh and the website works only occassionally. Guess CCY doesn''t check this out often enough.
 
I''ve been working the counter the past few weeks and cant tell you how many times the passengers have "advised" me of the problems they have had with getting thru to rez or getting something done on the website. CCY, since these are the two major ways to SELL OUR PRODUCT to the majority of the population without an office agency, someone better get cracking on a way to get these problems ironed out quickly.

FREE SUGGESTION TO INCREASE REVENUE AND I DONT WANT ANYTHING IN RETURN -
Get the website FIXED and get some rez agents available to answer the phones!!!

Since we see responses from CCY when someone posts something "inaccurate" here, are we to take no response to mean that CCY agrees that there is a problem, but cant figure out how to fix it? I would love to hear from someone in CCY that they are at least aware there is a problem and it is being addressed. Last response from someone here supposedly in CCY was that there is no problem with the website.