Coming Back To America!

EyeInTheSky

Veteran
Dec 2, 2003
2,836
74
Pittsburgh
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/28/news_pf/..._of_charg.shtml

Delta thinks of charging more for American voice on phone
The airline has surveyed some frequent fliers about adding a fee for talking to U.S. reservations agents but says it hasn't made up its mind.
By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer
Published July 28, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Airlines have resorted to charging travelers for meals, paper tickets and extra luggage to bolster their sagging bottom lines.

Now, Delta Air Lines is pondering a new twist: charging a fee to send your call to a reservations agent in the United States instead of a call center in India.

Delta first floated the idea in an online survey of select frequent fliers this month. The airline hasn't tabulated the survey results, let alone decided on imposing the new fee, said spokeswoman Meaghan Glynn.

"We look into a lot of initiatives and ask a lot of questions," she said. "If this sees the light of day remains to be seen."

Providing customer service with offshore contractors is certainly nothing new, but charging extra to have calls taken by U.S.-based workers certainly would be.

Delta contracts with two companies, including Tampa-based Sykes Enterprises, to outsource three call centers to India with about 1,000 workers.

The nation's third largest airline saves about $25-million a year by redirecting "a percentage" of basic service calls from U.S. customers to the centers, said spokeswoman Peggy Estes.

Delta still employs more than 5,000 of its own reservations agents at eight U.S. reservations centers, including one in Tampa's West Shore district, and centers in Latin America and London. No Delta agents lost their jobs because of the outsourcing, Estes said.

But the service has spurred complaints from customers who say the contracted agents in India lack the training, language skills or knowledge of U.S. geography to handle certain types of transactions. The frequent flier Web site FlyerTalk.com has hosted online discussions with titles such as "India Call Center Incompetence."

Larry Fields of San Leandro, Calif., says he got frustrated trying to book a flight through an agent in India from the San Francisco Bay area to New York City using his Delta frequent flier miles.

He asked for options out of three bay area airports and the three metropolitan New York airports. The agent checked only flights between San Francisco International and JFK International, all with two stops each way. Fields says he ended up buying a ticket on another carrier.

"I get the impression they're not as well trained (as Delta agents)," he said. "They're trying to save money, but they're losing someone who might generate revenue in the future."

Delta called the outsourcing deal the first of its kind among U.S. airlines when the contracts were announced two years ago. But it's not alone in catching flak from unhappy customers.

Computermaker Dell last year stopped routing corporate customers to a technical support call center in India after a flood of complaints. Individual customers, meanwhile, got shifted to the lower-cost offshore centers.

Online lender E-Loan Inc. gave customers a choice last spring about who would process their applications. They could let the company use workers in India or wait as much as two days longer for U.S. workers to do the job.

Delta's idea of charging customers to talk to a U.S. call center is a new wrinkle - and not likely a popular one, said Randy Petersen, who runs FlyerTalk.com.

"I've not seen anything like that in customer service," he said. "That's the cost of business. If it's a trial balloon, I'd say it's more of a lead balloon."
 
"Eye",

It's so incredibly sad that Delta is considering this. but then again... not unexpected.

What I have always been afriad of , is that if US decides to go BK will they attempt to bust the union contracts in order to start off shore reservations also?

I wonder if that is a real possibility... ( Not to scare any of our wonderful res agents).

Have you heard anything?

Trin
 
I had a major credit card up until recently.....called them about a problem the customer service person was from as near as I can tell India? I was unable to understand the first agent and I called back and got someone worse...the third call I spoke to someone I could finally understand and I canceled the card. I received a questionare about why after 15 years I dropped them, I explained communications was the problem. Other companies should learn.....
 
Imagine paying a fee to speak with an agent that you can understand. Another joke in the Customer Service department. I had to call DELL a while back for support, and it took all that I had to make out what the guy was saying. If they told me that I could speak with someone here in the US for a fee, I would have returned their product in a Second. Farm out the work to a place that can't satisfy the customer, then charge them extra to get in touch with someone who can. What a Joke this Industry is becoming.
 
I seriously doubt that Delta will implement what is undoubtedly a test to see what the response will be. I don't think any company will be stupid enough to segregate their customers based on language, esp. since Delta is only the US airline that I know of that uses India based contracted reservation agents. Instead, maybe Delta should target Indian customers and send those calls over there.
 
I read something a few weeks ago in the NYT about phone banks being set up in state jails, here in the US. For online stuff. I rather see them get the work rather than overseas people, but when you get credit cards involved? Sounds like a scam waiting to happen.
 
TWA tried it for a bit. After word got out about it, they stopped. Law & Order had a tangential plot that made reference to it as well, after the TWA incident.
 
AP Tech said:
I had a major credit card up until recently.....called them about a problem the customer service person was from as near as I can tell India? .............
If it is the same credit card company as myself..... I had to do the same thing! I figured that "what was in my wallet" needed to be another company/bank who would understand my need to understand the rep I was talking to!

ATTWireless does the same thing. Just irritating and Maddening! I am looking into another cell phone provider!

One thing for sure, AS a people in this country we need to try and blacklist companies that do the outsourcing. My family will not fly Delta Airlines for that very fact.
 
wings396 said:
I had to call DELL a while back for support, and it took all that I had to make out what the guy was saying. If they told me that I could speak with someone here in the US for a fee, I would have returned their product in a Second.
On a side note with dell....i just bought a new dell....the XPS (aka the really expensive one)....When i called recently they transfered me to a great american born guy in tennessee.....so in essence dell does charge for english speaking tech support reps!
 
Supposedly the fraud rate at the jail-based TWA res center was better than at TW's usual res centers. Regardless, airlines are more likely to file web-only fares than to charge to speak to a native English speaker.
 
There is going to be a story about this on Countdown MSNBC on Monday night. It should be interesting to see what Keith Olbermann does with this...
 

Latest posts

Back
Top