how long wll pax wait on hold before calling OA ..?

Res

Senior
Aug 20, 2002
361
1
www.usaviation.com
It makes me crazy to think we are letting people go when if employees were scheduled better... passengers wouldn''t have to wait 20 minutes to spend their money....why can those above us not see this? When there are 70 to 100 calls on hold it''s nice to be busy although we are loosing revenue calls...the ones holding are changing or reconfirming and checking on seats..others hang up and calling OA...
 
Ironically there is very little incentive or company mandated necessity to sell anymore, mainly because the minimum requirement now is to get just 1 attempt to get a rez made and 1 attempt to ticket..if they don't bite, you can move onto the next call. And you are right, it is next, it's one after another with no break(unless you're on queues, than you can read or knit a few minutes between making out-calls if you think you are meeting average or above requirements per hour). With a daily average 4 percent call abandon rate you do have to wonder what sales are being lost,that's 4000 lost calls for every 100,000. And then they get on you for taking too much work time or a percentage point off on adherence. That really translates to: Hey the company doesn't care about losing calls, why are you getting on moi?

I spend the better part of a day doing just what you said above(not selling , but service work), along with the ongoing fixing of prior agent boo-boos., The latest NEW craze is having to refund on overcharged reissues or add collecting on undercharged ones.Mainly due to major confusion on new policys and procedures on split level business fares.{On a typical day that portion of my shift dedicated to repair work is about 20 percent, chalked up to insufficent training and lack of a proper forum to ask questions and learn, along with plain old agent apathy}. And by not selling, I include the every 3rd or 4th call searching for Z seats, virtually impossible now, with the regionals taking over the entire system.
So, yes it is disheartening to see that the company does not care about the potential loss of revenue under these circumstances,especially while crying that we aren't making money. There is a term for this kind of business practice, but I believe it would be censored here.
 
From a customers viewpoint - a few years ago I was going to send my wife and daughter to Ft Meyers for spring break vacation. Delta had me on hold for several minutes. I hung up and called TWA, again to be put on hold for several minutes. Finally I called Continental and had my call answered directly by a live reservations agent. My money went to Continental. But that seems to be managements attitude towards their customers these days - lay off so much staff that you force them to wait to spend money, and then after they spend money, if it wasn't full unrestricted coach, weigh them down with change fees and lose it or lose it rules. Helluva way to treat the people you need to stay in business.