[Anonymous]

[jonathanmiller]

I know it must be a pretty thankless task replying to people who want only to complain – well,mostly. But, honestly, I’ve never yet had a reply from the BAEC correspondence team which came anywhere close to answering my question. My frustration is evident in my response below:

Dear Mr S-B, my dear old chap

Seldom have I read such utter balderdash, such total twaddle. Your reply has nothing whatever to do with my note to you … not the merest connection. It is now evident to me that your purpose in providing a response to members’ queries is not to help or to illuminate but, rather, to obfuscate, to confuse and, in general, to cause your correspondent to heave a sigh of frustration and resolve never to darken your doors again. Well … you nearly succeeded. I initially binned your reply with a sad and hopeless sigh. But then I thought better of it: you might, I thought, prefer instead to hear what I had to say in response, if only out of your burning desire to improve the service you provide.

In truth, had you bothered actually to read my enquiry, the correct response was staring you in the face. I am sorry to say so, but it was all based on an error of mine. You will see that I sought an answer, using the “how many miles and status points” engine, to a question it was not programmed to answer. Stupidly, I has asked about a two-sector journey. My fault, for which I apologise – though you provide no mechanism to recall such messages, so I had to let it run. But since I gave you that information in my question, the least you could do was read it and answer the question I posed, rather than trotting out a whole heap of boiler-plate which bears not at all on my enquiry.

Do please feel free to pass this message on to your supervisor. It would save you reading it, if nothing else.

Kind regards

JM

[JonathanCohen09]

Jonathan,

thank you for giving me a good laugh on a ratjher dreary Monday afternoon. Please please let us know if you receive a reply to your missive?

Regards,

Jonathan

[jonathanmiller]

Jonathan

Well, getting that off my chest lightened an otherwise pretty tedious day for me too. Thanks for the response! I will indeed let you know.

JM

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

Due to receiving the same boilerplate claptrap, I wrote a personal letter to Willie Walsh outlining three issues to be solved, this is the reply I received.

FYI, I wrote in mid August and received a reply in November!

“Dear Mr Disgusted of Swieqi

Thank you for your email addressed to Willie Walsh. He has asked me to respond to you directly on his behalf. I apologise for the delay in responding.

To be sure you have an answer from us as swiftly as possible, I would be grateful if you will speak to our customer support team. They deal with all pre-travel enquiries and they’ll be happy to give you individual assistance.

Please phone them on +356 (0) 800 62142 and they will do all possible to help you.

I’m sorry not to be more immediately helpful, but do please phone our customer support team. They’ll do all they can to help you at once.

Best regards

Ms XXXX XXXXXXXX
British Airways Customer Relations
Your case reference is:NNNNNNNNNNN”

Unfortunately, the letter had nothing to do with pre-departure matters 🙁

Makes you wonder what reply a non gold card holder would have received? I wonder if BA have considered introducing audio files that play whilst the recipient reads the response, for example a group of male cows suffering from extreme diahorrea venting themselves?

[AdrianHenryAsia]

I have to echo the comments above. One the few occasions I have needed to complain, I’ve had system generated junk sent to me via email which has had nothing to do with the actual problem – its almost as if they had not bothered to read the letter!

I also took the action of writing to WW and got the same response as above and then they failed to get back in touch.

I do wonder if brand loyalty does bring you any benefits from a customer service perspective? It should, but I think it BA’s case it doesn’t and everyone is treated the same (With possibily the exception of Premier Card holders)

Does any on this forum have a Premier Card and willing to share their experience of BA customer service? Is it as bad?

[jonathanmiller]

Oh dear. I’m not sure if I’m comforted by this commonality of experience. Pretty extraordinary, really, when you think of the zillions they spend trying to attract our custom. And the mere seconds it takes to hack us off with an inattentive, careless or simply couldn’t be bothered response. Not really a good return on investment and, frankly, b****y awful management.

Shame. I quite enjoy BA most of the time. But, dear wife, your evident disinterest in me makes the eye stray,. you know.

[jonathanmiller]

Swiequi. You will have not have failed to note that my correspondent’s initials are S-B. Perhaps he got confused do you think, and reversed them?

[travelworld]

I had a similar issue when I wrote to praise BA- around four years ago my flight to Beijing was delayed when a baggage handler got himself stuck in the hold wedged in by the hydraulic loading equipment. He was very badly injured and could not be released. All the pax were asked to move to the front of the aircraft to try to ease the loading on the rear to no avail. and he had to be cut free, rendering the 777 inoperable. Some of the crew helped theinjured man until the air ambulance and fire brigade arrived and were clealry very upset. BA located another 777 almost immediatelyy and we transferred to that, taking off with the same crew around 2.5 hours late. I thought that the crew acted very bravely and professionally and wrote to Willie Walsh to congratulate them on how they handled the matter. All I got was someone on the phone who said that they had looked into my complaint but they couldn’t offer any compensation….When I said I didn’t want any and that wasn’t the purpose of my letter they seemed quite nonplussed….

[TGLynch]

My experience of BA customer service is generally good. Although I do not travel as much as I once did and have dropped down from a Premier Card to a Gold Card I have not found that much of a difference in service levels. The Prem Card has some nice perks but BA at all levels is so superior to nearly all European carriers (to say nothing of the US carriers) that inevitably expectations cannot always be met. BMI’s calling centre in India and LH’s teutonic indifference and rule-book approach are two particular horror stories. If you have a problem in the air, ask for and complete the comment card or, on the ground, seek a supervisor. Like travelworld, I do not look for compensation and decline it if offered.

[jonathanmiller]

TGLynch. Compensation is in reality an irrelevance, at best diversionary. Performance to a proclaimed standard isn’t. And if one doesn’t feed back, reporting instances of failures or on occasion outright incompetence, how will they know, how can they improve? An ivory tower attitude is neither helpful nor in the longer run commercial. In this case, BAEC seems to have adopted the tower of babel approach to stunning and dumbing the PBI.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“Swiequi. You will have not have failed to note that my correspondent’s initials are S-B. Perhaps he got confused do you think, and reversed them?”

Mooooo

[TGLynch]

Dear Jonathan: I do not think we disagree. The comment card seems an effective way of registering a complaint in the air and BA is one of the few airlines left with supervisors visible and accessible on the ground. Shoddy service should always be reported.

[jonathanmiller]

Dear TGLynch. I agree! Now if only we could get BA to do something productive with those reports ……. After all none of us expect instant solutions. For most of us, some form of sentient acknowledgement of our input is truly all we seek.

[jonathanmiller]

Dear Jonathan Cohen and other correspondents. You are going to love this. I promised to let you know if I received a reply. Well, bless their little cotton socks, I did. And as a perfect example of what we have been talking about, it cannot be bettered. I reproduce it here, in all its glittering glory. Ready?

” Thank you for your reply to British Airways Customer Relations.
Unfortunately your attempt has been unsuccessful and we have not received your response.”

What?

[Author]

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