Comments on: United Airlines to unplug complaints phone line

By: Jlawrence01

Jlawrence01 — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:38:16 +0000

I had to check my calendar to make sure that it wasn’t April 1st.

Then I realized that you were talking about United Airlines where the truly bizarre is the standard operating procedure.

And this is the reason why I drive past O’Hare to get to Midway to fly Southwest.

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:15:42 +0000

The loans after 9-11 were necessary to stabilize the aviation industry. Terror Attacks devastated an already troublesome industry. Loans were paid back or resold without the government guarantee, example: Frontier repaid its loan of 70 million. As well as America West and USAir. Eventually CEO’s in the industry went to DCA to voice that further aid should end. Seven carriers were approved, nine were turned down.

By: Cathy Baar

Cathy Baar — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:13:50 +0000

I for one won’t miss them. I do not understand the people in India either … but the ironic thing is that I used to live in that neck of the woods, and I speak Hindi! What does Joe Schmuck do who doesn’t understand Hindi or Hindi-accented English? The problem with the Indian call centers is that the workers are trained in English as a second language by people who have English only as a second language (and have never heard it consistently as a first language) who were trained by peoiple who have English only as a second language (and have never heard it consistently as a first language) who were trained by people … ad nauseaum. Linguists call this language situation “fossilization”. People who learn English from third-generation non-English-speaking teachers have as much chance of learning relatively unaccented English as a fossil does of reproducing itself. But the people on top don’t see this because they don’t have to deal with these workers. THEIR call center is in Chicago!

By: M12

M12 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:20:09 +0000

Obviously they were very deserving of being bailed out after 9/11 right?
Short term gain=Long term pain. Perhaps those calling for the current government bailouts should keep this in mind? Oh wait…too late.
Fools…

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:58:16 +0000

Indian call center, that says it all.

I own a Dell computer. My first issue with my computer required help via a phone call. Of course, that call went to India, where I barely understood the man on the other end. Out of frustration, I just hung up. Mind you, I PAID for a TWO YEAR contract that included technical SUPPORT. Because of this language barrier, I decided in the future to just use a local computer guy. So far, every pleased.

Back to the article, This airline has over 60 MILLION passengers per year. Hundreds of thousands per DAY. Call centers, in my day, dealt with complaints, but the majority of the job dealt with passenger itineraries and Travel Agents. Going EMAIL relieves these agents of dealing with lengthy “complaint calls” who have no authority in compensation and/or complaint resolution. Probably, same with the customer service number. Just how many employees would they need to answer calls all day long about service issues. That’s a cost in itself. Say only 10 percent of 60 million passengers have complaints. That probably overwhelms the phone lines. Avoids the personal stories. Etc. I bet it reduces the number of employees it takes to answer emails versus the phones. Hence, the reason these call centers went overseas in the first place.

By: Janice Hough

Janice Hough — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:56:00 +0000

United doesn’t even want people to write letters…they want it all by email, though with some digging you can get their snail mail address. Drives me crazy when they try to push the email option over everything else, as often you need to send in receipts etc to document your issue…