British Airways Call Center Hold Times

The Avios program is pretty good in terms of earning and redemption ratios, especially if you fly in premium cabins. But teir customer service is the worst of any other program, it takes at least an hour to speak to an agent (at best) even if you have an elite status and if you email them they get back to you a week later with a rather condescending response. I guess one issue may be that Avios is a separate company which objectives can be somewhat different from BA as an airline. They should fix it as it will impact the image of BA as a reputable airline and obviously the loyatly of their frequent fliers...

First...the JAX call center was opened from 7am EST to 1am EST- the reduced to 11pm...then after BA UK- decided that the calls should be followed to Delhi- for financially reasons eventually the center was only open for 12 hours for 1 month. Closing 20 Dec.

Gold Lines have priority and get pushed to the top of the que. All instructions for ANYTHING are at the management decisions in UK- Manchester- for call flow, and bouncing calls, the decision to advise a "supervisor cannot take a call" is a specific directive for the management.

Gone are the days of caring about higher tiers----they only care about the talk time- your job is based on talk time- after you don't make your talk time you are fired.
Customer Service is code for rush- and que it off- have the passenger call back.

They know exactly what they are doing.... and do not care if the passengers waits unless you are a Gold Guest List with ear power to complain...or a Premier Member.

One of the main reasons that the call times are so high is that people press the wrong option to get through quicker, yet it has a knock on effect on everyone else trying to get through. If you want a reference number, then don't press the option to make a booking, just because you get through quicker. Log into your exec account online and get the reference number from there. Don't call the call centre to change a booking that you can change online, just because you're lazy.

I was one of the US Agents that lost her job. I worked for British Airways for almost 9 years. I must say in the beginning the training they gave was excellent as well as support we received. In the first 5 years we were trained to be a one stop shop. I admit that hold times were long. The reason for that at that time was all the other countries preferred to speak with the US call center but the system was only set up to handle miles for the US, Canada and Caribbean, which was out of the agents control. We helped with hotels, car rentals, baggage issues, mileage bookings and general information as one agent. I loved working at British Airways this was a great company to work for. However, when changes were made, around the time mileage became Avios, although we were senior agents we could only help in the department we were placed in. We were also managed by our New York office previously, which I feel made a difference. If we had computer issues they could be fixed quickly. Once the UK took over it tool several weeks to fix and once the close was confirmed some computers issues just did not get fixed. I was sad to leave, however the last 4 years was difficult I was unable to use all my knowledge to help all passengers. I want to think that British Airways will realize where they went wrong and correct it. I think closing the US office was a mistake we were very knowledgeable agents and most, not all of us were on board to help passengers and always competed to be accurate in our information and assistance. I for one would work for them again if they corrected the error of their ways. We were always scored on quality if we did not give it we did not get any bonus. I wish I could explain what their vision is but I cannot. I know with the recent changes in our country it is very expensive to employ many people in the US, and certainly not due to the wages they pay it is due to our current government vision. As a former employee of British Airways I will miss providing good service to all passengers!

I worked at BA in the Exec department and can shed light on some things. All the calls were routed to the same center. If you were Gold there was separate team for you in the same building. Blue, bronze and silver had numbers to call and the system would prioritize your call based on the number you called. In exec club we couldn't handle new revenue bookings since that went to the sales department. I understand the frustration because it meant putting the customer on hold and waiting on the sales department to pick up and we lose commission on a ticket while increasing our handle time.

That was the way it was until July when management decided that everyone would be divided up into groups and they would be assigned calls you could handle. I was never actually trained in sales but was told I could handle sales calls now. It was horrible for the customer because I could do some simple and slightly advanced bookings but nothing extremely complicated. If it was something we weren't comfortable doing or trained to do, for example a RTW (round the world fare), we could take down a number and give it to a manager to dispense to someone else.

Exec Club could handle revenue bookings if the booking was made by an exec club member. If you weren't a member then you had to be transferred (eventually we were advised to have you hang up and dial the customer service number) to have it addressed. It's not that we didn't want to help but our handle times were being lowered and more was being expected from us. There were agents who were awful and needed to quit or retire from it though.

I'll admit if I had a gold member more often than not I transferred them if they seemed full of themselves and expected more *** kissing than I could offer. I tried to help even though I wasn't gold trained. I would help up to the point that I would do what I could and get you to the gold line so they wouldn't have to do little work to keep you waiting.

When we found out we were closing, BA told us that they wanted to offer customer service at the right price. We said that the customers would miss us when we left. We were right about that but I can say that I don't miss BA and losing my job has so far been a boon to me.

As one of those agents that was laid off in Jax, we knew this would happen when we were gone. We had a few bad apples but most of us cared and did the best we could. However BA did not have systems that worked or enough supervisors to support agents. Most of our functions had to be done manually and required a supervisor. Ratio 10-15 to 150 agents isn't gonna do much when 4 of 5 calls needs supervisor help. The answer they came up with was queue it to India for an answer. Horrible management !

I was one of the 280 people who were let go from the Jacksonville call center in the US. Everything that you stated that frustrates you frustrated us for years. We felt your pain, but the environment we worked within was extremely restrictive and there was not a lot of room for thinking or acting outside the box. There was ansolutely no empowerment within the job function. Now it has become worse. At least when we had it, we understood the American market and the American psyche.

When they announced the closure at an all employee meeting, I specifically asked where they intended to route the calls. The reply was that they hadnt figured that out yet. Excuse me.....what? This type of short term thinking was the norm at BA. When i pointed out to them that this move may save them a quarter in the short run but will cost a dollar in the long run, i was told not to question the decisions made in the UK. How dare i try to introduce logic and reason.

Long story short, while we werent perfect we were a damn sight better that what you are forced to deal with now. We liked our customers and we miss taking care of you.

I had a similar problem when trying to transfer Avios between BA and Iberia.

1. Tried to set it up online, which failed.

2. Called BA to try to hold an Award reservation while we tried to transfer. He could not hold the Award reservation, despite having waited on hold for an hour.

3. Reluctant to hang up, he offered to transfer me from Newcastle to Manchester, where they may be able to help me transfer the Avios.

4. On hold to Manchester for another 45 minutes, and they said they could still not figure out why they could not transfer the Avios, online or over the phone. Said it "must be an Iberia problem".

5. Called Iberia in Spain to sort out the transfer. They said it is a BA problem. Only waited on hold for 15 mins to get this part done.

6. Called BA back. They have no idea why I can't transfer the Avios, despite confirming that i have had both accounts open long enough to do so, and that everything else is fine. This took another hour.

7. Award availability gone, four hours later. I have given up on trying to transfer these Avios, either online or over the phone.

I have NO problem with being forced to do things online, if the online function works. If it does not work, the idea of being put on hold for four hours to get ANYTHING done is ridiculous.

If you think the call center is bad, just try and deal with their online counterparts. I wanted to claim miles for a flight that had not been credited. So I emailed them because the section of the site that handled that process seemed to be either missing or unavailable in some way. When they finally got back to me two days later, they wanted me to snail mail the boarding passes. They would not accept a scan or a JPEG as proof; however, they would accept a fax.

First, that made no sense. Second, I am in South America. The fax thing doesn't seem to have taken hold in Ecuador, and the snail mail is unreliable, at best. Additionally, all other airline and hotel companies have accepted emailed copies as proof. But not BA.

So I pushed and pushed some more. Over a month later, someone finally got back to me to say that they would make a "special accommodation" for me and allow me to submit my proof via email. I told them that I had already put the miles on my AA account and that I would no longer need their lack of service.

By the way, their ground crews at Heathrow are no better. Cold, callous, and distinctly unprofessional.

You should try phoning the Thai airways call centre in thailand. Only one contact number and no special number for rop members any more. They have now switched to a new method to svoid wait times until they pick up. THEY NEVER PICK UP.
So i tried calling their main ticket office at Silom. Again, they NEVER pick up!
So i went there in person, as soon as they opened. There are about twenty sales agents. All looking at their screens, ignoring customers right before them, holding a queue ticket. Service used to be very good but now seems terrible.