V-Flyer

For those who read my TR about the terrible service I received on a recent LHR to SFO flight in Upper, here's a little Customer Service update. Despite having been referred to an 'executive assistant' for Richard Branson, all I've got from Virgin is a slight apology and nothing more.. despite two follow up emails stating my displeasure. In my opinion someone paying for an Upper flight (or using miles..!) should receive an Upper Class service and if that's not the case, then surely Virgin must do something than simply say sorry... in economy perhaps, but Upper? Maybe I'm expecting too much... any thoughts?

After my fried iPod episode all I received from an executive assistant to Richard Branson was a similar slight apology and a bland boiler-plate response hoping they would see me on future flights with VS. If they had bothered to check their records they would have seen I had already two sets of flights booked. I too stated my displeasure at the response but I wrote directly to the said executive assistant and not by email which caused them to look again. I would suggest you do the same

The 'Chairman's Office' in most companies exists to deal with issues which have been escalated to senior level and to deal with VIPs/CIPs. They are usually given some level of empowerment to reach out into the organisation to get answers and fix problems.

For VS, it really doesn't seem this is the case. It's just a customer service desk with a fancy name.

Only one thing I ever raised with 'RB's office' (consistent failure of Priority Baggage ex-SFO in my case) got some level of (but not entire) resolution done by them, and that took a serious amount of repeat letters and badgering over a number of months.

(Eventually, the person at RB's office contacted the SFO station manager, who investigated and found out the crappy elastic tags often get snagged off by SFO's bag handling machinery. Because SFO's loaders sort into bins based on card tag, rather than flagged barcode, UC/PE cases with missing tags such as mine ended up in Y bins. Of course, VS still haven't changed the tag design yet, so the message never reached VAA's much vaunted design department.)

Unless someone wants to prove me wrong, there is no apparent regular communication between Customer Services, including RB's Office and the operational departments in VS, unless someone is really persistent.

Complaints seem to be destined to become statistics which appear in pie charts and graphs and punted around in meetings, and specific issues are seldom 'picked on' and discussed.

This means that 'early warnings' or 'minority issues' become lost in the noise.

To be honest, any message which reaches RB's Office should not be boilerplated. These are people who have a serious problem, or are a regular passenger and can provide valuable feedback to VS when they see things going off the rails. Every message received there should receive a proper investigation and reply.

This is an old article (2002), but says everything that was wrong with VS customer services then, and is still wrong today: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=1364141

Write back and push harder. Tell them you would accept their apology, if they had bothered to investigate properly, but what you've seen so far does nothing to encourage your repeat business if the spectre of bad service still exists.

Ask if your comment has just become some anonymous statistic about random blips in service, or has your allegation of shoddy service been properly discussed with the relevant crew members working that flight, and if corrective measures have been put in place.

Be clear that you are making a complaint against the crew members working the J cabin in that flight, and that you suspect that their attitude was motivated by ageism.

Explain that you're not just commenting about bad service, but (from what you describe in your TR) you genuinely felt mistreated onboard, and that you felt there was no-one onboard the aircraft you could approach to discuss your concern (you didn't mention if you saw the FSM at all).

State that unless they take your complaint seriously and investigate it properly, you will be making a direct escalation to Director level, not only about the original problem, but the subsequent handling of your complaint as well.

Good luck,
Mike

Excellent post, Mike. [y]

bravo Mike, wonderfully written and interesting post, thank you heaps.

Originally posted by mike-smashing
The 'Chairman's Office' in most companies exists to deal with issues which have been escalated to senior level and to deal with VIPs/CIPs. They are usually given some level of empowerment to reach out into the organisation to get answers and fix problems.

Absolutely right Mike - I remember a time I had a fake debit on my CC with RBS, the customer services were useless and I got in touch with the Chairman's office and spoke with his secretary. You can't imagine how quickly, and satisfactorily the issue was dealt with.

SRB's office does not really exist. It's a fakery put about by VS customer services to make you think something important is happening. The point being they've lost the plot. Does not mean that you should not stop trying however ...

I've noticed recently that customer relations now seem to be passing a lot more comments to their standard customer service department to deal with, that is when they bother to actually respond at all.

Originally I sent an email to customer relations back in September (when VS first indroduced the CC fee) and after sending them a polite reminder, I finally got a semi-boiler plate response back from standard customer services last week.

That's the second time this year customer relations have ignored me but I feel it's now completely pointless contacting customer relations anyway as nothing ever changes. I'm only wasting my own time giving feedback about lack of baggage priority.

Regards

Sorry i have to laugh. Try phoning them and getting put through to some guy in India who speaks the poorest English imaginable. Its best if you want to change your booking, let me after spending half an hour explaining a date then tell me you feel confident that what you actioned will be correct.

You say i want a flight from London Heathrow to San Francisco, he says 'Ok sir, as i understand you wish for a flight from Gatwick to Orlando' So eventually you ask to speak to someone who speaks English, he then says 'i am understanding you very well'
Really.

Virgin used to be known for their good customer service now they are known for their poor customer service. Even Virgin cant ride on their brand name forever.

Ten years ago I took my first flight with Virgin when anything that could go wrong did go wrong including the plane taking off while our tickets were still in LHR because of a discrepancy in our baggage tags and no child meal being loaded for Aer John. What wooed me and wedded me to VS was the way that the cabin crew dealt with the situation. A lot of other things intervened before our return especially around the return of our tickets and on my return I wrote a long letter to VS. I pointed out that while I would still fly Virgin because of the outstanding cabin crew I felt they needed to be aware of the difficulties in service provision. Their response? I received a phone call at work (I still don't know how they found my number) to clarify some of the points in my letter. 10 days later I received a long letter from VS apologising and thanking me for the information which would be used as a training issue. Included in the letter was a watch for Aer John (which he still has. It's dinky with people going from the terminal to the aircraft), vouchers for duty-free or against a future flight valid for 18 months which was extended when I wasn't able to use them immediately, vouchers to be used in any Virgin Megastore and I can't remember what else. I'm sure if I had been an FC member I would have received miles.

Fast forward 10 years when my iPod is fried on a VS plane and I am FC Gold. I get a semi-boilerplate response which infers I have introduced a mal-functioning iPod on board and a platitudinous wish that I will be seen on board a VS flight in the future. It takes 3 letters to get the matter resolved to my satisfaction.

I think VS need to review their customer service policies and procedures big time

Hmmmm...I had a small series of unfortunate occurences this past spring with VS, wrote customer service, received a very courteous e-mail and a very unexpected 20K miles which I thought more than appropriate for the situation. I felt very much that VS customer service were using the data supplied by pax to improve services and was more than pleased to note one specific change made to the website shortly thereafter.

Then again, several years ago I wrote a quick note concerning a news article I had read about a statement SRB had made with which I strongly disagreed, and received a personal letter back from him...

When I am grounded (all too often) waiting for US Air to locate aircraft that actually fly, I am told that their only obligation is to get me there--whenever, however.

Ob la di, ob la da.



cheers,

roadrunner
[:w]