Righto.. I’m really getting sick and tired of dealing with corporate heavy weights who can’t give a modicum of service. It all started (recently) with KLM who would not respond to my inquiries about the status of a refund we were owed for seats we upgraded (but didn’t get) due to a technical problem with their aircraft.
The response from their telephone support was simply “we have no access to the web team”.. “all enquiries regarding refunds of web purchased upgrades are handled by the ‘wweb team’”.. “the web team can not be contacted directly by customers”.. et cetera.
Now, it is with Qantas. Their online booking management software is broken, and a customer can not pre purchase additional checked luggage, or reserve seats. Afte e-mailing, and continually trying to make arrangements online, I finally called the support line today – “we have no access to that system”.. “we can’t do anything” .. BULLSHIT.
Whether or not customer service teams have access to a booking system (and why the hell don’t they??) they should be able to do something. Here’s a few suggestions:
- Offer to follow up
- Add a note to a booking reservation
- Write an email with corporate letterhead acknowledging the system was down
When it comes to refunds.. don’t get me started. I think it is criminal that airlines would purposefully block consumers from enquiring about the status of a refund, let alone it taking literally weeks (if not months). As a consumer I’m tired of the bullshit, and the buck-passing, and I’m angry at the shitty business practices. As an information technology specialist I say to you, in a professional (world class possibly) capacity: “we don’t have access to XYZ system” is fundamentally a load of shit.
Consumers need to vote with their wallet, and let these monolithic corporations sink into the ocean – assuming governments won’t prop them up like the auto industry and many others – I’m tired of all this crap, and the lack of courtesy, let alone sympathy for the stress travel puts on people. It’s time to demand to be taken seriously.
R