Annoying things travel agents/airlines just do not get

sturll

Ill start:

Virgin Atlantic.

For some reason (which must be costs) they employ staff in India to deal with UK issues, from booking a flight, changing it, pricing, complaining etc.
The real frustrating thing is that i always seem to get someone who speaks hardly any English and speaks through a strong Indian accent.
A 5 min call suddenly becomes a 20 minute one as you have to keep repeating yourself. Even when you think all is sorted you cant help having a small degree of worry that indeed since it took you 5 minutes just to get across your departure airport - perhaps he has got the dates wrong etc.

Secondly with Virgin Holidays (who i rarely use anymore)

Their website is ridiculous, it is shocking how many times a problem arises and it tells you to phone up thus forcing you to book your holiday with Aslam who continuously mistakes Manchester for Heathrow airport.

Aidenr

Just to advise that Virgin Atlantic has its main call centre in Crawley along with VHOLS

Like most companys, the contact centre in India is a overflow
I have a friend who works in the reservations centre in crawley and I also work for the Airline

I know how you feel though, I cant bear calling certain companys for the very same reasons as stated!

A

ynot2005

i agree totally about indian call centres, i just cannot deal with people who i cannot understand very easily, and the companies who employ overseas to handle sometimes complex financial matters for their company must be living in cloud cuckoo land if they think im going to struggle to understand them and do business with them.

its almost as if the british company is taking the pee out of its customers by providing that service which is loathed by so many brits.

the phone goes down as soon as i hear the accent, they don't get a "what was that" "im sorry"

lynn44

Here here I have same problems with my banks,HSBC and Abbey and now BT all put through to India and they struggle to understand English!!! so ANNOYING gggrrrRRR

Blue264

My issues with Indian call centres are...

I fully appreciate that the vast majority of their employees are university graduates with an excellent grasp of English, but they are knackered when it comes to understanding our regional accents. I struggle with certain British accents so they don't stand a chance to be honest!

I can't stand it when they give an English name which clearly isn't their real name. It feels false and patronising, and that's not a good place to start a conversation. Thankfully, it appears that Virgin employees in India have stopped this practise.

I won't give my financial details to people in a country where the British Data Protection Act doesn't apply.

It's not the employees fault. It's purely down to the short sightedness of their employers. How would these people feel if they phoned their bank to discuss confidential financial issues and were put through to a call centre in the U.K.! I am pretty sure that they would feel the same.

steveo3002

if you get indians /whatever that cant understand , repeatedly ask to be transfered to a uk center or hang up and try again

like you say theres a high risk of them lousing it up

sturll

Blue264 wrote: »

I can't stand it when they give an English name which clearly isn't their real name. It feels false and patronising, and that's not a good place to start a conversation. Thankfully, it appears that Virgin employees in India have stopped this practise.

Dont be too sure about that, i spoke to a Neil and a Frank who were more like Aslam and Asif.

steveo3002

lol thinking about this we was in the virgin mobile phone store getting something sorted and the girl said any probs call the call center , but if its not an english person that answers hang up and keep trying

so they even know they dont work lol

Blue264

steveo3002 wrote: »

so they even know they dont work lol

Then why persist! We're in a financial mess and need the jobs over here.

Virgin even say they have improved their service by sending British call centre workers over to India to help their Indian counterparts, but the problem is that if you are taught the Queen's English you will not understand someone with a broad Glaswegian or Belfast accent or understand our use of grammar. I really struggle with the Belfast accent myself because it's so fast and takes a few moments to tune into it.

GettingItRight

I worked in a shop that had it's store cards handled by GE Capital. As staff were not allowed to deal with issues relating to store accounts, we were allowed to use the shop phones to contact GE customer services and then pass the phone to the customer. I lost count the number of times I heard an asian accent (once the call centre picked up our call) only for the customer to then lose patience and pass me back the phone in frustration, asking me to speak to them. I remember thinking everytime I heard an asian accent, "oh help me god!".