Comments on: Check in online and avoid the queues….not http://www.budd.uk.com/blog/check-in-online-and-avoid-the-queuesnot/ How do we stop doing dumb things to customers and people? Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:25:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: petermassey http://www.budd.uk.com/blog/check-in-online-and-avoid-the-queuesnot/#comment-11 petermassey Sun, 12 Aug 2007 14:28:00 +0000 http://www.budd.uk.com/blog/check-in-online-and-avoid-the-queuesnot/#comment-11 August 07 and spending my Virgin airmiles to go to New York. This is meant to be a reward for spending shed loads of money - so much going to Australia that we got enough to do New York for nearly free. <br/><br/>It didn't feel like a reward. Too many Virgin basics aren't working. Time for some redesign of the basic experience I think. Otherwise why would you think I'd spend a fortune with Virgin, next time I go business class where they've have designed it to be good<br/><br/>Here's a few:<br/>1) You cant share Virgin miles with close relatives even if you paid for the flight they earned them on<br/>2) You can't book airmiles and non airmiles travellers together via the website. The extras on a miles ticket is half the cost of a real ticket - hmmmm, call me sceptical<br/>3) It took 65 minutes to book the 3 tickets manually<br/>4) By the time they'd been booked the price on the site moved - upwards of course<br/>5) Despite escalation during the call and after the call, no one at Virgin would talk to me about the price of the ticket that changed mid booking<br/>6)The booking reference, cut and pasted from the reminder email, wouldn't work so we couldnt get access to the site to give US visa information or change seats or check in, resulting in 3 calls<br/>7)The nice people in the Indian call centre couldn't take a passport number of 8 digits in less than three attempts<br/>8)At check in there are still monster queues all the time - so no one is scheduling staff to meet demand. This is highly predicatble and very frustrating<br/>9) We got to use a member card to get us into the short queue on the premium line. It had one agent and we waited forever anyway. The lady next to us in the queue said this happens to her everytime. <br/>10)She told the supervisory types - 3 of them. Not one went and opened a desk or said they'd do something about it for next time. They just made placatory remarks, which of course wind you up up at the third time of listening to 'there are more people coming' - and there clearly aren't.<br/>11) Having a huddle of 4 supervisors talk to each other is not the same as having 4 supervisors open 4 lines to shift the problem<br/>12) Asking to sit further forward in the plane, not an upgrade, got us moved a bit with the usual line of "the flight is full". When we got on the plane it was a lie. The bulkhead row in front was empty. Many rows were half full or empty.<br/>13) The food had been outsourced to some strange place called grog but heh is 2 meals on a 7 hour flight too much to ask for<br/>14) But apart from that its just like any airline: indifferent<br/><br/>I'd love to talk to anyone at Virgin who'd like to talk about saving shed loads of money on frustrated marketing, frustrated staff and frustrated customers: peter.massey@budd.uk.com August 07 and spending my Virgin airmiles to go to New York. This is meant to be a reward for spending shed loads of money - so much going to Australia that we got enough to do New York for nearly free.

It didn’t feel like a reward. Too many Virgin basics aren’t working. Time for some redesign of the basic experience I think. Otherwise why would you think I’d spend a fortune with Virgin, next time I go business class where they’ve have designed it to be good

Here’s a few:
1) You cant share Virgin miles with close relatives even if you paid for the flight they earned them on
2) You can’t book airmiles and non airmiles travellers together via the website. The extras on a miles ticket is half the cost of a real ticket - hmmmm, call me sceptical
3) It took 65 minutes to book the 3 tickets manually
4) By the time they’d been booked the price on the site moved - upwards of course
5) Despite escalation during the call and after the call, no one at Virgin would talk to me about the price of the ticket that changed mid booking
6)The booking reference, cut and pasted from the reminder email, wouldn’t work so we couldnt get access to the site to give US visa information or change seats or check in, resulting in 3 calls
7)The nice people in the Indian call centre couldn’t take a passport number of 8 digits in less than three attempts
8)At check in there are still monster queues all the time - so no one is scheduling staff to meet demand. This is highly predicatble and very frustrating
9) We got to use a member card to get us into the short queue on the premium line. It had one agent and we waited forever anyway. The lady next to us in the queue said this happens to her everytime.
10)She told the supervisory types - 3 of them. Not one went and opened a desk or said they’d do something about it for next time. They just made placatory remarks, which of course wind you up up at the third time of listening to ‘there are more people coming’ - and there clearly aren’t.
11) Having a huddle of 4 supervisors talk to each other is not the same as having 4 supervisors open 4 lines to shift the problem
12) Asking to sit further forward in the plane, not an upgrade, got us moved a bit with the usual line of “the flight is full”. When we got on the plane it was a lie. The bulkhead row in front was empty. Many rows were half full or empty.
13) The food had been outsourced to some strange place called grog but heh is 2 meals on a 7 hour flight too much to ask for
14) But apart from that its just like any airline: indifferent

I’d love to talk to anyone at Virgin who’d like to talk about saving shed loads of money on frustrated marketing, frustrated staff and frustrated customers: peter.massey@budd.uk.com

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