Customer service and mindless emails

Morning

I have to say I'm a little fed up with the responses to two emails I sent VS customer service on Sunday.

In the first email, I mentioned that, as a vegan, I have already prebooked a vegan meal for LHR-SFO in Upper next week (indeed, I the siubject of the email was 'New UC menu - queries'). As I wish to make the most of the experience, I asked (on the off-chance), if any of the Freedom menu items were vegan (you never know!). The response -
"Dear Andy

Thank you for your email.

I am pleased to inform that following information with regards to VGML Vegan
meal :

This meal does not contain any food of animal origin. Special observance must be
made of processed foods that may contain hidden animal derived products such as
gelatine, rennet and animal fats.

CAN CONTAIN:
Vegetables, Fruit, Cereals, Rice, Pasta (egg free), Fats & Oils (vegetable
based), Potatoes, Nuts, Milk (Soya), Beans & Peas, Bread.

PROHIBITED:
Dairy Products, Eggs, Meat, Chocolate, Gelatine, Gravy, Honey, Fish, Poultry,
Shellfish, Soups (meat, Broth/Stock), Alcohol, Worcestershire Sauce, Animal by
products.

For further assistance, may I request you to please call our Contact Centre. "

Grrrrr..

In my second email, the email subject box was 'UC and seating allocation query ' and my message was..

" Hi

I am booked on the VS19 28/03/06. Currently myself and partner have 2A and
2K booked.
Could you confirm the policy re: 1A and 1K (which we would prefer) - I
understand these seats are only available at checkin, i.e. not prebookable -
can you confirm if this is the case?
If so, are they available on a first-come, first-served basis?


Thanks
Andy
"

My response?

"Dear Andy

Thank you for your email and apologies for the delayed response.

Due to our own procedures, extra legroom (bulkhead and emergency exit) seats
cannot be pre-assigned. Only our airport staff can allocate these seats on the
day of departure. The main reason for this is that all passenger needs have to
be taken into account. Infants and passengers with restricted mobility will be
given priority for bulkhead seats. The remaining bulkhead seats will be
allocated to other passengers on a first come, first serve basis.

It may be possible for you to purchase an emergency exit seat on the day of your
departure. The charge is currently GBP 75 one way, per exit seat.

We look forward to welcoming you onboard.

Kind Regards
"

This kind of 'service' really frustrates me. I've never had issues with customer service at VS before. Is this typical?

Andy

Andy, sounds like someone in 'Customer Service' is in the wrong job. It's really frustrating when people can't even be bothered to read your questions properly. It would be useful if there was a link on the website for an email address to the premier team (maybe there is and I've missed it)as I'm sure you would get a better response from them.

Have a great trip.

But at least you got a response - I'm still waiting for a reply to one sent weeks ago!

Yeah, doesn't it drive you nuts when people can't even be bothered to read the question properly. I expect better of customer service from Virgin....[:#]

[mitchja]

I have also found the quality of email responses has gone way down recently as well, so much so I actually mentioned it to customer relations. Many response are clearly now just 'copied and pasted' standard script responses with to thought or effort going into them what so ever.

My guess is it's down to everybodies favorite - outsourcing?

Te be honest now, I dont email VS unless I really have to anymore as it's a waste of my time.

Regards

My guess is it's down to everybodies favorite - outsourcing?

Correct, got it in one.

Personally for me, whatever company it is, emailing and customer service do not go hand in hand.

A phone call is always far better.

Originally posted by lilyjosh0
It would be useful if there was a link on the website for an email address to the premier team (maybe there is and I've missed it)as I'm sure you would get a better response from them.

I suspect you are right about getting a better response. Unfortunately reports here seem to indicate a great difference between the premier team and customer service.

However, the reason that there are no contact details for the premier team is that it is very much dedicated to serving VS's most frequent flyers. If the floodgates were opened to all, then they would very quickly cease to be the premier team and loose their ability to offer a really good service. That is, of course, no excuse for poor customer service, cut and paste communications and boilerplate responses in other departments.

I agree, Lipstick.

When I emailed customer service last month re queries about flying in the later stages of pregnancy I too received a standard email reply which did not answer my question at all. It seems that they take one word from your enquiry and select the most appropriate pre-scripted response!

I then rang them and, when I managed to get through, achieved a more satisfatory response.

Frustrating that they cannot adopt a more personalised response though. I'm sure that the queries we have are not beyond that!

Laluna

Welcome to the site Laluna.

If you phone then you'll get through to someone at Head Office in Crawley, if you write then there is a chance that your enquiry will be replied to from India as that is where a large number (I don't think it's all) of the correspondence are now dealt with.

I finally got a reply to my gripe about the seat pitch lottery in Y, but as seems common, it didn't actually address my query, just a standard response.

so I replied back and told them they hadn't answered my question, and they replied that it would be sent on to a customer relations "executive"... I'm still waiting.

I have been having problems with e-mailing. I booked a flight to JNB on the flying club help line and at the same time for a BA (I know!) connecting flight to Cape Town. When I e-mailed customer services to ask them why I hadn't yet been chrged for the connecting flights they just replied with the details of my Virgin flight. I replied back and got told to ring the Flying Club! Now when i have rang the helpline they have been brilliant but I cant get through to it now - I am at least 10minutes on hold. Anyone know the best time to call?

Originally posted by sailor99

Originally posted by lilyjosh0
It would be useful if there was a link on the website for an email address to the premier team (maybe there is and I've missed it)as I'm sure you would get a better response from them.

I suspect you are right about getting a better response. Unfortunately reports here seem to indicate a great difference between the premier team and customer service.

However, the reason that there are no contact details for the premier team is that it is very much dedicated to serving VS's most frequent flyers. If the floodgates were opened to all, then they would very quickly cease to be the premier team and loose their ability to offer a really good service. That is, of course, no excuse for poor customer service, cut and paste communications and boilerplate responses in other departments.

Fair point Jeremy, but that no way excuses poor service elsewhere. Without wanting to sound racist in any way, isn't this a common problem with outsourcing? Yes, they speak English but sadly not always the same and they often completely fail to grasp what you're talking about.

Originally posted by GrinningJackanapes
Were we still avoiding publishing verbatim responses from CS? I appreciate the insight, personally, but recall being counseled (ahem) for doing so in the past.

I seem to remember that that was only about posting verbatim complaint emails before VS had had chance to respond. Besides, wasn't that BransonDisciple.....?

Cheers

Michael