Ridiculous Hold Times

Posted Mon March 5, 2012 12:38 pm, by M M. written to United Airlines

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As part of my day to day job duties, I am responsible for booking business travel for my department of 15 people. My travelers often fly via United across the continental United States.

This morning, I had to cancel a reservation that was for travel today due to a medical emergency on behalf of one of my travelers. I attempted to use the online feature to cancel the flight, but was given an error message and instructed to call 1-800-XXX-XXXX for further assistance. I called. I was on hold with that number waiting for any live human whatsoever to answer the phone for 50 minutes.

Thinking that I was lost in the queue, I hung up and called the reservations line at 1-800-XXX-XXXX. I have now been on hold with that line for 1 hour 20 minutes. I know, because my phone has a call timer.

Total hold time spent by me to cancel a reservation: 2 hours 10 minutes.

AND I'M STILL ON HOLD WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO PICK UP THE PHONE!

Staff the call centers with more people. This is ridiculous. After this morning, I will certainly be talking to my travelers about using other carriers.

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Re: Ridiculous Hold Times by MrsMootz Posted Mon March 5, 2012 @ 6:24 PM Also, I know they just completed a merger with Continental this weekend but they knew about this ahead of time for months... and couldn't plan accordingly? Thanks for the info, Bill R. I will look into using those two items in the future. Reply Mrs. Mootz, Your are welcome. BillR. by Bill R. Mon March 5, 2012 @ 6:55 PM planning ahead ... doesn't always mean preparation for every known circumstance by PepperElf Mon March 5, 2012 @ 8:28 PM Hold Times by Bill R. Posted Mon March 5, 2012 @ 5:55 PM M.M., The answer is staffing and the goal should be wait times less than 3 minutes. In the meantime some enterprising folks have come up some apps to side step the issue: http://www.fastcustomer.com/ http://www.lucyphone.com/ BillR. Reply This is the COOLEST thing ever, Bill! by MA Bellamy Mon March 12, 2012 @ 12:10 PM Re: Ridiculous Hold Times by PepperElf Posted Mon March 5, 2012 @ 3:08 PM I don't know but ... I NEVER hang up if I've been waiting a long time. Why? Because calls are often FCFS and by hanging up it means you go back to the end of the queue Reply hold by MrsMootz Mon March 5, 2012 @ 4:19 PM Re: Ridiculous Hold Times by MrsMootz Mon March 5, 2012 @ 1:34 PM was she calling at the same time as you or did she call AFTER you hung up? by PepperElf Mon March 5, 2012 @ 3:10 PM After by MrsMootz Mon March 5, 2012 @ 4:11 PM you said after so you were no longer in queue when the other call got answered by PepperElf Mon March 5, 2012 @ 8:27 PM no... by MrsMootz Posted Mon March 5, 2012 @ 10:24 PM I made call #1 to phone #1 and was on hold 50 minutes. I hung up an I called phone #2 and was in queue for 2 hours, 20 minutes. When I reached the 2 hour mark on call #2, my coworker called the same number. She was picked up after only 20 minutes on hold and my call remained in queue that entire time. We both had our speakerphones on. Her call got picked up before mine did. If it was a FCFS situation, they should have picked up my call before hers. Reply maybe it was a glitch then. at any rate it got answered at least n/t by PepperElf Posted Tue March 6, 2012 @ 8:56 AM Reply Didn't by MrsMootz Tue March 6, 2012 @ 4:41 PM i meant your office by PepperElf Wed March 7, 2012 @ 9:19 AM Good idea by cissy Wed March 7, 2012 @ 12:54 PM