BA Survey - Are they waking up?
 

Have just been sent a survey by BA considerably more detailed than the usual ones. Basically asks why I am not flying them anymore and how I view them. Takes about 20 minutes to complete. Unusually for surveys of this sort, it seems to welcome hard truths and asks for detail:

- How do you view BA (response from 'I love them' to 'I hate them')
- BA is well managed? (response from 'totally agree' to 'what are you smoking?')

I'm paraphrasing only slightly. Is there some fairly advance navel gazing going on or is this just the usual window dressing?

The one I loved was 'BA will always be a full service airline'. Right. And they are now retrofitting the same seats short haul seats as Easy have used for years, on the same seat spacing. The only thing remaining is the hand baggage allowance, which will have to go since they are already struggling with the current seat spacing.

Willie Walsh needs to take a hard look at the BA top management and their cost cutting, particularly in premium.

Was quite surprised to receive a survey that didn't just give me fixed options between "we're brilliant" and "we're good but could be better". Will anything really change? I suspect the messenger will be shot and a few deck chairs will be shuffled around. :ugh:

I wrote to BA about 6 weeks ago with a potential security issue. No reply, escalated it-no reply, escalated to Sr Cruz office., no reply so now I will send it to CAA since it was fairly serious (mis matches of pax and baggage details on reservations system which i do not think is supposed to happen). So BA clearly just do not care about anything except money (check out the extortionate seat reservation fees on long haul and why is it different to short haul anyway).

Compare with BT where I had an issue mishandled by customer service staff, wrote to Chairmans office and two days later got a call from someone who sorted it all out and gave me £25 as a gesture of goodwill.

BA are falling badly behind, especially in J which is really dated and ludicrously cramped and cannot rely on Avios hoarding business pax for ever

Reduced revenues = reduced bonuses. That is the only thing they care about these days.

Surveys like this are to pat themselves on the back and ignore their unhappy customers.

I sent them a query about a forthcoming flight and the response couldn't have been better, have also done the survey, lets hope things are on the up.

Up to a €100 per person per flight to choose my business class seat or €75 if I go in the 8 across section. No Thanks. I'll fly with someone else who gives me free seat selection, is cheaper and has 4 across in business!

They have not responded to negative views from the slf in the last few years and I am sure this will not change with the current lords and masters. Filling in those surveys shows the triumph of Hope over Experience. (A bit like being a fan of Newcastle football club)

Charging people to choose their seat in business class is simply beyond the beyond.

As ever, BA's bright new ideas seem to be defeated by poor execution....

I was amused to be offered the opportunity to choose in advance a meal on a premium economy long-haul flight later this week; not a huge benefit, as they say you can always choose after boarding. I guess it guarantees the meal of your choice, and also avoids a lot of waste for BA, so no harm done.

The choice was of the main course only, from 2 options only.

However, when I tried to save the choice, I got a response advising that BA are unable to handle the request. The option on the return flight is not available at all, but I'm sure that this is because it's a red-eye back to LHR with no full meals.

It's a truism that the more you try to give people something extra, the more you give them to moan about. I do recognise that this is what I'm doing, when I would never have dreamed of complaining about not being able to pre-select a meal. But BA never seem to learn that it's best, when offering a new and better service, to ensure that it is delivered nicely.


Postscript..... When I went back to try again with the meal order, I found that the original order had been saved, in spite of the response saying it couldn't be done!

Two years ago, when using SQ (LHR~SIN~SYD) in P.E., they offered a wider choice of meals for pre-order and they were served correctly for all four sectors of the trip. But, to be fair, the VS P.E. offer and execution is also falling behind.

"However, when I tried to save the choice, I got a response advising that BA are unable to handle the request. The option on the return flight is not available at all, but I'm sure that this is because it's a red-eye back to LHR with no full meals. "
It was all working when I left [honest]. Years back I worked on some of BA's Orders Data Store, which was their much cheaper copy of the Amadeus system. Was hired as a developer [computer programmer], but then everything was outsourced.
The system was complex (and a bit nasty), and the airline business required a lot of domain knowledge, so it's no surprise to me that they have been and still are struggling to provide a half decient service since everything has been outsourced.
Sadly the senior managers just viewed IT as a "cost" to be reduced, with no vison of the future.

I did my own "BA Survey" - the day after they said "we are not extending your contract at the end of this month", I never went back. I was a self employed contractor, so did not really need to give much [any] notice. I'll normally be happy to do a "hand over", but did not like the way the managers were behaving. Don't think I'll ever fly BA unless I really, really need to.

Aren't these surveys self fulfilling ? We know what you want but even armed with that fact we take more monies from you, your getting no more! We as the consumer have much to answer for as we demand cheaper costs on everything!

Not posted on Pprune for about 6 years but an infrequent visitor these days.
Was asked recently to fill in a survey from BA following a return business class journey.
I'd paid for J class as these days I prefer to stretch and try to sleep (yeah) on long distance flights. I was travelling via HKG to LHR starting and finishing at POM, transferring HKG each way. (yeah I'm based in POM and I signed my contract, I needed a job, and it's my fault) HKG-LHR flight was fine, but service not what I come to expect from BA, business class seat/bed not as comfortable or as spacious as I would have liked. I was asked at the transfer desk in HKG if I'd like to upgrade to first for I think HKD 8,000. Took me 20 seconds to decide no. I'd already paid once for an upgrade. Return journey was worse from the start. At check in I was informed that I'd have to pass through immigration and customs in HKG, recover my bags and check in again for my flight to POM. Why I asked. We don't do transfers of baggage anymore. News to me! Fobbed off with an excuse that it was policy of the airline. You accepted my bags on the outward journey I told them. Nothing to do with us I was told. I was pretty peed off I can tell you. The flight not as good as inward, Staff quite abrupt. There was a time when you were called by your name on BA. HKG arrival on time but the added hassle of immigration, baggage, customs, finding my way through a strange (for me) airport. Finding the check in desk, and checking in again was extra stress I didn't want after a very long days journey to Heathrow in the first place.
OK when it came to the survey. I roasted BA. Basically told them what I have said here bit in more detail. Satisfaction rating 1 out of 10. Any reaction? You're correct. ZILCH. Told them I have options when I want to fly. BA has struck themselves off my list.
I'm planning another journey from POM to the UK in June/July. I'll never give beardy Branson any of my cash, so if I go HKG then I'll use Cathay. If I go SIN then Singapore Airlines will get my cash. Unfortunately the Japs don't fly from Narita to LHR so that rules out that route.
I hear so much bad about BA these days. It's sad as I have so many happy memories. BA are charging extras, Business class seat choices; pay for food and drink and pre-order on some routes; Squeezing the seats; refusing to transfer baggage. Not reacting to poor surveys from disgruntled PAX. Piss poor attitudes from a supplier lead to piss poor attitudes from those how pay for your piss poor service.

I don't think any company replies/responds to surveys. They people do the survey just amalgamate all the data and then tell the mucky mucks what they want to hear. If you are not happy then find another way (good luck) of conveying your thoughts.

Will NEVER fly BA again after the way I was treated in having to cancel my flights due having to have an urgent operation which precluded me from flying for 6 weeks.They gave me the taxes back but not Avios points ( I used them to upgrade) nor the cost of booking seats.I eventually ,after a faceless communication via e mail ( no reply allowed) got a refund on the seat allocation. All I wanted was a "credit" against future flights rather than hard cash but no joy. This happened 18 months ago and to date they have lost £8760 of revenue from me.

TG do. Got a response from their Customer Services Director just a few weeks ago after being handed a survey form on board.

Many companies fail to realize that surveys are only step one - it's what you do with the survey that matters.
Many years ago, I had a lousy supervisory at Boeing - fantastic engineer but was promoted to supervision (basically Peter Principle in action). At the time Boeing had started doing "360" reviews - basically not only did the person you reported to review your performance, you got to review his/hers performance. Almost to a person, we slammed our supervisor in the 360 review (at least in theory the 360 of your supervisor was supposed to be anonymous).
When the results came out, our supervisor got real quiet for a while, but finally called a group meeting to discuss the results of the 360 survey.
He spent a one hour meeting explaining why none of our criticism were valid. :ugh:

Response or lack of
 

Have twice been asked to fill in a survey on flights that went pear shaped. Considering I provided them as requested the very least I expected was an acknowledgment of my effort even if they didn’t agree to my inputs. Nope nothing heard….listening out.
Will not bother doing that again....

The "how did we do?" or "how are we doing?" survey strategy is in use in all sectors these days, and I for one have become so fed up with filling out this and the other Surveymonkey questionnaire for everything from transport to spectacles, though car servicing that i have just ceased to fill them in, UNLESS I have been pee'd off with the service I got.

That makes them absolutely useless as business tools, and are useful only as a means of ticking a box in their quality assurance system / policy.