Strong views on topical issues
Crazy Customer Service with Jet2.com
23May2008 Filed under: Crazy Customer Service Author: JTI have recently been contacted by one of my readers to discuss the incompetence of one of the UK’s cheap and cheerful airlines.
The airline in question is Jet2.com and the shocking way they handle their customers via the telephone customer service system. After looking carefully at my reader’s email I have investigated what Jet2.com is doing to upset their customers and written some hard hitting facts below:
Firstly, if you want to call their customer service team you are being billed at 10p per minute. The first thing that happens is you hear a pre-recorded message which bleats on for over 1 minute about other telephone options you could call. HANG ON! I thought my reader rang to speak to someone in customer service and didn’t need to know the inner works of Jet2.com’s internal telephone interchange. To cut a long story short my poor reader (and after a call to Jet2.com is quite literally poor) was ringing to report he couldn’t book a flight because their website was having technical difficulties. If you expect they helped him book a flight over the phone you would be wrong, they in fact asked him to call back in 30minutes. Apparently there could be a 30 minute delay in receiving an order from the website. 1 hour later my reader rang back to be told that the website payment gateway was broken and would have to try the website again later.
I think Jet2.com’s initial customer service message should say:
“This call has already cost you 15p and we hope to keep you on hold for at least another 50p. Your call will probably not be answered to your satisfaction as we employ an India Call Centre and most likely you will be asked to call back later. We are hoping to make about £3 from you during this process. “
They also have another customer service number, which from what I can tell by cutting through the nonsense these companies put on their websites is an English speaking customer service line. But wait for it, there must be something in the small print! Ah yes, they will charge you 50p per minute to speak to someone in the UK who is most likely not over 3000miles away. I know, I know madness; why would a company want to deal with their customers in the UK!!
JT’s Judgment of Jet2.com: “Complete incompetence! Bring call centre’s back to the UK and stop thinking with your wallet!”
I seem to be shocked that it costs more to speak to someone in India than the UK! What does the rest of the world think?
4 Responses to “Crazy Customer Service with Jet2.com”
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About JT
JT is an entrepreneur from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK who is keen to voice his opinions about things that upset him on a daily basis during the process of running his businesses. If you’re looking for someone to discuss and host debate about topical issues that are annoying you please feel free to get in touch and propose a topic for the blog.
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d.a.page
June 19th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Recently I had a bad experience withJET2.I was on holiday in France ,I was taken ill so I rearranged my return flight 2 days earlier than originally planned.They charged me £116 for this ,the original outward and return cost was £127,so they were charging me almost double the original cost simply to return 2 days early.Both the outward and return journeys were only about 80% full and the flight that I originally intended to return on was also partly empty so they could not claim that they suffered any loss by me re-booking.They called this charge an ‘uplift’ .I didn’t feel uplifted by this but it did uplift their profits ,perhaps this is why they chose this word.The true cost to them to bring me back 2 days early was negligible as when I did the re-booking online the computer programme accepted it instantly so there was nothing for their staff to do.They took advantage of me because I was desperate to return early due to illness if I hadn’t been ill I would not have accepted this charge but I had no option.
In your website there is mention of the Indian call centre rip-off,I had the same problem ,when I returned home I tried to complain to them by phone .I got the usual Indian guy that most british companies use these days,I couldn’t understand him and he couldn’t understand me so he put me through to another department but the phone was ringing for ages without being answered .So much for customer service ,more like customer rip-off.
admin
June 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Thank you for sharing your experience so hopefully others can avoid the total mayhem caused by Jet2.
I don’t know how these companies feel they are giving a good customer service experience.
Gill
February 7th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I totally agree with you re Jet2.com! The worst airline I have travelled with. They are a bunch of cowboys. It started with the booking. We were three travellers and when we tried to book together, the price per seat was £20 more each (before the added percentage for just paying), than if we booked seperately but added to their ’shopping cart’, which is what we did obviously. Our flights were Edinburgh to Chambery. We were late both ways, and they lied to us about the reasons (airport said it was due to the plane being cleaned, which it hadn’t been, and pilot said it was due to the ground staff not providing bus to get us to the plane - someone is telling lies!!). When we arrived in Chambery, we had all our luggage except our snowboard bag, in common with many others on the flight. There was no announcement and we waited in the chaos of the airport with no information being given until someone went and asked at the airport information desk. They advised the bags had been left behind. Considering they knew this on the plane, they could at least have told us! We received a letter from jet2 advising they did not deliver on to to your resort if the luggage was delayed. They also advised they would phone us when it arrived and we were free to collect it then. We searched for their representative in the airport and even put out a tannoy for them. After 2 hours, she appeared and was the most unhelpful rep I have ever met. She advised that it was in the small print that there was nothing we could do to get our stuff delivered, despite the fact it would cost several hundred euros to come back and pick the bag up, not to mention the time out our skiing holiday! She refused to give us a customer service number, and said there wasn’t one, and that even she didn’t have one - a lie, since I found one on their web site. No one from Jet2 phoned us, and we only found out our bag had arrived because we kept phoning Chambery airport and it appeared a couple of days later. I have read through all the terms and conditions now and I cant find any clause saying they dont deliver baggage that is delayed by them. Oh, and when we asked the reason for the delay, we got a story about it being something to do with the weather conditions, so they didn’t put all the luggage on, yet other flights from Glasgow to Chambery arriving at the same time seemed to manage it! Dont book with them, let them go under in the the credit crunch.
JT
February 19th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I agree Chambery in particular is a nightmare! I fly regularly into Chambery when I go skiing but quite often I’m faced with long delays in taking off due to fog or problems with luggage on arrival. Thanks for the post.