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It seems Sean’s email address has recently changed with the addition of an extra L into it.
It is now SEANL.DOYLE@BA.COM
It seems Sean’s email address has recently changed with the addition of an extra L into it.
It is now SEANL.DOYLE@BA.COM
Quite a revealing move. He’s clearly not interested in directly reading passenger’s views or problems.
I wonder what the L stands for…..
On further investigation, it seems this has been his email address for a while.
Liam
Quite a revealing move. He’s clearly not interested in directly reading passenger’s views or problems.
I wonder what the L stands for…..
So you think he reads his own emails?
People at his level will have two emails – a public one and a private one. And both managed by his support staff.
It seems Sean’s email address has recently changed with the addition of an extra L into it.
It is now SEANL.DOYLE@BA.COM
That email address hasn’t changed in years and obviously isn’t the email address he uses to communicate with colleagues or anyone needing to contact him for important issues. That address is overused to the point where those with serious issues struggle to get heard. It is staffed by an escalations army that really can’t cope, so rubbish is set aside without consideration.
Per recent threads, some think it’s appropriate to contact the CEO about a broken telly (or that BA didn’t jump to it and immediately respond to such trivial complaints) and other relative trivia when far more deserving posters here are out of pocket by thousands of £ they can ill afford.
It is, of course, fine to complain if there is a genuine problem or a statutory compensation claim, but such claims should be made in a considered and proportionate manner if the passenger wants a quick, clean resolution. Those that are a bit smarter get issues resolved remarkably promptly. There’s no one size fits all answer but rushing to the teacher/head/CEO/chairman of the board of governors/Prime Minister etc if you encounter an initial hiccup often isn’t a sensible or effective route.
My daughter used to work for a well known UK tour operator. You’d be amazed how many people complained about the slightest thing to get compensation, or for reasons that were actually false. The problem is staff cannot cope when customers ring, send letters and emails to everyone they can think of from CEO down, often many times a day, let alone weekly or monthly. By continually communicating with everyone from CEO down you are not helping but just slowing down the system for everyone and we’re all having to pay more for our holidays.
Only time I contacted the CEO I had failed to get my downgrade compensation paid after reminding them it was agreed to be paid for about 6 months and this was around 8 years ago.
There’s really no need to contact him unless it’s a serious issue or it’s been many months.
This should be the Andon not your go to modus operandi
So you think he reads his own emails?
😂 IMHO all you do is alienate the people who are actually going to deal with your complaint. I’m not sure the guy running a £12bn company with 45m passengers per year is going to answer your individual email. Well, get your CCR card first 😉
So you think he reads his own emails?
😂 IMHO all you do is alienate the people who are actually going to deal with your complaint. I’m not sure the guy running a £12bn company with 45m passengers per year is going to answer your individual email. Well, get your CCR card first 😉
This is it! The guy is also in charge of around 37,000 employees.
Not only is it inappropriate in most circumstances to write to him or his team, but it seems to display an incredible sense of entitlement and/or self importance that he or his team should get involved with some really very minor complaint. It’s simply not his or his team’s role. It is also, as per @lhar , going to alienate the people who actually have the responsibility for addressing your complaint so they might just mark the file SNOTS, close it and move onto a less irritating case.
It’s also totally counterproductive and you unnecessarily box yourself in per last weeks thread about a broken seat and IFE that might rank a 3 or 4 in terms of seriousness.
In an ideal world, BA’s first line customer service agents would provide timely, sensible and well argued responses to customer complaints. In an even more ideal world, BA would actually deliver a consistently high quality experience, in line with what they advertise when they sell you a ticket, and the number of complaints would be minimal.
Sadly, the reality is neither of the above is true. Responses to complaints are often garbled, related to something else or never arrive. Complaints are arbitrarily closed with zero resolution.
Hence emailing Sean and getting your case in front of the executive complaints team is sometimes the only way to get a sensible person to consider the issue. Sometimes this also isn’t enough and you need to go to CEDR before a truly competent person looks at the issue again and settles.
There is zero repercussions for this for BA whether it’s EU/UK261 related or not, so why bother trying harder I guess – we’re mostly stuck with them anyway…
All Sean will potentially ever see is a weekly/monthly report on contacts, so I really would not worry about “bothering” him.
@PeteM – the point is that using that email, per my experience from outside this site and other posters in the forums in recent days has become fairly redundant in many instances as it is totally over(ab)used so well triaged.
If Sean’s email is your first point of escalation and that team doesn’t respond to a non statutory claim/complaint where do you go next? I’m not so concerned about bothering his office but whether it is any longer an effective or productive route and in fact it has, for minor complaints, become quite counterproductive.
There are considerably more effective gradual escalation routes but if published, those too will become redundant. Of course, in an ideal world the first line agents would deal with your complaint satisfactorily, but the reality for BA and in fact most airlines is that they frequently they don’t and not responding at all or responding with some inanity is absolutely standard. That sheds a good chunk of complaints so the next steps matter.
If one cannot get a sensible and satisfactory outcome from Customer Services within a reasonable amount of time contacting Calum Laming (Chief Customer Officer) is a more appropriate escalation path given he’s overall in charge of the Customer Experience.
If one cannot get a sensible and satisfactory outcome from Customer Services within a reasonable amount of time contacting Calum Laming (Chief Customer Officer) is a more appropriate escalation path given he’s overall in charge of the Customer Experience.
And it’ll end up with exactly the same team as emailing Sean.
If one cannot get a sensible and satisfactory outcome from Customer Services within a reasonable amount of time contacting Calum Laming (Chief Customer Officer) is a more appropriate escalation path given he’s overall in charge of the Customer Experience.
And it’ll end up with exactly the same team as emailing Sean.
Not always the case. They normally have different business managers and teams handling their affairs.
If it’s an issue that needs someone else to resolve they obviously will escalate to the same team for resolution but it’s not always the same path of getting there.
The real horror show stories have an impact the my seat was dirty and I only got offer 5k avios that’s a disgrace or it’s a disgrace I only get brunch on my flight in 6 months time will be file under time waster because frankly they are wasting the c-suites time.
In every customer-facing transport business I have ever worked in, all customer service contacts to directors went to the central exec complaints team because it’s just easier and more consistent. Would be surprised if BA was different, but don’t have any inside knowledge.
The way to get good customer service when giving feedback/making a complaint is to:
– be courteous and kind
– explain specifically what the issue was/is
– explain how you would like it to be resolved, including any compensation request
– be kind and courteousIf you need to escalate it, explain that you are not happy and will take it to CEDR – this will probably get it bumped up for another look. BA have a process – when you try and circumvent the process, you disrupt it and it will take longer.
Remember that cabin crew didn’t forget to load your special meal, didn’t break your flat-bed or IFE, and didn’t clean your seat. So be kind, courteous, and kind. Your journey will be better, and any issues will be resolved quicker.
In every customer-facing transport business I have ever worked in, all customer service contacts to directors went to the central exec complaints team because it’s just easier and more consistent. Would be surprised if BA was different, but don’t have any inside knowledge.
Well yes, but that team is drowning with the huge uplift in complaints of the ‘creased menu’ variety from people who would previously never have dreamed of complaining now being put up to getting onto the compensation train by various sites and people.
There’s now a protective layer of triage that will either just shut down claims or send them back down the original handler.
As @TGLoyalty says, minor complaints that carry no legal or reputational risk from time wasters, those who sound annoyed but not serious and recidivists likely won’t get considered. That seems to be a fairly sensible and pragmatic response to people clogging up the system for people with much more serious complaints which might include those who are out of pocket, people who have suffered any form of injury, abuse or discrimination, complex or particular large complaints etc.
If BA had a published complaints process and if that had timescales they met, then emailing the CEO would be futile. But they don’t and once your complaint enters the black hole it is hard to track or rapidly rejected, often on spurious grounds by whatever piece of AI software they are using this week.
Of course, as stated early in the thread, give front line staff autonomy to act at the first level of complaint, namely on the day and in front of customer, and all this goes away.
A specific example would be BA refusal to reroute outside a narrow range of carriers at times of disruption in line with U.K. 261 requirements.
@Paul – I think you may have missed the issue that is infecting and damaging the system for the average passenger. I think it’s important also to distinguish the type of claim or complaint. Straightforward 261 cancellation/delay claims (with Right to Care as well) have historically and are still settled quickly, particularly when there’s a mass issue like weather.
Rerouting claims are much more subjective and complicated – I know you are a rerouting absolutist, but CEDR and the courts follow the law and are not. BA knows this.
You then have a raft of service complaints – plenty of very genuine, serious cases (although some made in a way damaging to prospects) but a ridiculous number of very frivolous or opportunistic cases which aren’t good for anyone.
You can track cases in the new system.
The facts remain simple – a valid claim made in a sensible way will generally be addressed reasonably quickly and BA often deals with such cases remarkably generously. Others are treated as appropriate.
I think that one should also look at BA’s complaints handling in an airline context. I’m not advocating any race to the bottom but BA looks pretty good vs other European airlines and try complaint to the ME airlines or TK!
@Paul – although it perhaps goes without saying, I should have added that in addition to how one makes a claim, status will impact treatment, class of travel perhaps less so unless it’s First.
The facts remain simple – a valid claim made in a sensible way will generally be addressed reasonably quickly and BA often deals with such cases remarkably generously. Others are treated as appropriate.
See this thread for an example of that – https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/cancelled-flight-today-storm-bert/
Sunday – issue arose
Wednesday – claim made
Today – claim approvedAnd I am a big advocate o keeping claims simple and bare boned. Claims handlers (and bots) aren’t interested in fluff and padding
Genuine question and I agree that the e-mail CEO route isn’t appropriate for a minor problem or something being dealt with (although can be effective when something has badly gone wrong). How can you deal with BA when they refuse to accept a complaint because you haven’t flown but it is impossible to fly as they have changed flights to ones which are unusable and won’t refund or alter them to different ones (which involve a reasonable change of airport) as they can’t offer an alternative that works for me. Getting pushed to the contact us service which is either a phone line that doesn’t get answered or a chat service that is the typical “computer says no” variety. I’m not even bothered about them rebooking me now and just want a refund but they seem to have gone all Ryanair on me
I’m in a similar boat. After their initial response to the claim three months ago, I’ve had nothing further back from BA in spite of chasing. A month ago I decided to submit a SAR for a recording of the call I had with the exec club agent, which has been dutifully ignored by BA. It seems that the advice in this scenario is to then complain about the non-response – the ICO even provide a template letter suggesting this is a frequent occurrence – before waiting another month before you can then complain to the ICO to take action on your behalf
Is there anything to stop one following multiple routes (CE/ADR and/or MCO) simultaneously? In the forlorn hope that one of them will force BA into a response?
@Olly By not reponding within three months, BA have scored very highly in the ‘unreasonable’ category and for every additional calendar day of non-response their unreasonableness score gets higher. This is to your advantage in any dispute.
I let them excavate into a total unreasonable pit over a period of about 20 months before going to CEDR.
I won on a point of ‘reasonable measures’ which wasn’t surprising since it’s evident that behaving unreasonably is what they do.
I’m part of a very small minority that have won EU261 compenastion at CEDR for ‘reasonable measures’ and also obtained EU261 compensation by e mailing the CEO of Vueling in Catalan and Spanish, but the latter was a long time ago before Vueling got their refusenik mantra in place.
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