Complaint Rating:

Company information:
AirAsia
Malaysia
airasia.com

Have you ever call up to AirAsia customer service hotline? What do you think about the customer service hotline? For me, it's totally a pain to call them up. Why is it so? I recently made a call to the customer service hotline to change my flight to a later date. First when I was connected, I get a recorded message that last 30 seconds which is not able to skip by pressing any number. After making the right way into speaking to a customer service representative, I was put on the line for more than 20 minutes for listening to their annoying music and machine recorded voice:

"Thank you for wating. All our customer service representatives are currently busy. Please continues to hold or feels free to call back us later."

Oh! That's great. I was paying expensive call charges to listen to that annoying music and machine recorded answer and in the end I get nothing. I didn't even had a chance to speak to any of their customer representative(s). Representative(s)? I don't think there are many of them. Else I won't end up waiting for more than 20 minutes for a chance to speak to them.

I've tried another 3 times of calling the customer service hotline after the first call. I wasn't able to speak to anyone again this time. That's more than 30 minutes of waiting in total. Now, I'm trying to call them everyday see if anyone answer my call. Suprisingly, no one is actually answering. This time I'm wondering whether they have any customer representative in the call center. I even tried to call them just now in the early morning 8am so that I can be served faster. But, still, the same waiting. I think it's around 1 hour of waiting in total and I didn't even has a chance to speak to a real human. It's dissapointing me.

In my opinion, customer service hotline should always be provided for free. Even it is charged, customer enquiry should be processed in a faster manner. I don't think we deserve the wait for more than 20 minutes and paying the freaking expensive call charges. Providing a free of calling charges customer service hotline should be the right way to do. Company paying for the call charges will always ensure customer enquiries being processed fast. I was thinking whether AirAsia is earning from the call charges to pay for their representatives. Else why do they want to keep us on the line for such a long time? Give me a good reason.

Is this a joke, Tony?

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From: Tony Fernandes <airasia@fly.airasia.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 7:33 PM
Subject: Staying True to Our Promises

Dear AirAsia Guests,

AIRASIA AND SCICOM JOIN FORCES IN ESTABLISHING A WORLD CLASS CONTACT CENTRE-
ASIAN CONTACT CENTRES SDN BHD

When I wrote to you a few months back, I shared your frustrations over our Call Centre service. I couldn't agree more - as the World's Best Low Cost Airline, AirAsia's Call Centre too should be world class.

Now I am pleased to present to you Asian Contact Centres Sdn Bhd, our integrated Call Centre for all our country operations - Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and the UK. Operations will soon expand to serve guests in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, the Middle East and India. I am sure you have experienced significant improvements in our Call Centre service since it started operations on 16 February 2009.

Asian Call Centres Sdn Bhd is a landmark collaboration between AirAsia and Scicom (MSC) Berhad, a regional industry leader in customer contact management services. With Scicom's multiple contact centres in Asia, serving customers and clients from over 40 countries and in over 40 languages, Asian Contact Centres Sdn Bhd is able to meet your expectations and ensure your booking needs, and enquiries are efficiently attended to.

We are very glad that with Asian Contact Centres Sdn Bhd we are now able to handle 5 million transactions a year in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese and Bahasa Indonesia.

Malaysia +603 2171 9333 (Booking)
+603 2171 9222 (Inquiry)
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+8)
Thailand +66 2 515 9999
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+7)
Indonesia +62 21 50 50 50 88
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+7)
Singapore +65 630 77688
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+8)
China +95013 9000 0200
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+8)
United Kingdom +44 845 605 3333
Operates 24 Hours, Daily
Australia 1300 760 330
Operating Hours : 10am – 11pm (GMT+10)
Others +603 2171 9333 (Booking)
+603 2171 9222 (Inquiry)
Operating Hours : 8am - 9pm (GMT+8)

On another note, we would like to encourage you to continue visiting our website www.airasia.com where you not only enjoy our low fares but also manage your bookings on your own and obtain vast information on our routes and destinations.

Thank you for flying AirAsia and for making us the 2009 World's Best Low Cost Airline*.


Best regards,
Tony Fernandes

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