Interesting bit about EasyJets 0871 number here in Saturdays Guardian .Good to see this site getting a plug.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/airlines/story/0,,1873289,00.html

Four years ago on Friday night on my way out from Luton to Palma Easyjet first refused to check me in for a flight that I arrived for 38 minutes beforehand after a long wait for an airport car park bus and believing that Easyjet checkins still closed 30 minutes before the flight as they used to before 9/11.  The flight then proceeded to leave an hour late but despite repeated arguments and queuing for their braindead customer service monkeys desk (of the kind you will have seen repeatedly on the tv program Airline) they refused to get me on the flight on the flimsy excuse that the fuel they had on the plane exactly corresponded with the number of passengers at checkin closure.  So I had to get their flight at 4.20am.

Then on the way back on a Monday night (it was only a 3 day break) the return flight from Palma was going to be delayed 14 hours or perhaps more due to their crew being out of flying hours (there was a dispute between the crews and the airline at that time), so instead of getting back to the UK at 11pm that night it would be at least 1pm the next day.  And as I had only taken the Monday off work at very short notice and was in a situation where a new MD was trying to get rid of me and various other longstanding bods who did not act as complete lapdogs I felt I had to get back and so was able to buy a one way flight to Stansted with Airtours leaving at 3am for £89 (it was August so lots of flights in the middle of the night).  Then on getting to Stansted I found a taxi to Luton was £70 and there was no certainty Easyjet would repay this so II had to get a bus service instead that took one and a half hours and got me to Luton at 7.30am.

Knowing from past experience dating back to 1997 that Easyjet almost never replies to any customer email I then went with my baggage and camped in the reception area of Easyland at Luton (Easyjet's then HQ) and refused to leave until I was seen by a senior manager.  Eventually they grudgingly produced the head of the telesales department (their telesales centre was then still important to them and ran 24 hours) who was a nice guy and appreciated how I had been completely messed around and missed a night's sleep and said he gave me his word he would arrange for both outbound and return flights to be refunded to my credit card - a nice gesture as I was only theoretically entitled to the return flight refund as on the outbound flight I was 2 minutes late for checkin.  He also gave me a business card with his own mobile number on it.  Sure enough a few days later my credit card was credited with the full amount.  Also as I booked late this was about £200 so more than covered the £89 I had to pay for the Airtours flight and the £6 for the cross airport coach.

On hearing the horror stories of others here in getting a refund I know I did the right thing and would never ever have got even the return flight refund I was supposedly automatically entitled to without camping out on Easyjets door.

I can't understand why anyone would spend hours on a 60p per minute phone line though only to speak to some of the least skilled customer service workers a any company in the UK.

Instead I would recommend emailing or telephoning Easyjet's Head of PR Toby Nicol on the 01582 phone number listed on P2 of this recent Easyjet Interim financial report to shareholders:-

www.easyjet.com/common/img/easyJetPressReleaseAndACs030506.pdf

Toby Nicol                Corporate Communications                     +44 (0) 1582 525339                toby.nicol@easyjet.com

Or why not email all of their Executive Directors as listed on P.32 of their last Annual Report at:-

www.easyjet.com/common/img/annual_report_2005j.pdf

Their email addresses should be as follows:-

colin.chandler@easyjet.com (Chairman)
andrew.harrison@easyjet.com  (Chief Executive)
jeff.car@easyjet.com         (Group Finance Director)

The Non Executive Directors listed in this document may also have Easyjet email addresses.

Why not send 100 emails to Messrs Harrison, Chandler, Carr and Nicol with Read Receipt requests.  Its an awful lot easier and cheaper than sending a fax repeatedly or calling an 0906 phone line!

Alternative wrote on Sep 24^th, 2006 at 8:24pm:


Dear Alternative,

Whilst I think you might have been entirely correct in your now outdated faith in the fax up to 18 months or two years ago I fear you are living in the past by thinking that it will continue to remain the most effective means of communication going into the future and I forecast that we are probably only 2 to 3 years away from many organisations starting to no longer support fax at all.

When I first became a district councillor in May 1999 fax was white hot councillor communication technology and was the main way very urgent communications about committee meeting agenda changes etc were sent out to councillors.  Indeed each councillor was provided with a fax machine by the council even though the council does not provide a separate phone line, mobile phone, biros, printers or pretty much anything else it can get out of and let the councillors bear the cost of.  I had a council email address in May 1999 but only a very modest number of fellow councilors and senior officers then communicated with me in that way.

However my fax machine had its mains power supply burn out at the start of 2005 and I had only received about one fax on it in the previous year.  I could have got the council to replace it but I didn't bother as I never used it and even certain overseas hire car companies that used to insist on faxing me late booking vouchers also started emailing them a couple of years ago.

Speaking as a district councillor until only very recently you are entirely wrong that trying to send councillors a fax would now get better and more immediate action.  The fact is that most councillors are based entirely at home and have only one phone line they pay for and that the fax was always a royal pain as the auto switch over in conjunction with an answerphone never worked properly most of the time.  Also most of my fellow councillors do not publish a fax number for the public to communicate with them because in general they do not any longer have a permanently switched on fax machine.  The council offices still have a small number of fax machines but they sit in corners of the office gathering dust and are checked irregularly.  Any fax that arrives is a damn nuisance because it cannot immediately be copied to the two or three relevant members of staff for action.  Also even when you could fax me I would find replying to you a real bore because I would have to get my irregularly used printer working (I almost never send a letter to anyone in business and haven't done for 3 or more years) and then use it when my phone line is free.

Unfortunately you are confusing the fact that you correctly do not let yourself be fobbed off by customer service departments and instead insist on going to the CEO or Directors of a company (the correct strategy for any bad customer service) with the fact that you personally only try to communicate with those senior people by fax.  I find that with certain specific exceptions of those companies who have an active policy of total contempt for all customer complaints or feedback (i.e Easyjet and Ryanair) that emails to CEOs are usually highly effective and often reach them directly and immediately, unlike faxes which are generally passed back to customer services departments by their secretary.  A large number of company directors have replied personally to my emails, the last of which was the Chief Operating Officer of Admiral Car Insurance last Wednesday when the company claimed it couldn't come up with my renewal premium only 3 weeks before it falls due, even though I will be out of the country when it actually expires.  And I am talking about emails I am sending as me in my Joe Bloggs hat and not as a Councillor emailing officials in organisations in my councillor capacity.

Sorry Alternative but I'm afraid you will find that in a short period of time the fax like the manually written cheque will no longer be a supported option in dealing with most large UK organisations and will go the same way as the dinosaurs.

The policy of sending a communication by fax 200 times will cost you a lot of money in phone calls and while it may make you feel better it won't get any more action. Send once by email with Read Receipt request then if no reply send again a week or two later copying in perhaps one or two more subordinates.  If finally no action email again threatening escalation to the ombudsman or regulator.

As a councillor I got a lot of emails but I could always spot what needed to be dealt with urgently and ignore the junk mail. If your communication is relevant to the person you have sent it to and something they are responsible for then emailing is likely to get your issue dealt with more rapidly.  For instance with a fax can you get your communication easily to both the CEO and the two or three other directors involved easily or directly - answer no you cannot!

~ Dave: Tidied quote

Alternative wrote on Sep 25^th, 2006 at 5:54pm:


Solicitors are of the course the one place where fax is still king because for contracts etc because the law was changed a few years back so that a fax with a signature on it is a valid form of binding contract in many cirumstances.  Whereas so far the crusty legal profession has not yet evolved its processes enough to replace faxed signatures with user names and PIN codes etc sent via the web.  So I will fully accept that the average solicitor still sends and receives a lot more faxes than other people.

My mother is 71 and used to be a great faxer bit I got her trained to use a PC for emails 7 or 8 years ago (she is a former pharmacist so as a scientist better adapted to technological evolution than the Col Blimps of this world) and she has now given up running a second line specially for fax and only uses it manually very occasionally now using email for nearly everything.

When I was involved in setting up a data collection company in 1997 quite a few companies still sent their data by telex which we could receive electronically by computer and was at least better than fax or handwritten paper if not as good as entry on our website or emailing us an attached computer data file.  But now less than 10 years later nobody uses telex to send this information any more.  Fax wil suffer the same fate - and its already fast dieing out even now.

Unfortunately I am no longer a district councillor having been booted out by a devious Lib Dem opponent who was able to capitalise on the plans of the Conservative County Council to build an incinerator for all of Surrey's waste on a site right next to my village!