UPDATE: Grant just confirmed with TAP Portugal on Twitter that this change is only for travel agents, not for passengers. Sorry for the confusion.
A few months ago, I booked my first ever flight on TAP, the Portuguese airline. I called TAP and within a few minutes, I had my seats picked out and assigned. I haven’t taken the flight yet. The whole process was very easy. That’s ALL changed now.
Somehow TAP thinks that they’ll better assist me by NO longer offering telephone support. Strange reasoning, don’t you think? And their new process looks, well, confusing, to say the least. Not only are they not taking phone calls and only handling support through emails, but they have this wildly complicated construct of coding that we have to use in our emails to them. They don’t specify response time, and this whole email process is just ridiculous.
Here’s the full text of the email they sent.
Dear Valued Partner,
As part of our ongoing effort to improve our service to our customers we are implementing a Customer Relationship Management program to better assist you.
As of Thursday, July 27th, all Agency Help Desk assistance will be handled through email only. Telephone assistance will no longer be available so we ask that you submit all requests to tapusa@tap.pt.
In order to provide quick and efficient responses we are providing a list of Keywords which must be included in the Subject Line of your emails. These keywords will help us to quickly identify the problem/question in order to expedite the reply. The keywords may be placed in any part of the subject line.
Keywords:
TKT–For assistance with Ticketing
PNR–For Booking assistance
CKIN–For assistance with Check-in
SSR–For assistance with Requests of Special Services
GENERAL–For assistance with all other subjects not here defined
WAIVE–For name corrections, special refund situations, other requests for exceptions
IRREG–For assistance with Schedule Changes
TKT-24H–For assistance with Issuances or Reissuance within 24-hours of Departure
IRREG-24H–For assistance with Schedule Changes within 24-hours of Departure
When submitting an email to the Agency Help Desk tapusa@tap.pt, you will receive an automatic response acknowledging receipt of your email and providing you with a Case Number. All correspondence related to a specific Case Number must continue on the same email thread. If you generate a new email about the same subject/problem it will be identified as a new case and will delay the process.
We are counting on your cooperation as we implement this new procedure and we will do our best to make this transition as smooth as possible.
Thank you.
Well, let’s just hope I have no problems! And if you have a flight booked on TAP, I hope it all goes smoothly for you too. Has anyone had any experience with this process yet? If you do in the coming months, please let us know how it goes. The more data points on this, the better.
It seems super weird to require customers to learn this coding rather than having a link with some simple pull down options. As to the “improve” aspect, don’t you just love euphemisms? I guess they felt that “enhanced” was overused.
Very funny, Christian. Have an “enhanced” afternoon, and thanks for reading,
If you ever read review of tap in another blog in boardingarea, this issue is no strange at all. No strange as in “don’t even think of flying with them”.
Thanks for the tip, James. Let’s hope it goes well for us. Have a great day!
It says agency help, not customer help. This is for Travel Agents, not customers.
Thanks for the tip, Ruy. We verified your hunch and that indeed is the case. Still, it feels like they are punishing agents. Why bite the hand that feeds you?
I understand but consider that if they are give this type of response to a travel agent and a “partner” in selling of their product. How do you think they will act toward you?
In other words, don’t let the trees get in your way of seeing the forrest. Sometimes, you have to read between the lines to see the story.
The email from TAP is clearly a message with the flavor of: Do this then do this then do this…. and we’ll acknowledge…. but don’t bug us…. or we’ll go slower. Notice they make no mention of when they will reply, but it must be an issue because the following statement is don’t submit multiple email requests. So they are clearly saying “We’ll respond when we respond. ”
In itself, that says a mouthful.
You make good points in your comment. Thank you. It’s been a while since I wrote this post so maybe TAP customer service has improved. We can only hope!
My wife flew on TAP MIA-LIS in business class. The seat was broken and wouldn’t recline which they knew before it arrived. Contacted them via twitter and email. They responded that it would be 60 days for resolution. Looks like they are going to take all 60!
Frustrating. Sorry to hear this. Keep us posted on how they resolve the issue. Thanks, William.
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