A friend of mine who took a flight lately with 5J shared this shocking story. While they were waiting for the flight to be cleared for take off, one of the ground personnel had a chat with the flight stewardess. The funny thing is that the Cebu Pacific stewardess proudly said "The Manila hub is always delayed. If not 2 hours sometimes 5 hours." Lesson of the story? If you're okey that your flight will be delayed-you may fly with them. But if not-CHOOSE ANOTHER AIRLINE.
I'm sharing this information to let you know that Cebu Pacific is not doing a good job in accomodating passengers that will eventually miss their connecting flight. If you plan to fly with them, allow at least 5 to 10 hours of connecting time. Not to mention the change of terminal that you'll endure (if you fly in/out with another carrier). Take note that they will not shoulder the cost of your of missed flights so that means that you need to shell out more money and it defeats the reason why you're flying with a low cost carrier because you wanted to save but the truth is you're paying more. And they have limited routes and frequencies so it's going tough when you missed a flight with them especially now that our country is expecting high volumes of passengers coming into the Philippines.
More often than not Cebu Pacific often use "Kasi Low Cost Carrier lang kami" to cover up their poor customer service. I can't imagine how OVERUSED that word IS. Why can't they just learn from their mistakes and do something better next time they fly. As I read from the news online Candice Iyog (VP for Operations) always been reading & reviewing the blogs online and they'll get some feedbacks about their services from the passengers. If she happens to cross this site of mine here are my suggestion to her: 1. FASTER REFUND PROCESS. Online booking is a key factor in the success of 5J in getting more passengers to fly with them. Credit card (and soon they'll accept Bancnet ATM) is accepted in completing a booking online and come the time when the passenger needed to cancel the booking they would have to wait from 5months to 8 months or even a year to get their refunds. That's RIDICULOUS. I suggest they speed up the refund process to as little as 2 weeks. That will make their passengers more confident and purchase more tickets in the future. 2.EXCELLENT INFORMATION DISSEMINATION. When they know that a certain flight will be delayed they should do a good job in informing their passengers. If it's pre-travel they should email, text or call to notify them ahead of time. If it's on the actual day itself they should notify them about it in real time and let the passengers know of their new departure time. They should be ready to offer reprotection in cases where a certain passenger may miss her/his connecting flight. Station a DUTY MANAGER or SUPERVISORS which VISIBLE, HELPFUL & RELIABLE. 3.IMPROVE CALL CENTER SERVICE. I don't really like calling their call centers in CEBU or MANILA. Some of their agents are rude and doesn't even know what they're doing. Some of them often disconnects the caller if they don't know what to do. One time I ask for a supervisor and waited for 3 hours but no one dare to take over the call. It was so frustrating. My suggestion is for them to have a Zagat survey related to customer satisfaction on their offices and on their flights. In that way they can keep track of how efficient they are and how can they improve their services month after month. Put more supervisors too 24 hours a day. Or better yet set-up a customer relations department and empower them to make decision to keep customer loyalty & satisfaction as high as possible. 4.ONLINE SUPPORT & FEEDBACK FORM. I'm not really confident about their online support and feedback form. I file a complaint once and the system told me that they'll call me back within 1 week after they got my mailing address, email and cell number. But it's almost 1 month now but no one reached out to me from 5j. My suggestion is to put more people on that line of service to attend the needs and query of the passengers. 5.MAINTAIN THAT LOW FARE. Philippine Airlines is about to beat them in the pricing game. PAL has lowered it's rates significantly to match the existing fare of 5J and even offer snacks on board, bigger planes, free seat assignments and a 20 kg baggage allowance. But I'm challenging them to beat the customer's expectations by even lowering their prices but still offers a world class customer service all the time.
More often than not Cebu Pacific often use "Kasi Low Cost Carrier lang kami" to cover up their poor customer service. I can't imagine how OVERUSED that word IS. Why can't they just learn from their mistakes and do something better next time they fly. As I read from the news online Candice Iyog (VP for Operations) always been reading & reviewing the blogs online and they'll get some feedbacks about their services from the passengers. If she happens to cross this site of mine here are my suggestion to her:
1. FASTER REFUND PROCESS. Online booking is a key factor in the success of 5J in getting more passengers to fly with them. Credit card (and soon they'll accept Bancnet ATM) is accepted in completing a booking online and come the time when the passenger needed to cancel the booking they would have to wait from 5months to 8 months or even a year to get their refunds. That's RIDICULOUS. I suggest they speed up the refund process to as little as 2 weeks. That will make their passengers more confident and purchase more tickets in the future.
2.EXCELLENT INFORMATION DISSEMINATION. When they know that a certain flight will be delayed they should do a good job in informing their passengers. If it's pre-travel they should email, text or call to notify them ahead of time. If it's on the actual day itself they should notify them about it in real time and let the passengers know of their new departure time. They should be ready to offer reprotection in cases where a certain passenger may miss her/his connecting flight. Station a DUTY MANAGER or SUPERVISORS which VISIBLE, HELPFUL & RELIABLE.
3.IMPROVE CALL CENTER SERVICE. I don't really like calling their call centers in CEBU or MANILA. Some of their agents are rude and doesn't even know what they're doing. Some of them often disconnects the caller if they don't know what to do. One time I ask for a supervisor and waited for 3 hours but no one dare to take over the call. It was so frustrating. My suggestion is for them to have a Zagat survey related to customer satisfaction on their offices and on their flights. In that way they can keep track of how efficient they are and how can they improve their services month after month. Put more supervisors too 24 hours a day. Or better yet set-up a customer relations department and empower them to make decision to keep customer loyalty & satisfaction as high as possible.
4.ONLINE SUPPORT & FEEDBACK FORM. I'm not really confident about their online support and feedback form. I file a complaint once and the system told me that they'll call me back within 1 week after they got my mailing address, email and cell number. But it's almost 1 month now but no one reached out to me from 5j. My suggestion is to put more people on that line of service to attend the needs and query of the passengers.
5.MAINTAIN THAT LOW FARE. Philippine Airlines is about to beat them in the pricing game. PAL has lowered it's rates significantly to match the existing fare of 5J and even offer snacks on board, bigger planes, free seat assignments and a 20 kg baggage allowance. But I'm challenging them to beat the customer's expectations by even lowering their prices but still offers a world class customer service all the time.
