Journal: TWUKSection: Title: Issue Date: 18/09/00Author

It’s all very well to receive complaints when Sunvil has been inefficient but it is quite another when problems have occurred due to factors beyond our control

Noel Josephides

I wonder how many of us tour operators read the following words with monotonous regularity at the bottom of questionnaires and in letters of complaint.

“We had a very good holiday with Sunvil but should you continue to use ‘that airline’ in the future, then we will not travel with you again.”

Little does the customer know that, at some time or another, we get the same comment for every single scheduled or charter airline we use – and we use many. Yes, the customer is exercising their right of veto, trying to put pressure on us to improve our service by threatening not to travel with us again. The trouble is, where do we run to when the airlines are all the same? Every airline can be very good on a good day and very bad on a bad day.

We have seen a steady increase in the number of gripes concerning carriers. This year they outnumber all other complaints.

“My contract is with you, you are, therefore, responsible for ‘that airline’.”

Another phrase which I am sure all of us read with frustration. Can anyone tell me what involvement we, the tour operators, have with baggage handling?

Why are we to blame, or what can we do about it, when a client’s luggage arrives in resort a week late because it’s gone via Hong Kong? Yet it’s us that have to devote time and energy to placating the client, it’s us who spend the money on international phone calls day and night looking for the luggage!

A disgruntled member of the cabin crew of one charter airline recently told me that the airline had cut back by one cabin crew member per flight and they were now under so much pressure they had no time to do their job properly and many were leaving.

“If only we were told why we were waiting.” Another phrase well known to all of us who are involved in customer complaints or should I use the polite form customer relations.

How we all love papering up the cracks with sympathetic sounding phrases. Where airlines are concerned the expression customer care is convenient but meaningless.

Am I being too harsh? Perhaps I am. I know too well how hard it is to make a living in these competitive times. We could all improve our service if we could afford to employ more staff.

The same customer complaining about an airline’s service would be the first to moan if his dividend cheque as that airline’s shareholder was reduced in order to pay for more staff, designed to improve service levels.

It’s the hype that’s the problem. We do not deliver what the customer expects because too much is promised. Airlines are particularly bad at this.

They obviously use the same public relations companies as political parties.

If, as an industry, we lowered customer expectations to the level at which we could meet them, then we would have far fewer problems with our clients. It’s about perception I’m afraid.

What I would like to tell our clients is that we are quite prepared to deal with problems which we have created through Sunvil’s inefficiency. But why, oh why, should our reputation suffer when we have very little choice as to which airlines we can use and all these airlines have offices in the UK which, with widely varying levels of efficiency, can deal with complaints regarding their own services first hand.

“We could all improve our service if we could afford to employ more staff”