Watchdog slams complaints procedure

Watchdog slams complaints procedure

THEBBC’s consumer champion, Weekend Watchdog, told the industry to get its act together and start handling complaints more effectively.

The programme’s editor Mark Killick, as exclusively revealed in Travel Weekly last week, said operators should stop dishing out vouchers as a way of compensating clients and that payments should be made more quickly.

Speaking at the ABTA convention in Kos, Killick described vouchers as the “devil’s work” and said travel was the “second-most hated industry” with viewers.

He said: “It takes five letters to be offered vouchers. People don’t like vouchers. It must be blindingly obvious. They don’t like the fact they are effectively being asked to pay more to the operator to resolve their problem.

However, Airtours head of legal Andy Cooper stressed that clients are happy with vouchers and denied the operator was waging a war of attrition on customers.

Killick added that reps appear more interested in selling trips than sorting out problems, while building work remains the number-one source of misery for customers.