She heads a team of 11 reservation agents, including four part-timers, and a six-strong customer-service department which looks after queries once a booking is made, such as changing dates or collection points and upgrades.
The reservations staff work shifts in three teams to ensure the call centre is manned at the busiest times of day – lunchtime and from 4pm to 7pm.
Pascall said:”The average wait for agents is 20 seconds. Anything over that is too long.”
Once a travel agent is through to a reservations agent, it takes on average 3mins to make a booking, although it can be faster for regular callers who know what information is required.
At peak times the calls come back to back. “Our busiest month this year was June, when the staff handled some 15,900 calls, with just under 800 on very busy days,” said Pascall.
“My ideal is for each person to handle 80 calls a day. Thus they can give a quality service.”
Reservations staff must complete four weeks’ product and system training, followed by an exam in which they must achieve 90% before they are allowed to talk to customers.
In winter there is time for staff to go on other courses to develop sales skills and learn how to deal with difficult customers – about 10% of calls are direct bookings. Team competitions are organised to keep staff motivated and incentivise travel agents. The current ‘Grand Prix’ challenge sees travel agents advancing one square around a board game every time they make a viewdata booking, with a prize at the end for the winner.
Suncars’ staff have a different challenge each day, such as moving one square when they make a Gold booking – the top rental package in the US. “We are not into hard-sell but we like to encourage staff and it is fun,” said Pascall.
THERE’s a lot of information to handle if you work for SuncarsÊ- just looking at a Suncars reservation agents’ manual on their desks makes the London telephone directory look thin.
The manual supplies contract information for every country Suncars operates in – the supplier, minimum and maximum age, rules on extra drivers, any additional charges and car types.
Reservation manager Sandra Pascall said: “When I started in car rental, I never realised there was so much to learn.”
She heads a team of 11 reservation agents, including four part-timers, and a six-strong customer-service department which looks after queries once a booking is made, such as changing dates or collection points and upgrades.
The reservations staff work shifts in three teams to ensure the call centre is manned at the busiest times of day – lunchtime and from 4pm to 7pm.
Pascall said:”The average wait for agents is 20 seconds. Anything over that is too long.”
Once a travel agent is through to a reservations agent, it takes on average 3mins to make a booking, although it can be faster for regular callers who know what information is required.
At peak times the calls come back to back. “Our busiest month this year was June, when the staff handled some 15,900 calls, with just under 800 on very busy days,” said Pascall.
“My ideal is for each person to handle 80 calls a day. Thus they can give a quality service.”
Reservations staff must complete four weeks’ product and system training, followed by an exam in which they must achieve 90% before they are allowed to talk to customers.
In winter there is time for staff to go on other courses to develop sales skills and learn how to deal with difficult customers – about 10% of calls are direct bookings. Team competitions are organised to keep staff motivated and incentivise travel agents. The current ‘Grand Prix’ challenge sees travel agents advancing one square around a board game every time they make a viewdata booking, with a prize at the end for the winner.
Suncars’ staff have a different challenge each day, such as moving one square when they make a Gold booking – the top rental package in the US. “We are not into hard-sell but we like to encourage staff and it is fun,” said Pascall.