FRENCH Life has told agents there will be no repeat of the telephone jam which plagued last January’s peak-booking period.
The operator said 80 additional telesales staff, recruited over the past few months, will help ease the strain on the system.
Speaking at the launch of its 2000 brochure, group business development manager David Stamp said: “We recognised there were problems and knew we had to improve things.
“It takes quite a while to train new staff as agents expect a specialist like ourselves to have that extra bit of knowledge and expertise. But they are all now fully trained which should ensure there is no repeat of the log jam which agents experienced last year.”
Stamp said the system will need to work smoothly as capacity has been expanded by 30% in 2000, with developments in all accommodation areas; he refused to reveal capacity figures.
The villa with pool options have doubled to 150 following strong sales this year.
The lead-in price for a villa is £187 for seven nights at Draguignan on the French Riviera.
Low-season bookings are ahead of last year largely due to the release of a preview brochure.
“We issued a number of early-booking offers for the off-season months,” said Stamp. “We felt we needed to shift some of the capacity.”
New for 2000 are full-day kids’ couriers which are being trialled at three sites, which replace the traditional morning and afternoon sessions.