ANYONE who has seen behind the scenes in resort knows that being a holiday rep can be one of the hardest jobs in travel.
Endless administrative tasks, airport delays and long hours are just some of the day-to-day challenges overseas reps face.
But perhaps the greatest challenge is dealing with customer complaints, especially when other duties have prevented the rep from responding immediately, as is so often the case.
Until now learning to juggle these various responsibilities has been part and parcel of a rep’s job.
But operators are beginning to realise there may be a better way of structuring the workload in resort – one that ensures that customers will go home happy.
One of the first companies to act has been Airtours.
When Chris Motteshead became managing director of Airtours, one of his priorities was to take a look at life in resort.
“I started to spend a lot of time overseas, doing property visits, talking to staff overseas and trying to understand the issues. I found that our reps were looking after customers but they were also being diverted by having to deal with hoteliers’ and suppliers’ issues,” said Motteshead.
“Another thing that was diverting their attention was the health-and-safety audits we were asking them to do,” he added.
Seeing how the reps juggled their various tasks, sometimes at the cost of efficiency convinced Motteshead that a major overhaul was needed.
The solution was to divide the role, creating two distinct jobs – one to deal with suppliers, such as hoteliers and ground handlers and one dedicated to the customer.
“We wanted to free up the reps dealing with the customers and make them more visible. Some people never complain in resort, they just wait until they get back to the UK.
“We wanted to make sure that if a client has an issue, there was someone who could resolve it there and then. We don’t want people dwelling on problems. The key thing was to maximise customer service because that would maximise resort income,” said Motteshead.
It was a simple solution to a trick problem, but the impact has been felt already at the three resorts where it was tested this summer: Malaga, Portugal and Florida.
According to Motteshead staff morale has gone up and staff, turnover down. Feeback surveys show that customer satisfaction has also improved.
Long term, Motteshead believes the move will help improve relations with suppliers as supplier reps in resort will have a chance to forge closer relationships with them.
“It will help safeguard our accommodation and build a reputation for ourselves,” he said.
Airtours is not alone in its efforts to create a more efficient system for looking after customer complaints.
When Unijet joint managing director Terry Brown agreed to take part in the BBC’s Back to the Floor series and become a resort rep for the week, the thing that shocked him most was the delay in staff complaint handling.
Bogged down by day-to-day duties, the holiday reps were not able to respond quickly to customer complaints.
In response Unijet split the work in resort between administrative reps and those who concentrate on customer care.
Similarly, from next year, Thomson will have two types of employee working in resort – the holiday planner who will perform the traditional rep role, advising holiday makers, selling excursions and ensuring they get the most out of their holiday, and the holiday services manager, a trouble shooter who will come in and deal with any complaints the planners may not be able to handle.