In these days of ever-increasing discounting and ever-diminishing margins, we all have a responsibility to our employers to protect what we can of our humble profit margins.
As an independent travel agent, we are acutely aware of this responsibility, and therefore tend, on preference, to work with those operators who not only pay us adequate commission but who are efficient too, thus saving us valuable time and money. Up until today I had always thoughtAirtours was one such company.
However, Ihad to ring their services department regarding one of our bookings. The value of the booking was quite low, but regardless of that fact, I was kept on hold, listening to music so I was paying for the call for 47mins. I did find out that theaverage time agents were queuing for was 636seconds – which is just under 11mins, so where does this average come from?
Another dig into our meagre ration also came from Airtours. A client came in waving a holiday voucher for a discount off one of the said company’s holidays.
We duly booked the required holiday but as it was a late booking, I contacted Airtours to give them the voucher reference and ensure the £100 did not come off our direct-debit statement.
But surprise, surprise, there was a backlogprocessing these vouchers, so the amount would come off our bank account, but never fear, it would be credited a couple of weeks or so later.
Imagine this happening at various agencies up and down the country – what potential interest might be made throughout the year!
Perhaps the travel trade can arrange two special awards – one of the longest telephone queueing time, and another for the most unusual way of taking money.
So come on Airtours, play fair with us, after all we are all in the same game at the end of the day!
Sharon Morley, sales manager, Wickers World Travel, Bodmin, Cornwall