Virgin Holidays has stopped directing trade calls to its Indian call centre as part of changes to its agency support to help it exploit an expected post-Olympics bounce.
The change in policy comes amid a number of improvements to the Virgin trade website vhols4agents.co.uk this month.
The operator conceded the Indian call centre had been a bone of contention and the decision to use the UK customer service team would be well received.
Virgin is convinced many holidaymakers still intend to travel this year and that the end of the London Olympics will prompt a rash of bookings.
It said the call centre move would help speed up response times and the quality of its service.
In addition, any agent visiting the vhols4agents trade website will be able to use a new ‘click to chat’ function that will put them in direct contact with the UK customer service team.
From late August the website will also feature a new Agent Service Hub similar to a consumer-facing one introduced on the Virgin Holidays website.
Mark Burns, head of sales operations, said: “These latest initiatives, particularly being able to speak to our UK team, have been put into place to ensure agents are best equipped to sell our holidays.
“Our next peak sale period will capitalise on what we expect to be a post-Olympics bounce – so it was vital to get these functions up and running by then.”