Travel firms have been urged to rebuild customer trust following the “seismic” impact of the pandemic on the sector.
The call came from the head of the Institute of Customer Service as new research revealed that the number of UK customers experiencing service issues has risen since this time last year.
This came despite customer satisfaction in the travel sector increasing marginally.
The July 2021 UK Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Jet2holidays as the top travel company followed by Premier Inn, Saga Holidays Trivago and Booking.com.
The survey, which tracks the effects of customer service on business performance, found that 13.8% of customers experienced a problem with a tourism organisation, 1.8 percentage points higher than in July 2020, though 0.6 percentage points below six months previous.
The leading causes of customers’ problems are quality of reliability of goods/services (33.6%) and availability (27.7%).
The proportion of issues about availability has increased by more than 10 percentage points compared to a year ago.
With more organisations interacting with their customers through digital channels, consumers are now calling on companies to improve their website experience.
Customers would also like to see the sector improve the knowledge of its staff and make it easier to reach the right representative for help.
The past year has seen the types of contact and channels used to interact with tourism organisations have evolved during the Covid-19 crisis – the main channels for communicating with organisations are website (49.2%), email (16.6%) and phone (14.9%).
Within the sector, the survey found that average overall satisfaction with Hotels is 80 out of 100, down slightly by 0.2 points compared to July 2020. Average satisfaction with travel companies and tour operators is 78.9, up 0.4 compared to a year ago.
The tourism sector is the sixth highest ranked in the UKCSI in terms of customer satisfaction across 13 sectors.
Overall customer satisfaction in the sector (78.8 points) has seen a marginal increase of 0.2 points over July 2020, 1.4 points higher than the national average of 77.4 points.
But, this is primarily driven by improvements in complaint handling, rather than addressing the root cause of customer service issues.
The UKCSI claims to be the largest and most in-depth cross-sector measurement of customer service in the UK, with 10,000 consumers polled every six months.
The overall report found that 4.9% of customers experienced a problem with an organisation, the highest rate since 2009. But satisfaction with complaint handling it at its highest ever level.
Institute of Customer Service chief executive Jo Causon said: “The pandemic has had a seismic impact on the tourism industry, with a number of airlines, hotels and travel companies struggling to survive.
“As we emerge from lockdown, customers have become ever more discerning with where they spend their money, particularly when it comes to booking holidays they may not be able to go on.
“It is critical that operators pay close attention to their full service offering, working to rebuild customer trust.
“Customer satisfaction is intrinsically linked to strong business performance. For tourism to move forward as a true service leader, we need a broader focus on all dimensions of the customer experience.”
She added: “The past year has transformed the customer experience landscape.
“As attitudes, behaviours and preferences continue to evolve, it’s more important than ever for tourism brands to adopt a multi-channel strategy; blending the best elements of digital and human experiences to engage with a diverse and fragmented customer base.
“Those brands that have performed best in the UKCSI are those that have maintained a key focus on the whole customer experience journey – providing honest, genuine communication across different channels.”