I'm the first to admit that holidays going wrong put me in a bad mood.
Our holiday this year was a trip to Brittany. The weeks before and after our trip were hot and sunny, the week we were there it was freezing and very windy. It was almost cruel to take our poor little boy on to the beach in those conditions. By day five we were climbing the walls of our rented cottage.
In the end, we rang up Brittany Ferries and for £10 got a ferry home early. Yes, I was upset, but I'm not going to get a 'France is rubbish' tattoo.
However, today on Twitter, I was followed by someone called Customer Hater (lostminutes_con), whose aim seems to be to have a continual rage against Lastminute.com.
Then there's the woman who changed her name to 'I hate Thomas Cook'.
Are these people simply a bit nutty and have nothing better to do, or is there something about a dealing with travel companies about complaints that brings out the worst in people?
I think people just like to moan we live in a world where if something goes wrongs customers always expect the company to compensate. And obviously when they dont it causes problem. We catn hold travel companies responsible for bad weather or a problem with the engine.
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One thing that does not help is the speed by which an enquiry is answered, compared to the slowness of a possible complaint!
I have created many websites, including for cheap cruises, cruise deals and a new one attacking cruise holidays.
I truly believe in, 'You get what you pay for'. The problem, as mention by other esteemed collegues, is the lack of service when things go wrong. However we have been living a life of riley at low costs and cheap fares and have become accustomed to having the best while paying the least. It is time to realise that it can not go on and one can not complain against acts of nature, neither can they compalin about admin charges (as long as they are reasonable) for amendments as part of T&Cs of tour operators.
Emily.
I will agree with cruisegle here. Most of the times now it speed of responce. When the customer has to wait 5 weeks for a standard reply (4 weeks plus 1 week postage) it just makes matters worse.
As an agent we try and reply to any complaints within 7 days, if the tour operators did this then customers would feel like there complaint is being taken seriously.
However a pat on the back for Shearings. A customer had a problem on the first day of his 6 night tour. Today we got a reply from customer services 1 day before he gets home.