Agent Diary: Is holding for hours and dealing with frustrated customers the new normal?

Phone queue times to many trade partners are still excessive, says Hays Travel Gateshead branch manager Colin Burns

Let me give you a scenario that I bet every single travel agent is experiencing right now.

A customer calls you to amend their holiday and you find it can’t be done on the supplier’s site. The customer gets shirty when you say it might take a couple of hours to come back to them and asks you to call them back as soon as possible.

You join the queue and hear: “Your call is important to us so please hold and we will answer you in six hours, 14 minutes.”

The big worry is that this situation is not getting any better and queue times to many of our partners are still excessive

Despite the fact you told the customer it may take a little while, they call you every 10 minutes and become increasingly annoyed every time you tell them you are still on hold.

Once you do finally get to speak to the supplier, it takes 30 seconds to get an answer to the customer’s question and you ask the supplier to hold while you call the customer to make sure they are happy to go ahead with their amendment.

Is there more that can be done or do we as an industry just have to accept this is the new normal and we have to live with it?

Then what happens? Yup: it goes to their voicemail! You wait a minute or so to see if they call straight back, then try them again and still only make it to their voicemail, so you have to let the supplier go.

Then you start counting to 10 in your head, and by the time you get to six the customer calls you back, says they are happy to proceed – and you start the whole process again.

The big worry is that this situation is not getting any better and queue times to many of our partners are still excessive. Is there more that can be done or do we as an industry just have to accept this is the new normal and we have to live with it?

Scaremongering

On the subject of customer queries, the media is still not helping. In some of my previous diary entries I have applauded the press for the part it has played in keeping customers informed during the lockdowns. Now, media outlets appear to be actively looking for things they know will get the public in a panic.

The Spanish minimum spending money is a classic case and for a few weeks we were inundated with calls from people concerned about being able to go on their holiday. We even had one family who had a one-week, all-inclusive package holiday booked asking if they could cancel as they did not have that amount of money in their bank.

If they had read the story instead of just the headline, they would have found that the new rules do not apply to hotel rooms

As soon as that one was cleared up by the Spanish tourist board and Tui, some national newspapers began reporting that the Spanish authorities were now going to force “Brits to roast” as they had passed legislation to restrict the use of air-conditioning.

Once again we had customers calling us who were very concerned having picked their accommodation because it had air-con! If they had read the story instead of just the headline, they would have found that the new rules do not apply to hotel rooms.

Of course, it is the customers’ responsibility to read the full article, but headlines that suggest you will roast alive if you take a holiday in Spain are not doing us any favours and are causing real concerns.

Headlines that suggest you will roast alive if you take a holiday in Spain are not doing us any favours and are causing real concerns

Anyway, us retailers and homeworkers will continue to pick up the pieces and absorb the flak from customers who get sick of waiting for answers, while our supplier partners will no doubt be working hard in the background to fix the problem.

Our customers crack us up

Despite our daily job continuing to be quite stressful, you can always rely on customers to brighten your day. We had a customer who wanted to book one of our Facebook deals for a swim-up room. Abbie ran through all the details and the deal was agreed. “Just one thing,” said the customer. “Can I request an upper floor?”

We had visions of a diving board on the sixth-floor balcony and the customer training for the Commonwealth Games while on holiday. After much discussion, the customer decided on a Deluxe Room with a pool view instead.