Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Meeting and exceeding customer
expectations
Weblink
Check out this website for more
information on monitoring customer
service feedback at the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich.
www.nmm.ac.uk
These days, it's not enough just to
meet
customers'
needs and expectations - staff must be trained to
exceed
them, as Center Parcs stresses to its staff in its
customer service aim:
FOCUS ON INDUSTRY
“To give our guests a truly unique short break holiday
experience which far exceeds their expectations”.
Since travel and tourism is such a competitive sector, it
is also important to highlight the importance of giving
excellent
and not just
good
customer service.
CUSTOMER SURVEYS AT THOMSON HOLIDAYS
Thomson Holidays, one of the UK's largest tour
operators, was one of the fi rst travel companies
to introduce a customer satisfaction questionnaire
(CSQ) more than 30 years ago and it is now one of the
biggest consumer surveys in the world. Distributed
on board its Thomson Airways aircraft or in resort,
the CSQ gives holidaymakers the opportunity to
rate their overall holiday as excellent, good, fair or
poor. Approximately 40 per cent of adult customers
complete and return a CSQ. Thomson's approach
to monitoring customer service standards has been
introduced into many tour operations businesses.
Many travel and tourism organisations regularly monitor
the quality of customer service they provide. They
do this to make sure that their service is meeting the
needs of customers and, if not, then necessary changes
can be made. Customers' needs and expectations
are constantly changing, so any customer service
programme in travel and tourism must be fl exible
enough to meet the requirements of an increasingly
demanding public.
FOCUS ON INDUSTRY
Weblink
Check out this website for details of
Thomson Holidays.
www.thomson.co.uk
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AT THE NATIONAL
MARITIME MUSEUM (NMM) LONDON
The NMM has an effective customer response
mechanism and actively seeks customer feedback via:
Customer comment cards;
1.
Importance of excellent customer
service to organisations
2.
A feedback facility on its website;
3.
Evaluation forms given out after specifi c
programmes and events;
4. Responding to assessments by external
bodies such as disability groups and tourist
organisations.
This feeds through to the Museum's Quality
Assurance Group - a small team of museum staff
who ensure standards are met and action is taken to
sort out problems across the whole museum.
Most travel and tourism organisations are private-
sector companies looking to maximise their profi ts,
e.g. hotels, airlines, holiday companies, travel
agencies, etc. In an increasingly competitive business
environment, excellent customer service standards
can make a real difference to a company's 'bottom
line', i.e. their profi t margin, by encouraging repeat
business and by 'word of mouth' recommendation
from existing satisfi ed customers. Giving excellent
customer service can also give a company a competitive
advantage over other businesses in the same sector.
