Terrible Customer Service – step forward @ThomasCookUK
I hate poor customer service – don’t you? It’s just one of those things which drives me completely mad.
Thomas Cook turning your holiday upside down
This particular personal story, which is currently unfolding, smacks of everything that’s wrong about companies taking customers for granted. Please oh women in business (and forgive me if I’m teaching you to suck eggs) pay attention!
There is a little saying I’ve often shared with SMEs – treat all customers well, you never know if one could be a journalist. Oh dear, oh dear…!
Last year, we had a fantastic family holiday booked through Thomas Cook – with the invaluable help of an agent in a shop. This year we visited the same agent, who was lovely, but couldn’t match the prices quoted online at www.thomascook.com.
So we started booking through the website. At some point though we needed to call them and this is where the problems began – we called the number on the Thomas Cook website and spoke to a call centre operative.
She then proceeded with our booking until we got to the confirmation of credit card payment when she suddenly, without explanation, transferred us to someone different.
This person then wanted all of our details again.
Panicked we questioned this man – but he insisted no booking had been made. What about our credit card payment? It hadn’t gone through.
We asked to speak to a supervisor. Eventually we got through to someone who said we couldn’t speak to the original woman as she was ‘in a meeting’ and we needed to go through the process again. We were then told we couldn’t have that package as the airline couldn’t confirm the flights. Deflated we cancelled. That had taken over an hour.
We then got several telephone calls – our credit card would show two payments requested and not taken. We could have the booking as the airline had confirmed but the price had gone up – by £6. Did we want to go ahead? With some reservations we agreed. We were promised a confirmation e-mail that evening.
Today (Monday) guess what? No confirmation e-mail. We called the same Thomas Cook number and spoke to someone who told us they hadn’t dealt with us at all. It wasn’t them. OMG, that’s over a grand up in smoke….
No, new woman said, we had spoken to Expedia – put through by the Thomas Cook switchboard. At no point until this time had the name Expedia been mentioned at all. Our booking reference number (which thankfully I had taken) wasn’t recognised by Thomas Cook.
So they couldn’t help me in any way to deal with my queries. Ever heard of Sale of Goods Act?
If I buy a PC from a high street retailer, they don’t make the PC, but they are responsible and so, in my book, is Thomas Cook.
Tonight we have spent more than two hours on hold and another two online trying to get the correct booking numbers, confirmation e-mails, weblinks to Easyjet to try to make sure that our holiday is going to happen.
Booking a family holiday should positive, leaving you looking forward to the time away. Now we are deeply worried that the whole thing will be a disaster with three children in tow.
And what about transparency? Where on Thomas Cook’s website does it say – ‘we may pass you, without warning, on to another company and, if anything goes wrong, refuse to help you out’. Or ‘We might say sorry a lot but in the end it’s down to you to fight your way through it’.
If I behaved like that with my clients I know where I would soon be – without work.
Frankly I don’t care if they sub-contract out and use other organisation – after all networking and partnerships in business abound. But tell us what’s going on and make it work! Don’t lie, don’t create circles within circles and don’t use that as an excuse not to help out frustrated customers.
So first tip of the year, if you are thinking of Don’t Just Book It, Thomas Cook it – consider a new catchphrase for 2012 (company which supports the Olympics) Thomas Cook Dot Com – Don’t Bother Dot Com…..
Fiona
Fiona Scott is a journalist and PR expert based in Swindon
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4 Responses to Terrible Customer Service – step forward @ThomasCookUK
Revenge: A dish best served cold?
I’m not a nasty person. I’ve never in my life deliberately set out to hurt someone, or cause them pain. But right now, and for the past three or four years, on and off, my thoughts have been filled with fantasies of revenge. Now I have the opportunity, and I can’t decide what to do. [...]
Oh dear Fiona. Have you mentioned this to the ICS or other recognised customer service bodies?
Sounds like a lack of investment / training in the contact centre environment has led to avoidable disaster yet again. Cutting corners?
Best of success,
Shaun
Twitter: shaungisbourne
Fiona what a shoddy experience, I hope it gets resolved soon x
Sarah Arrow recently posted..Quick tips to re-purpose your blog content #blogging
Despicable Fiona that such a large company should treat customers so badly and with such little respect ESPECIALLY at this time when they are suffering from poor sales.
Booking a holiday is one of the largest capital outlays that a family make and the fear of losing their investment and getting no reward must be stressful.
I hope Thomas Cook sort this asap
Lynn Tulip recently posted..Redundant, what next?
Twitter: LynnTulip
no excuse for bad customer service. i had a useless time on the phone with Amazon last year, shocking how bad outsourced call centre operations can be. been working at http://www.t-mobilecareers.co.uk/contact-centres where quality is checked on every call.