Posted 05 March 2018
At Travel Counsellors we not only live and breathe travel; we put our customers at the very heart of everything we do. We’re all about going that little bit further than everybody else to deliver the perfect travel experience. It’s clear that today’s customers are looking for more than transactional travel; they want to experience personal service and be made to feel important. More concierge, and less centre.
As a Travel Counsellor, you’ll have the freedom to build personal relationships and deliver the level of personal service you know your customers deserve. This story from Leah Mackay is a great example of the level of service you can provide…
Last week Travel Counsellor Leah Mackay, made a surprise visit to the airport to meet two of her customers for breakfast at Manchester airport before they set off on a trip to Reykjavik to celebrate their joint 50th birthday. Having not flown for many years, they were feeling quite nervous, so Leah was delighted that as a Travel Counsellor she had the time and freedom to personally meet them to help them through the check-in process. She shared this great story with us…
“Andy is a customer who was referred to me by a former colleague who I had arranged a couple of trips for. It was an absolute joy to talk to him over the phone and I was very excited about planning his joint 50th birthday trip to Iceland with his wife Collette.
For the past 20 years, Andy and Collette had enjoyed holidays with their children in either the UK or France. They’d watched a Rick Stein programme about Iceland and as this was a big celebratory trip, they decided this was where they wanted to go. I duly watched the programme myself to catch up, noting down everywhere Rick visited and planned the trip with Andy and Collette to ensure they were able to squeeze everything they wanted to do into their 4-night adventure.
As the date approached, Andy mentioned they were both nervous flyers and were feeling a little apprehensive about the trip and getting a little concerned. It had seemed like this trip was not going to get off the ground at one stage as Icelandair stopped flying from their home airport in Birmingham, so we switched to Manchester airport.
Then, the “Beast from the East” hit just as they were about to travel up to Manchester, so we booked an earlier coach leaving at 3.20am! I decided to surprise them at the airport on the morning of their flight – after all, there was a lot of time to kill. We had a lovely breakfast together and it was so nice to meet them both face-to-face. We talked a little more about the family holiday I’ve booked for them to Rome and Sorrento for July and an upcoming group trip for Andy’s company too. I'd also mentioned to Andy the night before that a selfie stick is a must and just in case he didn't manage to get one, I took along my many selfie sticks so they could take one with them.
After breakfast we walked up to check in together and went through the whole process. What they didn't know was that I'd called Icelandair to explain they were nervous flyers and had not flown for 20 years. To my utter delight Icelandair upgraded them to business class. This was fabulous as Andy is 6'3" and they were delayed 3 hours (sat on the plane) while the de-icing of the aircrafts was backing up during this unusual cold snap.
I'd also called ahead to make sure the hotel had their harbour view request for their room, a little note from me and a kind gesture from the hotel of some free drinks in the bar. Due to the delay they were going to miss their Northern Lights excursion planned for that evening, so I phoned the excursion company and postponed it to the next day. I finally went to bed after a lovely message from Andy to say they had a magnificent room, a wonderful dinner in the hotel and a memorable start to their holiday.
There is nothing more rewarding in life than making others happy!”
We work harder than any other company to make the customer feel valued, and it shows in our Customer Satisfaction score – which at 96% is the highest in the world. We’re proud of the lengths we go to for our customers. That’s why we only want to welcome to our team professionals who share the same values. If there’s nothing you enjoy more than going the extra mile to make your customers happy, we’d love to hear from you.