Friday, 8 December 2017
Just two weeks after my 2 phones were stolen out from my car I experienced another misfortune!
I had just come back from taking one of my clients, who has become a really good friend to the doctors. It was late afternoon and she suggested that as a thank you to me for taking her to the doctors, that we should pop into the East Rand Mall around 17h00 for a treat.
I drove into the front Entrance to the East Rand Mall, took my parking ticket for the boom to open and parked 4 bays from the Main Entrance to the Mall. At no stage whatsoever was my laptop (that was in my boot) exposed or nor was my boot opened. I drive a Ford Ecosport and the boot can only be opened from once in the car. There is no boot lock on my car either! Both Sue and I stood beside my car for a couple of minutes to ensure that the central locking had set in. After a lavish Sushi meal and relaxing for an hour, we made our way back to the car. I opened the car with my central locking and I dropped Sue off at home.
On arrival to my home I opened my boot and to my dismay I discovered that my laptop was missing from out my boot. It was like having a motor car stolen and you ‘think you are losing your marbles’. Although I knew full well that I had left my laptop in the boot of my car I began to search everywhere in the hopes that it would appear.
Ongoing back to my car I happened to brush past the front door and the lock cover fell off. Only then did I realize that my driver’s door lock had been bent and tampered with and the thugs had gained access to my boot and stolen my laptop.
My laptop is my life – and my entire business is on it. I knew that my client information was safe in that no one would be able to access it, but the panic struck in as I needed the laptop to make bookings. This is where Travel Counsellors buddy system kicks in –and my buddy was able to assist me with any bookings that needed to be made until I received my laptop replacement.
I immediately got on the phone and called Travel Counsellors after-hours. Allister was on duty and he immediately phoned Jonathan who took action immediately and blocked all my passwords. I cannot stress how blessed I was to have Travel Counsellors at my helm.
Jonathan the very next day made sure that I had a brand-new laptop prepped with all the Microsoft office programmes loaded, along with the Travel Counsellors intranet, Galileo etc. and I had my brand-new laptop delivered to my front door. All my client info was in my contact centre so I have lost nothing. It was absolutely marvellous! Plus, it didn’t cost me a cent!
How reassuring, many other travel agents who are working from home as an ITC on their own just don’t have the same systems and if their laptops get stolen they lose everything! (I know of someone who this happened to and this person lost all their documents, all their client's info and literally had to build it up from scratch, even the back up hard drive was stolen with their laptop). Not only do they have the inconvenience of losing everything and the loss in time to rebuild that information, but they have the expense of having to go and buy another laptop (which is in excess of R22,000 with the Microsoft licenses), and then there is the inconvenience of needing to employ the services of an IT person to get Microsoft programmes loaded along with emails, your GDS etc.
But with Travel Counsellors the minute I connected my laptop to the internet everything that I needed was there. What a blessing! Jonothan then spent time with me helping me to change and set up new passwords. I even got a new version of windows and he took the time to take me through this new version so that I knew where to find everything.
I am very grateful to the entire Travel Counsellors team who jumped in and helped – what an AMAZING team. I can’t thank everyone enough. I think I would have ended up in ‘Tara Clinic’ had it not been for this amazing assistance.
