SOUTHLAKE, Texas --
Travelocity introduced a consumer guarantee of sorts as part of a
Customer Championship program thats intended to differentiate it
from other online agencies and break new ground in supplier
relations and client advocacy.
The guarantee means
that Travelocity pledges, among other things, to work with supplier
partners to rectify consumer problems before, during or after a
vacation or trip.
For example, if a
hotel loses a reservation, is overbooked or fails to notify a
client Travelocity pledges a satisfaction guarantee that its pool
is closed for renovations, Travelocity promises to work with the
hotel to find the consumer a comparable room or property with
similar amenities at no additional cost or at a reasonable
price.
The same is true
for car rental bookings if the specified vehicle type is
unavailable at the rental counter.
Travelocity said it
will work with that rental company or another company to get you
the car type you booked.
In addition,
Travelocity will waive change and cancellation fees for airline
tickets booked on the wrong dates if notified within 24 hours of
the booking.
The guarantee,
however, refers more to Travelocitys pledge to address customer
problems on the spot than to any automatic refund or adjustment, a
Travelocity spokesman said.
Payouts will be
handled on a case-by-case basis, he added.
The guarantee comes
alongside a Travelocity Customer Bill of Rights stating that
everything about your booking will be right, or well work with our
partners to make it right, and right away.
Michelle Peluso,
Travelocitys CEO, said that the Customer Championship program is an
18-month effort to roll out a customer service system to
differentiate Travelocity from all
travel providers, including online agencies and the meta-search
engines.
We overhauled a lot
of our IVR [interactive voice response] phone systems to route
customers midtrip to agents who can handle their exact issues,
Peluso said. If they have a problem with a hotel the call would go
to a dedicated hotel help desk.
As part of an
ongoing multimillion-dollar rollout of the program, Travelocity
refined its incident management system so it can better track
consumer and supplier issues.
For example, Peluso
said that Travelocity can run reports nightly to identify
properties and partners that have problem rates that exceed a
certain threshold and will then terminate the relationship if the
problems go unresolved. We have absolutely taken some hotels off
the site, she said.
Among other changes
to improve customer service, Travelocity can identify chains with
poor connectivity between their central reservations systems and
properties and will call them daily to ensure that bookings are in
order.
Also, as part of
the initiative, Travelocitys more than 1,000 agents -- in India;
Plains, Pa.; and San Antonio -- are taking a two-day training
course to transform their mindset with customers from order takers
to empowered problem solvers.
Along those lines,
some Travelocity supplier relations teams are negotiating with
airlines to get a bank of dollars to resolve consumer problems on
their own instead of having to call the airlines to resolve each
consumer problem, Peluso said.
Yes, we are going
to have great pricing, she said. But we want to be able to say that
we stand for a lot more.
The Customer
Championship program, introduced May 2, will be promoted through
extensive marketing dollars in TV and print ads, featuring the
Roaming Gnome.
To contact
reporter Dennis Schaal, send e-mail to[email protected].