NB: This is a guest article by Michelle Fuller, director of UK-based research consultancy eDigitalResearch.
Following the latest wave of eTravel Benchmark results, research shows that, yet again, travel websites are being severely let down by poor customer service, with 48 out of 51 websites providing email and telephone capability that requires urgent attention.
Brands are investing in their online experience but are failing to follow this through to after sales care with inadequate customer service.
Weather disruption is just one excellent example that highlights the vital role customer services can play in reassuring consumers.
It is vital that companies are using these tools to their advantage, ensuring they provide a positive overall experience.
With our benchmarking experience at eDigitalResearch, we’ve found that there are just a few, simple steps that travel companies can follow to improve their customer services, overall website usability and brand advocacy.
1. Make contact details easy to find.
Too often, our feedback highlights just how many customers struggle to even locate basic contact details such as telephone numbers, email addresses or contact forms. It is crucial that consumers know there is someone to contact should they need to, but hiding these details behind an attractive website will benefit no-one.
2. Keep people informed.
We often pick up on negative criticism where companies are failing to regularly communicate with consumers - whether that’s just an automated email response to let them know that their query is being dealt with, or a simple telephone queue system that frequently updates callers will more often than not eliminate these problems.
3. Make sure the question is answered.
By far, some of the worst practice we’ve witnessed recently are companies who just send customers back to the website instead of simply answering their question.
People contact companies because they couldn’t find or understand this information in the first place and sending them back to square one completely defeats the objective and undermines the role customer service agents are there to play.
Consumers expect friendly, polite and above all, knowledgeable staff to provide the help they are after.
4. Improve response times.
Our research highlights just how many consumers are left waiting for any sort of email reply or simply placed on hold for minutes and then charged for the time.
In the latest eTravel Benchmark results 28% of email inquiries went unanswered, whilst 16% of respondents waited up to five minutes to even talk to a live operator.
5. Make it a personal and positive experience.
As many industry professionals will already know, it is important that each customer feels valued, and by making the effort to personalise customer service responses, companies can begin to build and cement relationships.
Our feedback indicates that people’s satisfaction with brands increases when small efforts like this are made.
NB: This is a guest article by Michelle Fuller, director of UK-based research consultancy eDigitalResearch.