Yesterday I decided to book a flight. Half way through I decided to alter my flight times. Within seconds, and I mean seconds, I had a phone call on my mobile from a bmi call centre.

UPDATE: 8th August 2011. It appears David Cameron went back; ordered more drinks and left almost a 100% Tip! Why? A photo opportunity? A mis-reporting of the service that he received from Miss Ariani?

It is often said that it is the little things that you remember. And tell others. Quite the worst customer service I’ve had in a long, long time made me quite embarrassed at how some overseas visitors saw what happened at the weekend.

In just under 5 hours the last ever service by the Wrexham & Shropshire railway will leave London’s Marylebone station on its final journey. Why get so concerned by a train service you might ask. After all, Virgin Trains run a direct service down to London even if it is only once a day.
The concern is because this little railway achieved so much in its short 3 year life. The satisfaction ratings given to it by passengers were better than anything ever seen since the ratings began. At 99% you can’t really get any better. And I doubt whether other train lines will. The service was good too. The staff would come through the train, address and treat you politely and then be there when you got off to thank you for travelling (at least on the few times I travelled with them.) And that’s part of the problem. I used them a few times; how often did others?

It’s one of those things that come to the fore when times are tougher. If there is little to differentiate one company from another when prices are similar then it is how the customer is treated that can make the difference. So the claim by Cityjet, which flies to regional and European destinations from London City, to give passengers free flights if they are not happy with the service provided by the airline is welcome news.
It is only for a trial period but it demonstrates that the management of the airline must be pretty confident about their treatment of passengers.

As this happened to me three times in the last three months, I have had to deal with the the consequences. I have been lucky. I haven’t been stranded without money. I haven’t had major problems or the need to traipse around hotels and then book at exorbitant rates. I haven’t had to look after or keep happy young, easily bored children. I am not even moaning about the fact that I have had to make unecessary trips to airports or pay for hotels I couldn’t use. If you travel a lot, life can bowl the odd googly at you. But out of it, I do have one thing I want changed.
One airline texted me to say my flight was cancelled, adding at the bottom, “apologies.” They gave me at least seven hours warning which, given that the situation was out of their control, seemed reasonable. The problem is in the rebooking. To do that I either need to get on a website or ring a telephone line. My moan, no that is too strong a word, my interest is the endless time spent hanging on or tryng to get onto a website that is being bombarded by other travellers in the same position. I appreciate the airline’s problem in having to rebook people but can’t help wondering if their isn’t an easier way.

The hotel chain, Jurys, has polled 4,000 Britons to see what they thought were the most unwelcoming cities in the UK. It will probably come as no surprise to you that London was considered to have the worst customer service. People also thought that the locals were ruder than other places. A third regularly didn’t say thank you and over half failed to smile at passers-by. Jurys concluded that this didn’t augur well for us when tourists visit us en masse for the Olympics in 2012.
Is all this a fair accusation at London or indeed, the next most unwelcoming cities of Glasgow, Bradford, Birmingham or Liverpool

Those of us brought up on Fawlty Towers might find it hard to believe that a Torquay hotel has been named as best for service in the UK and that it has also been listed in the top 25 hotels in the world. Obviously there are no Basil’s, Manuel’s or Sybil’s at the Charterhouse Hotel which has won this accolade.
This award is for service, the most important feature of what we buy after the product itself. Even then you can cope with a product that is not perfect if the service is special. I have stayed in hotels that were not the best. The service, the attention and the fact that nothing seems too much trouble has made ordinary hotels into splendid ones. In those I have stayed in again and again. And recommended

Some people were trapped on Eurostar trains for 12 hours and claim they were told nothing. It has been said that one driver even locked himself in his engine cab. Allbury Travel went into liquidation yesterday (they own Libra and Argos Holidays) and passengers claim they were kept in the dark. On Thursday when flyGlobespan went into liquidation I was at Glasgow Airport and there was no information at their desk in the airport. When there was the terminal 5 debacle earlier this year, one major complaint was the delay of both British Airways and BAA to come and talk to passengers.
What is clear in that each of these cases information was not given to the passengers quickly enough for them to feel that that they were kept up to date.

This is the time of the year when the National Customer Service Awards are announced. In any industry service is important. Good service leads to satisfaction. Satisfaction can lead to loyalty and repeat business. No customer likes being ill treated, ignored, patronised or fobbed off with meaningless official waffle so awards that support good service are welcome. But travel and tourism doesn’t seem to have done to well in this year’s awards. Is that because they didn’t enter or they did but weren’t shortlisted for the final?

The future of holidays and tourism was one of the last parts of World Travel Market last week.

We had heard a lot about going green, value for money and the need to bring on more hotel rooms and offers for the middle market. Woe betide expansion into the luxury end of the market. The thinking was that more 3 and 4 star hotels were needed. And if the destination isn’t green and pitching strongly for sustainability then tourists would stay away. More travellers would book through packages because that gave them security in these economic times.

Egypt has been one of the success stories of the last few years. Blessed with a fascinating culture, beaches on the Red Sea and a heritage that is second to none, Egypt could be seen as almost the perfect destination. Everything is there.

Now there will be more as they develop the “White Med” which is the coastline west of Alexandria and towards El Alamein and beyond

According to Sabre, who operate booking systems for the travel industry, airlines now consider customer loyalty and retention as the most important issue at the moment. You might be forgiven for thinking it was fuel or staffing but no. From 90 airlines across the world Sabre says the customer is king at the moment.

No this isn’t another moan about the quality or even quantity of customer service that Ryanair offers. Well not really. No this is a comment on what Ryanair thinks it does.You might have seen in yesterday’s media stories about how Ryanair has made €136.5 million profit (about £119 million) in the first 3 months of [...]