Customer Service: Do You Give Your Potential A Client C Client Service?

Customer service is one of the cardinal rules in promoting your business and retaining clients, always making them feel very special … that you really do care about them.

So, what customer service is this? Last week, at a networking meeting, I decided to give a different travel agent a try. So I asked her to send me a quote for two, around September/October, for a trip to Egypt to see the pyramids and include a cruise down the Nile with a day trip to Abu Simbel (from Aswan).

And this is how I was treated …. just like a C Client! Here’s the email I received …..

” Name – ie the person I had spoken to at the meeting, from our office asked me to contact you.   I believe you want to travel to Egypt in September or October this year.  Please can you give me more details such as:

1.  How many peeople will be travelng
2.  If there are children I will need their ages
3.  Where in Egypt would you like to go to
4.  How long would you like to be away

I look forward to your response.

Kind regards

Kindly note that our transaction fees are non-refundable “

Now, here’s the difference and how an A Client gets treated with exceptional customer service …. If the person I spoke to at the meeting was too busy to handle my vacation, or just didn’t want to, she would send me an email  in which she hands me over to her colleague who is an ‘expert’ on traveling to Egypt, by either endorsing her colleague’s email or informing me to expect contact from her colleague.

When I received the message (above), how do you think I felt?  This is how ….

1. The person I spoke to couldn’t have cared less if I used her agency.
2. The message hadn’t been spell checked, so the glaring errors told me ‘attention to detail’ was seriously lacking.
3. Items 1 to 3 were pointless because the person I spoke to already knew this.
4. The mention of transaction fees was not a friendly remark to begin a relationship with a new prospect, who could possibly lead the agency to transact even more business. At this stage the travel agent doesn’t know the circle of influence a prospect has.

Yes, you’re right, I’m back with the travel agent who has always treated me with respect and given me superb service. No wonder she was voted South Africa’s Top Leisure Travel Consultant 2010 by ASATA.

Have you been the recipient of anything like this in your travel experience? Have you ever been ‘dumped’ off a flight? Have you been left stranded when your airline went broke? Let’s have a discussion in comments!