Do what it says on the tin..

We see Thomson and First Choice have seemingly announced a new policy of allowing their overseas representatives to address and solve customer complaints during holidays. Is it just us, or is this stating the 'bleeding' obvious?

The TUI Travel companies said the rationale behind the move was ‘to recover service failures quickly and efficiently, reducing the need for customers to pursue issues with customer services on their return to the UK’.

Overseas representatives are already trained in accordance with company customer service guidelines, but are now also being encouraged to use their discretion and initiative to ensure that the merits of each case and ‘exceptions to the rule’ can be considered...

Inevitably things can and do go wrong with holiday plans, but a simple quick solution normally results in a converted customer, one who far from being a complainer becomes an advocate for the companies quick and efficient handling of any problem. Best fix things on the spot than allow resentment to grow and fester over two weeks and then result in a letter from the small claims court!

Ian Chapman, head of overseas for Thomson and First Choice, said: ‘Holidays are so important, never more so than in the current economic climate'. Meaning, we guess that clients are particularly keen to get their monies worth and less tolerant to things going wrong. All their overseas staff will undertake a three-day training programme to ‘motivate and inspire them in first class customer service'.

The fact is that you don't really need long sophisticated training programmes and dedicated phone lines to deliver exceptional customer service. You just need to do what it says on the tin! And then a little bit more.

How much more? Just a little bit. The runner who wins the 100m by 0.0001 of a second has just done that little bit more - so sometimes exceptional customer service is just answering the phone, or turning up when you say you will. Now that's good service!