What did On The Beach have to say, Darren?

Keven/Darren

It may be worth reminding OTB of ABTA rules and the fact the could face a fine for breaching them.

Taken from code of conduct standards on websites section 2

Your website must show clear details which are easy to locate, to enable clients to contact you directly and rapidly both on and offline.

And from general code of conduct that states,

Deal with all correspondence with clients as promtly as possable.

or

Maintain a high standard of service to clients.

Hope this gets sorted for your uncle Kevin, I know this is stating the obvious there has been a bank holiday this weekend and most adminstration departments will have closed for 4 days.

I wonder if this is more of an old-fashioned CRM issue than one to do with online sales. Sadly I doubt it would take you long to find someone who had experienced the same level of customer care with a phone booking. Hope it gets sorted.

Is it easier to reach travel companies by telephone? I’ve never tried but I suspect you could be on hold for some time on a national rate phone number paying around 10p a minute?

I hope that the company do respond to your uncle soon and sort it all out. I am sure that OTB won’t want to get on the wrong side of Travel Rants.

That’s disgusting and reading into that other site, other people are having the same problem.

It’s okay getting cheaper holiday, but that shouldn’t replace customer care.

If I was a travel company Id be checking the net out for bad press like this too.

The comments on that othr site have been there since 10 March.

I called On The Beach this morning and got straight through. They have a administration section that will answer enquiries from the media. Have you tried them, Darren? I am doing that this morning. This issue actually is of great interest to Travolution. How do travel companies respond to posts and comments on consumer blogs, etc, etc.

klm, ed, travo

Darren: It will be interesting to see where this goes now, after my run-in with them yesterday.

I have left the door open for their managing director to put forward his comments as to how his company deals with (what appears to be) a reasonable amount of negative feedback about the company.

I apologise it has taken me so long to respond to the initial comments placed above. We do of course care about all press, good and bad.

We operate an online holiday booking system which we believe to be one of the best on the internet. The website in its current form went live in January 2006 and having booked 150,000 passengers in its first year looks set to book approx 400,000 passengers this year. In line with this we have expanded our admin department so that there are now 4 times the number of admin staff as 12 months ago. We also provide separate direct dial telephone numbers for finance, administration, customer service and operations separately.

In order to provide our customers with the very best service and lowest prices we do most things through our website or via email. Whilst we advise that it may take up to 48 hours to answer an email, we do answer almost all emails within 24 hours. The fact that our admin department is in first instance email only means that we can also operate from 0900 - 2000 (unlike most admin departments which operate until 1700 only) and on Saturdays and Sundays and bank holidays (when almost all travel admin departments are closed).

Our website also offers our customers the facility to make additions and changes to their holidays. These may necessarily take several days to process. We are after all a travel agency and prior to recontacting customers have to rely on answers from the tour operators supplying the holidays, with regards availability and pricing for such requests as an add passenger.

I am unfortunately unable to comment on the individual case of your the customer above as I am unaware of the details that would allow me to locate his booking, but if you would like to email this to me (Kevin has my email address) I would happily look into this for you, at which time I would be able to provide a more detailed post on this site with regards to why a delay occurred in the process of his adding a passenger to his holiday.

Yours sincerely

Simon Cooper
MD
On the Beach

Unfortunately email (like traditional post) is not a foolproof way of getting information to people.

You may have misunderstood my reply slightly. We receive emails 7 days a week - the nature of email means that people can send these in a moment at any time of day or night, and we respond to these emails 7 days of the week.

Please bear in mind of 1000 emails we receive a day these may break down into:

1. standard questions, comments, requests
2. information that people require with regards their holidays departure airports, tickets, baggage allowances
3. people who have not received their email confirmations - most commonly because of spam filters but also because of incorrectly entered details at the booking stafe (and we do ask for email addresses to be verified)
4. people who have received their email but their computerhas deleted it / they have misplaced
5. people who for whatever reason need to make changes to their holidays
6. balance queries, when to pay, how to pay etc
7. ticketing questions, when will i receive etc
8. which terminal will my flight depart from

Many of the above questions are answered on our website and are also clear on our booking confirmations.

We do receive 1000 emails a day - simply because of the volume of business that we do. I have no doubt that some customers do not fully understand the booking process, but most do. Our website is simple and easy to use. The greatest misunderstanding in travel (and not online travel) is the relationship between travel agent and tour operator.

We provide call centres that are staffed from 0830 until 2230 daily (0900-2100 at weekends) for anyone who is struggling with the online process so that they might book their holiday by telephone. We also believe that a cheap holiday does not mean poor customer service and most of our customers are delighted to be able to email us with questions 7 days a week. The expansion of the admin department was not jut in line with the increasing passenger numbers but with a view to providing an even better levl of customer service.

Simon

Dear Darren

The FAQs page and many of the most frequently asked questions are of course mentioned in our paperwork and also holiday information booklet - you know what it is like though i am sure, that people would rather ask than read!

Have a good time in Latvia

Did you want me to look into your uncles booking? If so Id need a name, reference etc. I am sure that this would assist me greatly clarify the comments that have been made above. Without this information I cannot give specific answers which I am sure you require.

Many thanks

Simon Cooper

I have checked all admin inboxes and also my personal email over the past 48 hours for the name and reference number of your uncles booking. We do not seem to have received the original email sent on the 12/4 in the morning nor have I received the forwarded copy referred to in your reply of the 13/4 at 6.14pm

I think that given that which has been written above you need to provide this for me as soon as possible.

Simon Cooper

still waiting for your uncle’s name!

From reading the forum and that review site it looks like their customer service is crappy.

You dont have to be a genius to work that out.

Blaming it on the customer is a good way to blame it on someone else.

never had a problem with them just booked my third holiday with them, i have had problems with bookings unfortunatley I did fall out with my travel partner for my last holiday so i emailed admin who did respond within the 48 hour time scale, this is a internet based company what do people expect email/internet seems fine to me????????????????

This is intresting, Simon Cooper from OTB. I wrote to Mr Cooper a couple of months back and sent it recorded delivery (so I know it arrived) after a Senior Aftersales Manager swore at me and disconnected the call at 2 mins to 5pm on a Friday afternoon. When i was trying to get a resolution to a problem we experienced when we went to Zante through OTB in May 2007.

Mr Cooper, WHY HAVE I NOT RECEIVED A RESPONSE FROM YOU AND WHY DO YOU NOT RETURN ANY OF MY CALLS??? Is it because you are spending too much time on various websites.

I booked our holiday back in December 2006, 1 week in Zante Half Board in the Bitzarro Palace Hotel. The holiday was paid in full at time of booking etc.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were told that they did not have a booking for us, 3 hours later after waiting around in the hotel reception, we were told that they could not accomodate us and that the hotel had arranged for us to stay elsewhere, which was a 25 minute walk away, Self Catering and on the direct flight path on and off the island.

We tried calling OTB many times - NO ANSWER. I emailed them, they responded by saying that they knew nothing about it and offered some sort of refund and further expenses upon our return. (I still have the email)

So not only were we placed in a hotel that was not requested or suitable, we ended up spending more money having to eat out as the other hotel did not offer HB facilities.

Upon our return, I put everything in writing to OTB, I received a letter from them blaming a company that they use for business. They withdrew their offer of a refund and said that they were not at fault.

This has been going on since May (5 months and counting) they hide behind the fact that they are an internet company and only respond by email, however our flights had to be changed twice with them and they telephoned us to advise.

Despite me paying the money to OTB for the holiday, I do not have a leg to stand on???? I have reported this matter to ABTA, I have also had the BBC Watchdog on the phone asking for more information as they may wish to give OTB a little stint on their show.

Mr Cooper, I would love it if you were to respond to me in person and get this mess sorted out ASAP. You have my number in your office and it was on the letter I sent to you too.

I would NOT recommend this company to anybody. I feel really let down by them, they took my payment no problems, but when it comes to service they are not intrested.

i have forwarded your post to ian, our customer services manager for him to look into. we do not make a habit of responding to posts on such sites - but as you will see if you follow the trail above, the response to the above was made because the allegations had been made about On the Beach unfairly (this was not our customer).

we deal with up to half a million passengers each year and whilst it is my personal goal to keep my eyes on all goings on within the company, it would not be practical or possible to respond to each customer personally by telephone, email or letter.

It is my understanding that the accommodation was switched on the spot by Holiday Brokers. We have asked for their response and whilst they have told you that they have responded to us on the 17/8/07, we are not in possession of this reply.

I will however pass all of this across to Ian and ask that he chases this for you once more.

Simon Cooper