Agent’s plea to suppliers: Don’t make us pay for your delays

Travel agents have welcomed Thomas Cook’s launch of a dedicated trade phone line but one urged the tour operator to ditch the 0844 number in favour of a freephone 0800 number.

Helder Lemos of Essex-based Gallivant Travel, who became so frustrated with Thomas Cook after spending hours of the phone to the operator that he Tweeted the chief executive, said that if Thomas Cook wanted business from third-party agents it should stop forcing them to pay for expensive phone calls.

Posting on the Travel Gossip Facebook page, Lemos wrote: "Stop the usage and abuse of premium calls with 0871 numbers and substitute these with 0800 free numbers if you really want our business. That’s 0800 numbers – not 0844 or 0845 numbers.

"If TC as a tour operator actually starts paying for the calls, it will certainly serve as an incentive to deal with all matters as quickly as possible."

However, Lemos also pointed out that Thomas Cook is not alone in using 0844 numbers as rival tour operators and other suppliers also charge agents for phone calls.

"This goes for all tour operators, all airlines in our trade, not just TC," he said.

Thomas Cook launches the dedicated phone line this week after admitting that call waiting times had increased following the relocation of its calls centre from Bradford to other offices.

It has also taken on 35 additional staff to deal with agent queries and expanded the FAQ section of its website to try to answer agents’ queries online. It also suggested to agents that they use its Live Chat facility instead of calling and urged them to call outside normal working hours for a faster response.

Less than 14% of Thomas Cook’s business comes via third-party agents, but the operator insisted this week that it still valued their support, as demonstrated with the launch of the new phone.

Lemos agreed that Thomas Cook had responded well to his Tweet to chief executive Harriet Green. "There is a positive outcome to our episode," he wrote on Facebook. "Everything has been solved. In fairnesss, (Thomas Cook) staff and especially its management have now done everything to make up for this incident.

"Still, it should not be the case that we had to resort to such measures – (Thomas Cook) must solve this high volume calls issues quickly; agents cannot be put waiting on hold for 2 to 3hrs or even more, nor is the solution as suggested by some agents & now ridiculously by TC themselves, calling at 6am in the morning or at 10pm at night – please just listen to yourselves carefully when you’re actually suggesting this – that’s just servile and subservient.

"TC doesn’t pay us enough commission for our overtime, just to suit their own commercial problems or short-staff concerns. We can be accommodating but this is a long running issue, nothing that’s just happened all of a sudden. It’s just deteriorated into unacceptable at this moment in time."