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Travelocity invests in customer service to improve retention
Travelocity is ramping up its customer service in a bid to build loyalty and retention.
The online travel agent has launched a ‘Service Guarantee’ and claims to have improved operating profit as a result.
An India-based team proactively seeks out problems affecting customers.
President and chief executive Michelle Peluso said online players had spent too much time focusing on the commodity and not enough on providing a great experience.
“We have focused consumers to think that price is what matters so the more we do things like this the more we crack the nut on loyalty and move away from being exclusively about price.”
Peluso said that part of the Service Guarantee was to contact customers with a similar itinerary once it has identified an issue that might affect their trip or holiday.
Responding to questions from the floor about the cost of operating the Service Guarantee she said admitted the executive team had struggled with the concept for more than a year.
“It took us 18 months to launch the Service Guarantee because we said we couldn’t take accountability. Then, we said we will sell more than $10 million of travel this year and we went through customer calls and e-mails to see where we were letting people down. We saw there was a lot we could do.”
Peluso added that the company has improved its profitability by dealing with people’s problems.
“If you really create loyalty and retention you do hold on to customers and that is cheaper than attaining them.”
She was also said the idea of Travelocity charging service fees in the future had been mooted.
“We have talked about offering a ‘Premium’ level of service and whether customers would pay for it. We’re at a stage where we feel base offering can still improve but we have toyed with the idea.”
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