Travel’s move online ‘at expense of customer service’
Travel companies have been accused of offering the worst online customer service in Britain.
In a poll of 100 leading organisations, the travel sector came out joint worst at delivering answers to straightforward questions such as about flight destinations, refunds and visa information.
Holiday and airline websites could only on average answer one question out of 10, with 40% unable to answer a single question online.
It also took an average of 66 hours to get a response to an email inquiry for information. One site took 149 hours to respond to an email. The research found that travel companies are taking 24 hours longer to reply to customer emails than they did last year.
The survey by software company Transversal found that holidaymakers are being “condemned to delays and frustration through a total failure to gte their most basic queries answered by travel websites.”
CEO Davin Yap said: “Holidaymakers looking for information information online are facing long delays even before they set foot in the airport.
“We were amazed to find that despite highlighting these issues last year, little has improved and in many cases travel websites have got worse.These results show that the travel industry’s move online is at the expense of customer service.”
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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