Quality Performance

As we do every year, we recently asked all our clients to spare a few moments of their valuable time to respond to our service quality survey.

We would like to thank all of those many – over 60 - who took the time and trouble to respond and provide us with valuable feedback.

As token of our appreciation for their trouble, all respondents’ names were entered into a prize draw and this year the prize offered was again a £50 Christmas Hamper. We are delighted  to announce that the lucky winner was Mr Ramon Saiz, who has long been a client of our Leisure department.

The feedback from each of our Quality Surveys is thoroughly analysed and the results used to prioritise our campaign of continual improvement. Many readers will know that Clients are asked to mark our performance in 14 specific features, using a scale of 1 – 10 where 1 = unacceptable, 5 = good and 10 = excellent.

As in previous surveys, we are very pleased that the efforts we have made resulted in clients awarding us a further increase on top of our 2010 score. Furthermore, we are thrilled that 3 of the 4 largest improvements were amongst the 4 aspects of our service which were scored lowest last year. This proves the value of these surveys and how seriously we continue to take the results.

On average the aggregate score across all 14 aspects was 9.38 (out of 10) compared with 9.22 last year. The detailed results were as follows:

The table below gives the key to each feature.
 

  

As you will see, our lowest scoring feature, as in 2010 was Our quotes are competitive/good value for money – we think it unlikely that some clients would show too much enthusiasm for this feature as a matter of principle, since although we do try our best, clients will naturally always hope for better prices. However we believe that a score of 8.25 at a time when most clients are particularly price conscious due to the state of the economy, will be seen as reassuring, since a score of 5.0 is designated “good”.

All other features score comfortably in excess of 9.0, with the three top scoring ones being for “our response is friendly and helpful” , “ our staff are knowledgeable and friendly” and “The information we provide is accurate”..

Our team continues to strive for higher scores each year, so please do let us know if at any time we fail to meet excellent service standards.

We were also much encouraged by the number of appreciative free-style comments volunteered by many responders to this survey. Some of these may be found on our corporate testimonials page.

Leisure Travel service quality

Whilst somewhat fewer people responded to the leisure section of the quality survey, the average score was 9.68, and as you will see from the table below, the spread ranged between 8.5 and 9.5, showing that this service also is very highly regarded by our clients. This covers all aspects of the research, advice and fulfillment processes we undertake for them.
 

For more details of our Leisure Travel Service  why not contact us? We will be delighted to research your next holiday requirements, and you will then be able to make a direct comparison with the agent you have historically used? We are sure you will be pleased you did!

Many clients will already know that we treat every client concern regarding any aspect of their travel experience with which we have played a part, as a valuable opportunity from which to learn to avoid repetition.

The issue may have been substandard performance of a travel vendor, in which case apart from trying to obtain compensation or at least an apology, we ensure the vendor is properly aware of the problem.

Unfortunately  the concern may sometimes result from an error in our own office - we are all only human! Rather than trying to hide it or make an excuse for it (as some organisations would), we explore in depth how or why it occurred and extract as much from the experience as we can.

We understand all too clearly how tough it can be on a busy traveller when any aspect of their travel arrangements does not go according to plan, so not only do we apologise for any inconvenience/stress the issue may have caused, we also try to identify improvements in our procedures or the need for additional training. We then let the client have our findings.

Our staff all take a great personal interest in the figures. They are proud of their record and are always trying to improve on their most recent results.

This year, the first half figures are:

     -  Client Concerns resulting from a Vendor fault :                1.8 per thousand bookings

     -  Client Concerns resulting from a Medway Travel fault :     3.9 per thousand bookings 

A booking includes the whole process from enquiry to final invoice and we consider all bookings whether for Executive, Leisure travel, Groups and Events or travel for Schools and colleges.

Thus one can see that in the last 6 months, over 99.4% of the bookings we made were free from any reported concern or error from whatever cause.

You can therefore, rely on an exceptionally high standard of service, when your travel in the hands of our experienced staff.

We would like to thank all of our clients who took the time and trouble to respond to our November Quality Survey. We had a large number of respondents, providing us with valuable feedback.

As an incentive to clients to complete the survey, all respondents’ names were entered into a prize draw and this year the prize offered was again a Christmas Hamper and we are pleased to announce that the winner was Mark Luxford, from Eaton Williams Ltd.

The feedback from each of our Quality Surveys is thoroughly analysed and the results used to provide guidance on which areas we should concentrate on in order to improve our service. Clients are asked to mark our performance in 14 specific features, using a scale of 1 – 10 where 1 = unacceptable, 5 = good and 10 = excellent.

As in previous surveys, we are very pleased that the efforts we have made resulted in clients awarding us an average overall score within a hair's breadth of last year's, at 9.22 compared with 9.29, in spite of the ash and snow crises in air travel this year. This compares with 8.89 in 2008, in comparison with which we have been able to improve most on our previously lowest scoring features, as shown below.

The detailed results were as follows: 

 

                                                         Service Feature

1	Our quotes are competitive/good value for money
2	Our accounting procedures are accurate and helpful
3	Our visa service works efficiently and speedily
4	Our fare quotes are accurate
5	We respond effectively to any reported problem
6	The timing of our fulfillment service is reliable
7	We provide proactive support
8	Our travel documents are accurate and informative
9	Where necessary we call you back within an agreed timescale
10	We provide a solution during the initial call wherever possible
11	The information we provide is accurate
12	Our staff are knowledgeable and friendly
13	We answer the telephone promptly
14	Our response is friendly and cheerful

Considering the three lower scoring features :

Our quotes are competitive/good value for money – we think it unlikely that some clients would show too much enthusiasm for this feature as a matter of principle, since although we do try our best, clients will naturally always hope for better prices.

Our accounting procedures are accurate and helpful – Unfortunately there will always be occasions when our vendors – especially hotels and car rental companies - make mistakes which reflects on our own accounts department . However we have concentrated on making in-house improvements regarding e-invoicing and general communications, so it’s good to see this has been recognized in the survey results.

Our visa service works efficiently and speedily – We subcontract this service, and our specialist partner, being the professional company it is, has taken advantage of latest work flow control and communications systems and raised its game convincingly.

Our staff continue to strive for higher scores each year, so please do let us know if at any time we fail to meet excellent service standards.

We were also much encouraged by the number of appreciative free-style comments volunteered by may responders to this survey. Some of these may be found on our corporate testimonials page.

Leisure Travel service quality

Whilst fewer people responded to the leisure section of the quality survey, the average score was 9.03, with the spread between 8.5 and 9.5, showing that this service also is highly regarded by our clients across all aspects of the research, advice and fulfillment processes we undertake for them.

For more details of our Leisure Travel Service why not contact us? We will be delighted to research your next holiday requirements, and you will then be able to make a direct comparison with the agent you have historically used? We are sure you will be pleased you did!

Existing clients will know how seriously we take any concerns they may have regarding their travel arrangements, whether they relate to the service provided by the travel vendors we have booked for them, or the advice or service our staff have given. This is why we record and investigate every such instance carefully to see what can be done to rectify the situation and what we can learn from the experience to make it less likely to recurr.

Over the years we have kept detailed records and we are pleased to report that in the second half of 2010, the incidence of client concerns relating to the part Medway Travel played in arranging clients' corporate travel was 2.38 per thousand bookings. The equivalent figure for the travel vendors we used was 4.3 per thousand bookings.

These figures are comparable with previous figures (bearing in mind such small numbers) and continue to show that over 99.3% of the trips we book are free of any issues causing concern to travellers or to their companies.

Our staff are understandably proud of this consistently high quality performance and continue to strive to do even better.

However, please do not hesitate to let us know if ever you do have any issues with any aspect of what we do for you. We would rather know and be able to address it, than live in a fool's paradise and not know you are less than happy with our service.

Once again we very much appreciate the trouble taken by those many clients of the 250 contacted, who kindly responded to our request to complete our November 2009 Quality Survey. The results have been carefully analysed and are a useful guide to our future development.

For the last few years we have run the same questionnaire and the results have been very consistent. However, I am pleased to say, this year we have edged slightly ahead.

Responders were asked to score a number of aspects of our service on an advised scoring scale of 1=unacceptable, 5 = good and 10 = excellent. (Please click here to see the survey itself) The results gave a score across all responders and all 14 elements of our service, of 9.26. This compares with 9.10 in 2007 and 9.18 in 2008 – so we are making headway even though it gets progressively more difficult the nearer we get to 10!

Corporate Travel

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect in the results is the tight range within which all the scores lie. The two lowest average scores were given to “Our quotes are competitive / good” and “Our accounting procedures are accurate and helpful” each of which scored an average of 8.4.

All others elements were given an average score over 9.0, with the highest going to:

· “Our response is friendly and cheerful” at 9.73,
· “Our staff are knowledgeable and friendly” at 9.64 and
· “Our travel documents are accurate and informative” at 9.52.

In addition to the quantitative analysis, many of our respondents were generous in their appreciative comments. For example one respondent said:

“I am very pleased to say that I have no suggestion on how to improve general performance of Medway Travel, every enquiry or actual booking has been dealt with efficiency, friendliness and we always feel that we get the best possibly price available.”

And another:

“I have always had superb service and have particularly appreciated the pro-active approach, searching out deals that will be useful to us. All arrangements have always worked beautifully.”

Leisure Travel

We are please to see a very similar result applying to our leisure travel services, as to that above. The overall score across all 12 elements of the service was 9.03 out of 10. with the range even narrower than in corporate travel.

· The highest was “our staff are knowledgeable and friendly” at 9.4, and
· The lowest was “our quotes are competitive and good value” at 8.5.

We would therefore encourage everyone who has not yet tried our leisure service – which specialises in carefully researching and giving detailed professional advice about alternative solutions to creating your ideal holidays - to do so. You will be glad you did!

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Far from making us complacent however, these results spur us all on to even greater effort and we will be trying to raise the scores of those elements of our service which scored less than 9.0 this time, to achieve 9.0 or more across the board in our next survey!

The following report covers all the client concerns about any individual booking we have made, of which we have been aware during the period.

We treat every such client concern regarding any aspect of their travel experience with which we have played a part, as a valuable opportunity from which to learn for the future.

The issue may be about the performance of a travel vendor, in which case we try to obtain compensation or at least an apology, with a view to ensuring the vendor is properly aware of the problem.

Alternatively it may result from an error in our own office - we are all only human, after all! But, rather than try to hide it or make an excuse for it, as some organisations would, we explore in depth how or why it occurred and extract as much from the experience as we can. Not only do we apologise for any inconvenience/stress the issue may have caused, as we well understand how tough it can be on a busy traveller when any aspect of their travel arrangements does not go according to plan. We also try to identify improvements in our procedures or the need for some additional formal training, and we communicate our findings and resulting action plans with the client.

One advantage of treating Client Concerns so seriously is that we have data to analyse. This is followed avidly by our staff, who are proud of their record and are always trying to improve on the last results.

Because (thankfully!) the numbers are so small, our trend data is based on half yearly figures, and I am pleased to announce that the figures for 1st half 2010 show a further pleasing improvement (the figures in brackets are the latest two year moving average):

     -  Client Concerns resulting from a Vendor fault :              3.1 per thousand bookings (4.5) 

     -  Client Concerns resulting from a Medway Travel fault :     1.7 per thousand bookings (3.3) 

These figures include the whole process from enquiry to final invoice, for all Medway Travel's bookings, including Executive and Leisure travel, Groups and Events and travel for Schools and colleges.

Thus one can see that in the last 6 months, over 99.5% of the bookings we made were free from any reported concern or error from whatever cause.

You can therefore, rely on a very high quality of service, when you place your travel in our experienced hands.

We would like to thank all of our clients who took the time and trouble to respond to our November Quality Survey. We had a record number of respondents, providing us with valuable feedback.

As an incentive to clients to complete the survey, all respondents’ names are entered into a prize draw and this time the prize offered was an M&S Christmas Hamper. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Christmas Hamper was Barbara Laird of ISG Technology.

The feedback from each of our Quality Surveys is thoroughly analysed and the results used to provide guidance on which areas we should concentrate on in order to improve our service. Clients are asked to mark our performance in 14 specific areas, using a scale of 1 – 10 where 1 = unacceptable, 5 = good and 10 = excellent.

As in previous surveys, we were very pleased with the results, with the average score for overall performance being 8.89.

The results were as follows:

    A    Our staff are knowledgeable and friendly    9.07

    B    The information we provide is accurate    8.98

    C    Our fare quotes are accurate    8.56

    D    Our fare quotes are competitive / good value for money    8.07

    E    Our travel documents are accurate and informative    8.91

    F    The timing of our fulfilment service is reliable    8.86

    G    We provide proactive support    8.91

    H    We respond effectively to any reported problem    8.75

    I    Our response is friendly and cheerful    9.23

    J    We answer the telephone promptly    9.23

    K    Our visa service works efficiently and speedily    8.42

    L    We provide a solution during the initial call wherever possible    8.93

    M    Where necessary we call you back within an agreed timescale    8.93

    N    Our accounting procedures are accurate and helpful    8.32

As you will see, our highest scoring elements were “Our response is friendly and cheerful” and “We answer the telephone promptly”. This reflects our mission to provide a very personal, friendly and helpful service to our clients at all times, as we believe this is key in forming a lasting relationship.

Our lowest scoring element was “Our quotes are competitive / good value for money”. Whilst we do always try to be as competitive as possible, we do not claim to be the cheapest nor attempt to price match internet-site quotes. Medway Travel provides a quality service (please see Client Concern reporting, below) which we will not risk undermining in an attempt compete with those who provide little or no service. Nor will we use, on behalf of our clients, unknown and possibly unreliable, sources for our travel products.

Our staff are dedicated to continue to strive for higher scores each year, so please do let us know if at any time we fail to meet excellent service standards.

We were also much encouraged by the number of appreciative free-style comments volunteered by may responders to this survey. Some of these may be found on our corporate testimonials page.

Whilst fewer people responded in the leisure section, the average score was 9.2, with the spread between an excellent 9.67 for "we respond effectively to any reported problem", down to the lowest (8.62) for "our quotes are competitive and good value".

With this snapshot of our excellent overall Leisure Travel Service experienced by others, if you haven’t yet tried it, why not contact us for your next holiday requirements, so you can make a direct comparison with the agent you have historically used? We are sure you will be pleased you did!

We treat every report of any client concern regarding any aspect of their travel experience with which we have played a part, as a valuable opportunity from which to learn for the future.

The issue may be about the performance of a travel vendor, in which case we try to obtain compensation or at least an apology, with a view to ensuring the vendor is properly aware of the problem.

Alternatively it may result from an error in our own office - we are all only human, after all! But, rather than try to hide it or make an excuse for it, as some organisations would, we explore in depth how or why it occurred and extract as much from the experience as we can. Not only do we then try to identify improvements in our procedures or the need for some additional formal training, but we also communicate with the client, outlining our findings and actions. Of course, we also apologise for any inconvenience/stress the issue may have caused, as we well understand how tough it can be on a busy traveller when any aspect of their travel arrangements, does not go according to plan.

One advantage of treating Client Concerns so seriously is that we have data to analyse. This is followed avidly by our staff, who are proud of their record and are always trying to improve on the last results.

Because (thankfully!) the numbers are so small, our trend data is based on half yearly figures, and I am pleased to announce that the 2^nd half 2009 figures show a pleasing improvement on the first half, as follows:

     -  Client Concerns resulting from a Vendor fault :     5.2 per thousand bookings (down from 6.5)  - ie 0.52%

     -  Medway Travel fault :                                              4.2 per thousand bookings  (down from 4.9)  - ie 0.42%

These figures show that over 99% of the bookings we made in the second half of 2009 were free of any reported concern or error and that this rises to over 99.5% when considering those resulting solely from errors made by Medway Travel staff. 

These figures include Medway Leisure Travel and our accounts department, as well as our corporate travel department, so you can, with great confidence, rely on a very high quality of service, when you place your travel in our experienced hands.