Booking the leg from Sydney to Melbourne with Tiger Airways was straight forward, and I did that in a few minutes. The hardest part was ensuring that I had times right to cope with the check-in policies of the airlines involved.
While I was doing this, I tried to simultaneously book the tickets between Narrabri and Sydney. It turns out that Aeropelican's booking computer was having problems at the time. I initially had an option of a $122 fare on the outgoing trip and $162 to return. I thought that wasn't bad, so after carefully making sure that the times were right and everything looked kosher I tried to book the tickets.
Most airline booking sytems have a multi-step process that involves selecting the flights from a number of options then entering your personal details and finally paying by credit card. It was after that first step that their system just ground to a halt. I tried restarting the prcess several times but it just wasn't working.
An hour later, I tried on a different computer and it all worked, but -surprise!- the cheapest fare wasn't available any more. The reason being, I suspect, that one of my reloads or whatever told the computer that someone wanted that seat.
So I let Aeropelican know that I was definitely unhappy, but that a $40 refund would make me happy. Even a credit towards my next flight would be OK- I'm not that hard to please.
Guess what? I've booked that seat and they will not change it to another fare, even though they admit there were problems with their system.
I don't fly very often, but I do know that where there is a choice of carriers, Aeropelican will not be on my personal favourites list. For just $40 Aeropelican has alienated a customer.
This comes hard on the heels of the Nandewar Motel giving away Susannah's room on her wedding night, even though James had told them when he booked it that he would not be contactable on the day and the booking was firm. No apology, no offer of a free meal in their restaurant, no offer of a free stay in a room at some other time.
Well the Nandewar is one motel we will not be recommending to our visiting guests.
Clearly these places haven't heard the first rule of successful business.
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It seems that everything is done at the convenience of the seller these days, but it is a good opportunity for someone starting a business to fill that void and give their customers a happy surprise.I've started to see a bit of this lately. I ordered some photocopies from Sir Cooper, but was unable to get back for the second part of the order and had to order separately. The vendor recognized this and combined the two orders and refunded the shipping on the second one.InkProducts.com is just amazing - they have a human being answer ther phone! And.... if you have a problem, good old Tom is there to talk you through it!
ReplyDeleteWestnet, a smaller internet provider is making good use of this. They are running TV ads showing "X-Rays" of their support staff to show they are human :)It's really important in small towns such as ours for businesses to have a reputation for excellent service. With large stores and internet sales, retailers especially have to compete in giving good service.
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