BeatTheBrochure Shines During Volcanic Ash Cloud Delays!

Online, April 29, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The volcanic ash crisis is finally over, and people are picking up the pieces. So how well did holiday websites perform on customer service? As you'll have heard, many travel businesses put on a very poor show. But online cheap holidays specialist BeatTheBrochure pulled out all the stops, going to considerable lengths to ensure the best customer service.

Take their Florida holidays for a start. "We have offices in Orlando from where we manage our Florida holidays clients. When the volcano prevented flights departing the USA, our ground team worked through the night to re-book and re-home more than 1800 people, some of which were trapped in Florida for much longer than originally planned. We even provided complimentary coffee, doughnuts and internet access 24/7 for our clients to use freely" explains Daniel Ox, BeatTheBrochure's Director of E-Commerce.

4000 BeatTheBrochure passengers were scattered across the globe at the peak of the Ash crisis, 1800 in Florida and 3200 across Europe and beyond, including a significant number on their holidays to Egypt. While airline support systems kicked in and took care of many BeatTheBrochure's clients just as many unlucky people were left high and dry, in genuine need of support. "Because re-booking hotel rooms, flights and car hire is a real challenge when it isn't your field of expertise, we extended our opening hours and fed our staff minute-by-minute status updates from airlines. Our travel consultants dealt with every enquiry they received within two hours, professionally and efficiently."

Social networking came to the fore, with BeatTheBrochure regular tweets keeping people informed about exactly what was going on. Ox adds, "As the scale of the crisis became evident, we immediately drafted in extra resources to deal with the increased call volumes and queries. Many of our clients followed our Twitter page to keep bang up to date with the latest flight news."

"The Icelandic ash cloud was an unprecedented crisis and its effects took everyone by surprise" concludes Ox. "The situation changed by the hour and it was absolutely vital to remain flexible, be available 24/7 and organise our manpower intelligently. One of the worst things about a delay is not having up to date information so we prioritised that too, harnessing social networking and making it work hard for us. As such we provided the highest level of customer service to our clients, exactly when they needed it."

Cheap holidays needn't mean poor service. If you're buying your holiday online make sure that by paying a low price you're not compromising on quality. Whether embarking on cheap holidays to Turkey or taking a trip to Blackpool, holidays should always come complete with excellent customer support, a quality that BeatTheBrochure showed in abundance during the unprecedented volcanic ash cloud crisis.