NEWS CONFERENCE REPORT


THE TRAVEL NETWORK GROUP CONFERENCE 2016: Consortium hosts 320 agents on Celebrity Eclipse for its annual conference. Juliet Dennis and Lucy Huxley report from Southampton and Le Havre


The Premier Travel and Premier Holidays team won the inaugural lifetime achievement award. The agency group and tour operator is 80 years old this year and is The Travel Network Group’s largest member


Members rate group as ‘world class’ 80.9


The Travel Network Group has been rated “world class” by members in a survey by the Institute of Customer Service – and has set its sights even higher for next year.


The group received a rating of


80.9 in a survey of members in February, compared with 76.1 in February 2015. Any score over 80, out of 100, is deemed world-class customer service.


Other companies also rated


world class in ICS surveys include Trailfinders (83.3), Expedia (81.3), Booking.com (80.6) and P&O Cruises (80.2). Chief executive Gary Lewis said the group was now targeting a rating of 84.5 – similar to its original target for this year – for the next survey in February 2017. “We have moved the dial to


world class and moving it four or five digits is impressive. I would be disappointed if we didn’t move it the same again in the next 12 months to 84.5,” he said. Changes made to the group’s


Honeycomb technology – it is poised to roll out a faster and more


reliable version of the system to members – should help achieve the higher ranking, added Lewis. He admitted the group had


Group’s score out of 100 in ICS survey


been forced to significantly raise its game to improve customer


‘Social media has led to sales for 30%’


Three in 10 Worldchoice and Travel Trust Association members reported having gained new sales directly from social media activity, according to a survey by The Travel Network Group. The poll of 100 members also


found that ‘lack of time’ rather than ‘lack of interest’ or ‘lack of understanding’ was the main reason travel firms might fail to take part in social media, with 52% of respondents saying they’re too busy. The findings


were revealed in a ‘social media for beginners’ session.


Marketing director Si Prentice


told members to embrace Twitter, revealing that people aged 55-64 were the fastest- growing group on the channel. He also revealed that 42% of millennials say their destination choice is influenced by others’ holiday photos and social media, so urged members to join in to target new, younger customers. But he warned: “Only one in every 10 tweets should have a price message. In the rest you should be joining the


conversation, offering facts or content like video.”


Si Prentice 16 travelweekly.co.uk 12 May 2016


service on areas where it was underperforming, such as resolving complaints. Speaking at the group’s


conference on board Celebrity Eclipse, he said: “In 2015, you


[members] thought we were below world class. We knew we had to improve our service, our technology, our people, and get a better understanding of what we’re poor at. “We put together a customer


service team chosen from every division of the group, such as marketing, operations and finance, and over 12 months had constant conversations about where we were in customer service on technology, or answering the phones and response times to members. It became all-consuming and it changed what we did.” Lewis said the group had set an original target score of 84, adding: “Naturally I was not as happy as I could have been but we have gone over 80 into world-class customer service. “You [members] are recognising we are behaving differently.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76