Got a Problem - General Holiday Enquiries, Hints and Tips, Holiday Forums

Got a Problem

fwh

2005-12-09 15:28:52

People post on this and other forums/sites when they have a problem and feel that they are not getting a response from the tour company. Members post giving advice and if you need to go legal then Ros Fernihough is the person to contact. You can however resolve many problems if you can only get through to someone other than those flaming callcentre answerphones.
Type the company name into Google or whichever search engine you use. Yes I know that it finds 14 godzillion entries. Just have the same patience you have when you are researching that holiday of a lifetime. Look for the credit Reference companies. They will give you the official registered office address and some will even give you names of directors. Those are the people to chase - Head Office telephone numbers will not play Vivaldi for 45 minutes. Ask the name of the Company Secretary and Chief Executive - You sue the company secretary not the company. Ask if you can speak to them. If not then send your letter of complaint to them - not customer services dept. Think about it. Customer services are getting thousands of letters so it stands to reason that they will not reply by return post. When the Chief Executive finds you have his name and are pestering him he will be a bit miffed, He will in many cases insist your complaint is sorted quickly to get you off his back. With all due respect it is not much good moaning on here that XYZ are a waste of time. You need to do some work yourself. Try cutting out the middle man ( customer services ) - You have nothing to lose and a great deal to gain.

fwh

Edit - Complaints should follow the procedure laid down in Terms & Conditions. They do not stop you sending copies to anyone else who may be able to assist such as The Chief Executive and Company Secretary.

Edited by fwh 2005-12-09 17:14:58

MarkJ

2005-12-09 16:57:55

I have no experience in complaining myself in relation to holidays, but would your suggestion not be against the T&C's.

T&C's will state that you have to address your complaint to such and such an address within a certain timespan.

What would happen if the Chief Executive or anybody else in Head Office rejects your claim and you have make a claim in the courts. Wouldn't the Tour Operator not get away with stating to the judge that the correct complaints procedure was not followed?

Just playing devil advocate here and I look forward to other people's opinions on this.

Mark

marie35p

2005-12-10 21:14:45

When I had a problem with a certain high street electrical giant and a 5 month old printer, the procedure I followed with the full assistance of trading standards was this: send a full account of the problems I had had, along with details of the non existant help through the usual channel of customer services recorded delivery to the Chief Executive at the company HQ.
Lo and behold within 10 days I had authority to go back to the shop and obtain a refund or another printer of my choice to the same value.
This must be ok to do because as I say I obtained all my instructions on what to do from trading standards.
Marie

Edit: unless of course holidays come under a different ruling :oops:

xenosuk

2005-12-11 09:29:23

Writing to the Chief Exec or Company Secretary may sometimes help to speed things up if you've already followed the set procedures and not got anywhere, but my experience of working for large companies is that all mail addressed to these people (even if marked private and confidential) is opened by their PAs and any first-time complaints will just be passed on to the relevant department without the person it was addressed to ever even seeing it. That's how they get where they are - by learning how to delegate the rubbish jobs!

doe

2005-12-11 11:40:46

I agree. I have also worked for a couple of large companies, and the fact that things are addressed to the "top dog" is irrelevant. They certainly don't open their own post, and 99% of the correspondence is channeled to the appropriate department/person.

I think its more productive to address correspondence to the correct person/department and make it obvious you have cc'ed the Director/Chief Exec. Possibly then the more Junior person who deals with your letter might be a bit quicker, knowing that the complainant is aware of company structures etc. and on (rare) occassions Directors' PA's have paper tracking systems to see if stuff is getting dealt with.

daveyjp

2005-12-13 16:02:28

I complained to the 'Customer service' e-mail address of a major pub chain. Received a letter after a week saying it would be investigated (thats their reply in a week standard complied with). Heard nothing else, then I saw the Chief Exec in the paper spouting off about their profit levels. I guessed her e-mail address would be her name followed by the company. She replied within two days saying she would look in to it - guess what nothing! This was 8 weeks ago.

Me and my group of 12 friends used to spend upwards of £200 between us every Thursday night and we had been going there for over three years (knew all the staff etc) - we now go to another pub, the previous pub have lost £10,000 in turnover. The row was over a free sweet for us all as we had been waiting over an hour to be served and then the order was wrong. Cost to the pub in the sweets would have been about £12!

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