Today was good for my soul
The last 24 hours have been the busiest that I have seen in my 12 years in the student travel industry!
Starting yesterday afternoon, a large number of our customers (most of which cancelled their travel packages over the last 7 days) contacted us (Director’s Choice Tour & Travel) with hopes of rebooking their trips for this weekend. As we rely heavily on our systems to guarantee product integrity, here is what followed:
- Customers were asked to submit requests in writing for verification and to initiate the change process
- Original registration files were pulled from file room
- Changes were walked to our conference room (now setup as mission control) and reinstatement started in our system
- Performance times were rebooked on a first-come first-served basis
- Each vendor was contacted to confirm availability and details (festivals, hotels, coaches, etc.)
- Customer itineraries were created/updated
- New maps, directions, performance site information packets, etc. were sent to rebooked customers
- Completed files were returned to file room
So the kicker is that this process was run successfully for the dozens of customers that were ready (read – finally allowed by their administrators) to reinstate their packages. Thanks to our outstanding team and some very cooperative vendors, we were able to meet 100% of our customer requests as of 9:00 PM this evening.
Looking back, this is the highest 24-hour workload that our company has dealt with since we opened. We essentially contracted the same number of groups today that we normally handle in about 2 months, knowing that departures begin on Thursday morning.
The beauty is that we all kept a smile on our face throughout the day. You see, it has been indescribably depressing the last seven days – cancelling group after group – knowing that nobody was going to be happy with the final result. Today, we got to prove what we say and believe – we will do everything within our power to provide students with positive travel and performance experiences.
So, to my friends that found irony and humor in my post from a few weeks ago suggesting that this is our best travel season ever, I must say…
NOW, EVEN MORE THAN BEFORE, THIS IS OUR BEST TRAVEL SEASON EVER!!!!
Our relationships with customers and vendors are stronger than ever, our team has a new level of unity that is almost scary, and even the “Novel A (h1n1) Swine Influenza” can’t break our spirit!