Thomson Complaint - Resolved, but...how?

During my complaint about my horrible Thomson Tunisia holiday, I wrote on my blog displaying how angry I was about the service I received and not only that, but when I complained I was completely ignored. Just prior to me going away to Spain I received the cheque from Thomson to recompense me for my horrible Thomson holiday. Although this was an amicable amount, it was not what I deemed to be a credible amount, and as such I feel someone who doesn't go through the lengths I did to get get noticed by their company will probably receive nothing.

During my stay in the Marhaba Palace, Port El Kantoui, Tunisia within the first 24hours I made it very clear to the Thomson Rep I was not happy with the circumstances of my holiday as the night prior I arrived to the worst room I've ever stayed in. A few days after this I registered an official complaint, this was the 17th June so as Thomson have now received my official complaint letter the regulatory response time starts ticking. The law is 28days for a complaint response (Note: An acknowledgement of a complaint doesn't cover this). I rang Thomson 7 times about my horrible holiday to tunisia over the next few weeks and started to realise that nothing was going to happen.

 

On the 26th July I emailed the chairman of Thomson and the Director of TUI-UK who I would have thought would be very interested about how their customer care centre is ignoring ABTA regulations. One week later ABTA became involved, and they informed me they would be chasing Thomson. Along side this I started Twittering on Thomsons feed, this seemed to be the first real contact I made. By telling their twitter group I was beating Thomson in Google on several search terms it appears it caught the interest of their internet communications team.

 

Within days of this I received a call from one of the management in the customer care team at Thomsons, she didn't sound overly happy. This is probably because she'd been told to stay will 6 or 7 in the evening waiting for me to answer my phone on a Friday. I stressed to how horrible the Thomson Tunisia trip was, but after disagreeing over the amount I was entitled to I ended up with something far short of what I really wanted which can only make me think that people who don't goto these lengths get nothing or very little.

 

In short, what appears to be necessary if you want to be noticed by Thomsons complaint team about a poor service with them is the following:

 

1. Create a blog describing in detail about your Thomson holiday or flight experience so that it reaches a position in Google above Thomson.
2. Whilst on holiday always complain, it gives you a good standing point to do it whilst on holiday. It shows how bad your time was if you complain whilst there.
3. Follow this up with another full follow up letter explaining every minute detail about your Thomson trip.
4. Don't bother contact directors or other high execs, even if you receive read receipts you won't get replies (or atleast I didn't)
5. Finally after preparing a battery of information to them they will have no way of denying or ignoring your complaint, if the callcentre gives you no joy, contact thomsonholidays on Twitter.

Thats everything about my Thomson tunisia trip, you can read more about my Thomson Tunisia Holiday Review or more about my Thomson Holiday: The excursions.