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RANT BLOG Business David and Goliath
David and Goliath
Written by Andy Sharman Thursday, 17 September 2009 21:27
This is a term that has been thrown around a lot when describing the articles about me, my blog and my battle against Thomson over my holiday to Tunisia. It seems that I am not the only person out there, and I do believe Thomson to be sorry now they realised the steam roller of fame this story has received this week. They have invited me down to them to dicuss how to improve their customer services and I would like you (the readers) to tell me what you think needs to be done!I'm saying this because, like any person I don't know everything and as such my idea of a perfect customer service might be another persons idea of hell, and obviously there is legislation and liabilities that Thomson genuinely have to look out for. I'm not necessarily confirming I will go, but at the least I am sure Thomson are still keeping an eye on the blog, and would appreciate some tips from you guys! I know a lot of people, like me, have been miss-sold so I will try to pass this information on as well, but at the bare minimum I will make sure the rite people at Thomson receive a consensus of what they need to do to improve - in view of the general public who have had experiences with Thomson.
- First of all, I would like to ask everyone please keep it clean, I had to delete 4-5 comments the past few days due to people replying abusively to others, its not fair, don't do it.
- Be specific, detail what you did and what you got in return, "help them help you" etc
- I don't think I can request complaint/booking numbers due to data protection so please don't specify them, I will delete them. Leave a reply e-mail (only I can see it - and I will not use it for anything other than to pass to Thomson)
Thats about it really, I appreciate for some this may be too little too late, but I have been approached by the same Thomson employee who originally got the ball moving with my complaint, and as such do believe she is genuinely sorry that this has all gotten to this stage.
Additionally sometime this week I will be writing a full detailed way to write a blog, although there are a few who want to setup blogs the way I did, it isn't free to run a website like this. I pay for it out of my own pocket, however, I will be telling you how to setup a free wordpress blog in the coming week which is simple to use, and has 100's of free templates and plugins. Please bare in mind though that a site to appear high on Google with common search terms is hard, and might not be acheivable without hiring a professional company such as Cite web design agency who are SEO specialists and I work for.
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Comments
It took me under a month to get to the top of Google, and it only really took that long due to issues with me not having a proper 301 with a secondary domain name I use (andysharman.net), however, for most new websites it takes upto 90 days to get crawled correctly by Google, whereas my website was pre-existing and being crawled consistently already.
It helped me get a better customer response and I do believe its a powerful way of making them listen, but I won't be surprised if Thomson are now spending money on SEO, and yes Organic results - don't need PPC.
Hope it helps!
I am glad you got a resolution to your claim, but it is a shame you had to resort to social media marketing techniques to do it. Your story inspires others.
For me problems started when my holiday on TOM4566 from Gatwick to Mahon took on an unexpected pitstop as we had to make an emergency landing in Paris due to a decompression issue.
I will have a better idea on what I would improve when I have completed the process.
But from your experience getting page 1 on search terms that include "thomson" and the resort or review etc helps the customer care experience?
May I ask how long it took you?
I presume you are talking organic results rather than ppc?
Cheers.
Well I reckon they could improve things by having the courtesy to respond to our complaints in a reasonable time. I completed a complaint form at a resort in Rhodes, and followed it up with an email (citing the complaint number) well over a month ago. I\'ve received an automated email response and absolutely nothing else.
Kev.
I wish me made it to customs! We didn\'t even make it past the check in desk- and they didn\'t even try or offer to check with customs! That\'s one of the most annoying and questionable things about the whole situation. We actually ended up just paying for a quick holiday in Greece leaving the following day and flew out - on the very same passport they claimed was \'too damaged.\' very suspicious.... add on to that not giving us any relief from the £3700 or discount on future travels and something is very fishy indeed...
Just to clarify, were you allowed through customs and stopped when trying to board the plan by the Thomson staff?
Regards,
Andy
Thanks,
Philippa
http://nomaldiveshoneymoon.blogspot.com/
but basically my husband booked a £3700 trip to the Maldives for our honeymoon (our honeymoon!!!) and they wouldn\'t let us board b/c my husband\'s passport they claimed was too damaged. He\'s travelled to the US several times (I\'m American, so to visit my family) and no one has said anything, and all across the EU for work, and no one\'s even batted an eyelash. So we have wasted £3700 on our honeymoon trip we didn\'t even take thanks to them. We asked, pleaded for them to give us some sort of reprieve and they don\'t even care. Very hurtful that they have taken £3700 from a couple trying to start their lives together and can\'t even give us some sort of relief or even discount! on this holiday due to their own decision making. It makes me very sad they just snatch money out of our hands and don\'t care.
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