UKNM: lastminute.com does delight its customers!

[Brent Hoberman]

As I have read with interest the comments on lastminute.com, I thought I

should respond as the managing director of lastminute.com.


The issues relate to product offering, flight fulfillment and customer

service. 


1) Product offering.  Our range, depth and ability to sell our products and

delight both customers and suppliers grow exponentially every month!  Its

very exciting and rewarding to see suppliers reactions and surprise at how

much product we can shift for them at short notice.  We clearly fulfil a

role for them that no one else can do.  Even more rewarding is to see the

steady stream of emails from customers who are thrilled with the service.

Whether we have saved their honeymoon, millenium eve, anniversary, theatre

evening, date, parents evening, valentine - we clearly enable people to be

spontaneous and help them live their dreams at unbeatable prices.  So no

hype here!


2) Flight fulfillment.  We have the best last minute flight fulfilment

service of any company that I know of.  Did anyone try and find out where

they could order a flight for new years eve - on new years eve or even on

Xmas day - we had a very dedicated customer service team coping with an

unprecedented flood of customers at this time.  Other sites were not

fulfilling over this period.  They simply closed up!  So no hype here!


Regarding having to pay to have a ticket delivered on the day - one customer

had to pay for a courrier for same day delivery.  If airlines dont allow

tickets on departure or etickets then this is the only option open to any

company.  It is a measure of our commitment to lastminute delivery that we

offer this service to our customers whereas others dont!

If anyone has any great suggestions on how to do this better we would love

to hear from them!  We have a fantastic team of bright dedicated people and

are constantly striving to offer the best service anywhere to all our

customers - so we welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism!


3) Customer service


I very much regret that one potential customer had a bad experience!  We do

everything we can to delight our customers and happily we do a very good job

at that.

With our same day delivery service on Christmas Eve for example we had a

complaint rate of less than 1in every 1000 !  still a bit too high for my

liking. But I am sure everyone involved in New Media Marketing would admire

the fact that we were the ONLY company the UK offering same day fulfillment

in the Xmas rush and this service really demonstrated how ecommerce

companies can delight their customers.

Our email and customer service team have grown significantly and really do

excel in providing first class customer service. We normally respond to

email within 2 hours and phone calls with 1 minute.  If there is an

unprecedented peak in demand then we may not be able to do this for very

short periods of time.  However we have put processes in place that will

increasingly enable us to offer even better customer service.  Its an area

that we take very seriously and really go out of our way to ensure that all

customers have a great lastminute.com experience. So no hype here!


In light of all the very real steps that lastminute.com is making to provide

a world class service and help the UK ecommerce industry become a global

force.  I feel it is worthwhile making the above points.  


We very much appreciate constructive criticism - but are also very aware

that favourable press coverage will only encourage negative comments.  This

is why we work even harder to ensure there are no chinks in our armour and

that no one has any cause to complain.  lastminute.com had a fantastic 1999

because it offers both customers and suppliers a great service.  There is no

hype in our office only a very real focus on results!




Brent Hoberman

Co-founder and Managing Director

Last Minute Network

4th Floor

Park House

116 Park Street

London W1Y


http://www.lastminute.com

The first place to look at the last minute!


email :

brentlastminute [dot] com

do something

lastminute.com





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