RE: UKNM: lastminute.com does delight its customers!...

[Brent Hoberman]

Paul,


thanks very much for your comments - I appreciate you extreme patience with

lastminute.com!

Clearly being on hold is a frustrating experience... roll on e-ticketing!

Our customer service manager is looking into the issues you raised and will

get back to you person!



as I was reading your email - I was sent this by a customer - !  which made

me realise why this business is exciting! This is just one of many that we

receive like this - perhaps we should publish a book with the negative and

the positive ones - the positive ones really can be quite uplifting and v

spontaneous!!


"I wish to record my appreciation of the efforts made by your staff to

arrange flights at a moments notice during the busy Christmas period.On

Boxing night I was all set to sail from Portsmouth to Bilbao with my car

for the purpose of driving to Alicante.Two hours before sailing time the

ship cancelled the voyage and I was in a panic.I returned to my home in

Southampton and immediately tried the inter net to find an alternative

way to  get to Alicante.Only lastminute.com could provide suitable

flights at a saving of two hundred pounds for the same flights from the

carrier! On Monday your representative went out of his way to ensure

that seats were available,and tickets issued.All was completed by 11 am

and the flights ensured that my trip to Spain was successful.I am

extremely pleased with the service I was offered especially on a bank

holiday Monday in what was according to your last newsletter an

exhausting few weeks. Your staff did indeed perform miracles.last

minute.com delivers were others can only make empty promises

  

Thank you"

  

MR (identity withheld as it's a public forum)



With ref to specific individuals who have particular issues with

lastminute.com -

I encourage you to respond to me directly!

brentlastminute [dot] com

I think the forum should be used to talk about more general business issues

that are of interest to everyone!


thanks


brent


-----Original Message-----

From:

ownerchinwag [dot] com

 [

ownerchinwag [dot] com]On">mailto:ownerchinwag [dot] com]On

 Behalf Of Paul

Bessant

Sent: 06 January 2000 17:16

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

Subject: Re: UKNM: lastminute.com does delight its customers!...NOT:-)



Brent,


Having watched comments go backwards and forwards about your company, I 

have thus far withheld my own disappointing experience.


However some of your comments make me to believe that you may not be fully 

aware of the level of service that you were not providing

over the "festive" period, particularly in relation to your more 

traditional competitors !!


Here goes my own experience...


Late on December 29th I spotted and tried to book two return tickets to Los 

Angeles for the bargain price of �97 each + tax. Having

registered for the site and placed my order, the site popped up a window 

asking me to call yourselves directly because of how

lastminute the flight was, no problem?


But,

This is when the problem began.... I called at 10am on the 30th when your 

"call centre" opened and was on hold, at my expense for over 1 hour calling 

from Leicester (my home) to London. After 1hour 9 minutes (yes I did time 

it !!) I finally gave up and left a voicemail message.

I also followed this up with an email to

urgentlastminute [dot] com

 (from my 

home account

paulbessantnetscape [dot] net

 if you'd like to check). Both avenues 

are as prompted by the pre recorded message whilst on hold.


This was all completed at around 12:00 noon on the 30th. Having heard 

nothing from you at  4pm onwards on the 30th and on 6 or more occasions on 

the morning of the 31st I tried to call lastminute again...only to find the 

line mostly engaged !! ...although I did manage to leave one, maybe two 

messages begging by this point to be called.....Well the first one was 

begging the second was starting to

get angry !!


   >complaint rate of less than 1in every 1000


I wonder what it would have been if people could have got through?


Anyway,

Not only was I becoming irate but I was having problems with the hotel & 

car that I had on hold, pending being able to secure the flight.


In desperation I went into a Co-Op travel store in my local shopping centre 

to ask what price they could get me LA for...and to my

pleasant surprise I was quoted the same price of �97 each + tax. Great !!


The only problem was that the tickets were 30 miles away in Derby and the 

flight was the next morning by this time. No problem for

Co-Op travel...one of their staff drove from Derby to Leicester (at NO cost 

to me) and delivered the tickets to me at 5:30 pm on the 30th.

1 1/2 hours after I first walked in.


I then went home emailed Best Western Hotels to confirm my hotel in Santa 

Monica, emailed Dollar Renta car to confirm my car and

went on to have a great New Year's eve in the US !!


So Brent as you can see I personally would have to disagree with your 

comments, particularly about...


   >We clearly fulfil a role for them that no one else can do

   >we clearly enable people to be spontaneous and help them live their 

dreams at unbeatable prices.  So no hype here!

   >We have the best last minute flight fulfilment service of any company 

that I know

   >Did anyone try and find out where they could order a flight for new years

eve

   >Other sites were not fulfilling over this period

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


And one final complaint....


   >We normally respond to email within 2 hours and phone calls with 1 minute


I received a call from one of your team at 7pm on the 30th December ...31 

hours after my first message was left...

...even worse one of your team replied to another of my voicemails from the 

31st December YESTERDAY 5/1/2000 at 4pm !!


..And incase your wondering in every message I made it clear that I wanted 

to fly on New Years eve....



That's about it...end of chunter :-)


Have a nice day...


Paul


At 15:25 06/01/00 +0000, you wrote:

  >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.

[Sam says: chopped for brevity]



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