Treating
Your Customer As A King Guarantees You Will Always Have Business
Buying
a flight ticket, simple right? Until you buy a ticket from a nonchalant Travel Agent
or Airline, get stranded midway through your trip then you realize the
importance of having a personal relationship with your Travel Agent and an
Account Manager dedicated to clients.
A Little Story
ELTA which is short for Executive and Leisure Travel Agency has
been in existence since 1999 in Cameroon. Last year she celebrated her 20th
Anniversary in Douala - Cameroon. It was a beautiful gala attended by her top
clients and all the people (companies and individuals) that make the company
what it is.
“How many guests are we looking at?” The
Event Planner asked.
“Between 200 to 250” the
Sales & Marketing Supervisor said.
Two
weeks to the event, The Corporate Services Manager who is also the co-founder
told the Event Planner to make provisions for an extra 50 people as some guests
were confirming last minute.
Now in
Event Planner language this is not a little change. We are talking about adding
5 tables and 50 chairs. Depending on the floor plan and activities of the event
this may even require a room change. The event planning team changed to a bigger
room to accommodate these changes.
Fast forward
to the evening of the event. The General Manager and Co-Founder of ELTA walks
into the room at 18:45. The party was scheduled to start at 19:00 and he asks
the Event Planner if all the tables have assigned guests. She responded in the
affirmative.
At
about 19:50 when there were about 65 guests in the hall but barely filling any
table, he asked the Event Planner if she could change the setting and ask
guests to move to the front tables so the hall does not look empty when
pictures and videos are taken.
Now the
Event Planner together with the ELTA team had worked really hard on this
seating plan and changing it would have not been such a good idea so she told
him she thought it was better to leave the people seated as they were and that
it was a Saturday and from all the RSVPs they got it was very likely the guests
were running late and will eventually turn up for the party. Something she said probably holding her
breadth and wishing she was right.
Fast
forward again to 22:15, the hall is packed, there are about 275 guests in the hall,
and the Event Planning team had to add 3 extra tables and 27 chairs.
Now,
for you to fill up a hall on a Saturday evening with all your guests who had
sent their RSVPs to your event including those who did not get around to
phoning to say they will be there, there must be something you are doing right
in terms of treating your clients like Kings and Queens.
When your
clients show up for your event with huge smiles, know, you are not only a Service Provider but you are a Friend. You are FAMILY.
Going Over and Beyond the Scope of
Work
One day
I was talking to one of the Sales Agents at ELTA and she was telling me of a
story that happened a few days prior. One of their top clients had sent an
email on a Wednesday morning asking to be booked to depart from Douala on
Friday November 21, 2019. The agent checked the calendar and realized November
21, was a Thursday not a Friday. He tried to call her so she clarifies what day
and date she wanted a ticket for but he was unsuccessful. So he booked Friday
November 22, 2020. It turned out this top client had to be in Europe early on
Friday morning to attend a meeting and return on Friday night so she definitely
needed to be on the flight out on Thursday.
The
agent tried to call the airline but there was no space to change her flight not
even if she paid more for a business class ticket. The flight was fully booked
and there was a waiting list. This agent was very troubled so he went to his boss,
the Co-Founder of ELTA and the Corporate Services Manager and explained the
dilemma he found himself in. This lady jumped off her seat and went over to
Brussels Airlines, sat in front of the Country Manager until a space opened up and her client was on the
flight she needed to be on and made it in time for her meeting.
Now
this is what going out of your way for your client is. This is what it means to
treat your client as a King. It is indeed an unquestionable way of making your
clients loyal to you.
What Most Clients Think of ELTA
If you
talked to 10 ELTA clients, all of them will say things like:
“The
staff are professional”
“It is like a family”
“The response time is fast”
“Resolving of issues is quick”
“The co-founders when needed resolve issues
immediately no matter the size of the client”.
Buying from the Travel Agent versus
the Airline directly
Not
that there is anything wrong with buying directly from the airline. It’s the perks
that come with the after-sale services that make buying from a Travel Agent
like ELTA better.
I traveled
once with Turkish Airlines and I got my ticket from ELTA. A few days to my return
to Douala I got an email from Turkish Airlines changing my Istanbul-Douala leg.
This
was not good for me as it would have caused me to spend two nights in Istanbul.
I also needed to be in Douala on March 17, 2020 at the latest. So I wrote to
the agent who sold my ticket to me at ELTA who promised to check with Turkish
and ensure I got back to Cameroon when I needed to, to meet up with my
engagements.
He did
not rest until I got my ticket. He sent it at about 22:15 on Saturday March 14th.
It turned out the flight was full and he had to be at Turkish Airlines checking
for cancellations and immediately put me on the flight. I ended up arriving on Monday
March 16, 2020 and the borders were closed on Tuesday March 17, 2020.
Now this
incident has got me glued to ELTA. I have never known any Travel Agent in
Cameroon that cared for clients no matter how small they were.
About Us
Endorsed Brand is a digital marketing platform
that promotes great brands. Our process starts off with a chat with the Founder
or CEO of a company. Once we determine that you need our marketing services, we
plan a visit to your premises to see and understand your processes. This visit
consists of interviews with you and your staff, professional photos of your
finished products and videos of your processes.
Call
us or find us on social media to be promoted on our platform.
More
About ELTA
ELTA
has offices in Douala and Yaounde and can be reached via email on: enquiries.douala@cm.hrgworldwide.com
The
very pleasant Customer Relations Supervisor can be reached on:
(237) 699 251 055/651 856 956
The
24/7 Number to call is (237) 677 627 686
/ 699 500 859
