Meeting customers' expectations

At Thomas Cook Group we want to live up to our customers' expectations and exceed them where possible. Most of the time we do this: the majority of customer feedback we receive is very positive. In those instances where we do fall short, we endeavour to improve our products and service for future customers.

Collecting one of our many customer service awards

We contribute to creating excellent holidays not only through the flights and accommodation we provide, but also the service given by our staff at every stage, from a customer's initial enquiry through to their journey home. All customer-facing employees are therefore given training in customer service and creating the best-possible holidays for our guests.

During 2010, Thomas Cook Northern Europe implemented a new complaints management system designed to help them resolve at least 80% of all customer complaints while the customer is still in our resorts. Using this system, simple issues should be resolved within three hours and more complex ones within 24 hours. The only complaints that cannot normally be resolved in the resorts are those that are raised during the journey home or after the holiday has ended.

In 2007, Thomas Cook Germany became the first company to be given both the TÜV award for customer service and ISO 10002 certification for complaints management. Since then we have passed audits to retain these credentials each year, along with TÜV seals for crisis management and safer online shopping.

Initiatives such as these contribute to Thomas Cook Group's reputation as an organisation that looks after its customers. This is backed up by regular awards for customer service, including in 2009/10:

• British Travel Awards 2009 – Thomas Cook UK won Britain's Favourite Package Holiday Company and Best Cruise Holiday Retailer, while Gold Medal won Best Trade Booking Website for Flights
• German Institute for Service Quality – Thomas Cook Germany's retail network won Service Champion 2009
• World Travel Awards – The Indian Mahajara Deccan Odyssey won Asia's Leading Luxury Train
• Scottish Passenger Agents' Associations Awards 2010 – Thomas Cook UK won Best Overall Tour Operator and Gold Medal won Best Agent-Friendly Website and Best Air Ticket Consolidator
• Travolution Awards 2010 – Essential Travel won Best Travel Insurance Website
• TTG Travel Awards 2010 – Thomas Cook UK won Short-haul Tour Operator of the Year and Gold Medal won Seat-only Operator of the Year
• Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service 2010 – Thomas Cook UK was named in the top 50
• Agents' Choice Awards 2010 – Intair, part of Thomas Cook Canada, won Best Consolidator
• CNBC Awaz Travel Awards – Thomas Cook India won Best Forex Company
• Consumers' Choice Awards – Sunquest was voted Best Tour Operator in the Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg surveys
• Travel Agents' Association of India – Thomas Cook India won Best Inbound Tour Operator.

While we aim to give our customers the best-possible experiences, there will be times when things go wrong. We have systems in place to ensure these are rectified promptly and fairly, and we actively solicit feedback from our customers to ensure we pick up on any problems. Many of our companies use customer questionnaires, as well as regular surveys and online forums to gather opinions on our products and service. Thomas Cook Egypt, for example, conducts biannual surveys as well as using mystery shoppers to assess both products and service. In Thomas Cook Belgium, managers call a sample of customers after their holidays. This system ensures that the management team is directly aware of any issues in customer relations.

The table below gives an idea of our latest customer satisfaction levels, but the questions that our various companies ask their customers are not identical and nor are their scoring methods, so these data should be interpreted with caution and should not be used to compare companies.