In the last 6 weeks when wind speed in the Solent gusted between 36 – 67 knots with rough sea states for an unprecedented 19 days, Hovertravel saw an 868% increase in calls to its service status phone line.
The cross-Solent company recorded the same low level of customer complaints as in the previous month, 1.5 for every 10,000 customers.
Neil Chapman, Managing Director at Hovertravel, explains:
“When our service has disruptions and cancellations, our priority is our customers. Thanks to a suggestion from a member of our user group, last year we introduced a service status phone line and this has seen a massive increase in use over the past month. We also use email and text messages, as well as a service status message on our website. We know that early communication helps our customers.
“We continue our engagement with our customers on social media, where the response to our communications has been overwhelmingly positive. The final part of customer service is to offer compensation in the form of Apology Vouchers and/or Extra Day Vouchers, depending on the type of ticket held.”
This highly focussed approach to engaging customers is clearly working, with very low complaint figures, positive feedback on social media and higher use of the phone line.
Neil adds:
“We have just experienced some of the worst weather ever recorded, so we need to acknowledge the disruption this has caused, but then put our energy into focussing on the future. Hovertravel has robust customer service delivery, which we continue to evolve, and we are working with a broad range of transport providers to boost travel to and from the Island.”
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