A review of travel service control mechanisms

The travel manager must have the necessary mechanisms to be able to evaluate the quality of the service provided by suppliers and be able to establish the accepted quality levels, as well as the processes of constant improvement. Basically, to establish the rules of the game between the supplier and the buyer.

The integrated concepts in this chapter are: knowing the scope of the exact services that the supplier provides, establishing the acceptable quality levels that are requested from the supplier, defining the measurement mechanisms, and measuring parámeters of all those involved.

But,  

But, 

But what exactly can we control? From the travelers themselves to the travel manager, from the service provided, to complaints and claims, without forgetting the whole contractual framework.

 

As for the level of quality, the parameters can be based on many aspects. Each company establishes its own priorities. Among them we can highlight the response time, the accuracy of the reservation, the management of changes and modifications, the geographical scope and availability, as well as the services, the information provided to the user, the availability of the service or the mechanisms for resolving emergencies and incidents.

To carry out the monitoring function, instruments for verifying the agreement are also necessary. This includes indicators, satisfaction surveys, SLAs, random audits of reservations, the ISO 10002 standard itself, which establishes the management of complaints and suggestions, or the Quality Management Systems (QMS) contained in ISO 9001. This monitoring is carried out both for direct suppliers and travel agencies, as well as other stakeholders.

SLAs or Service Level Agreement are designed not only for the satisfaction of the company, but also of the traveling employee, and this is related, once again, to the response time and the quality of the service;This has to do, once again, with response time and accuracy in booking, itinerary details, management of incidents and claims, availability of products offered, consumer reports and refunds. Ideally, the supplier should take on board the strategic objectives of the client company.

In all this monitoring, timing is also important. Therefore, it is essential to set evaluation periods and frequency of evaluation, with notification to the parties. What is important is to analyze undesired deviations and establish corrective mechanisms.