Last minute holidays online: one in four customer e-mails is left unanswered
Only one in five e-mails is answered within the hour
lastminute.de leads the field, fulfilling 75 percent of the test criteria
One in four travelers waits in vain for an e-mail response from online travel agencies.
Traditional providers came in last in the e-mail test.
Only 21 percent of customer e-mails are answered within the hour
Last minute travel providers are in no hurry to respond to customer e-mails: one in four customer e-mails is left unanswered. Only 21 percent of customer e-mails are answered within the hour. These are the results of a recent e-mail response market research study focusing on last minute travel agencies on the web, carried out by novomind AG. A third of e-mail responses reach the customers after more than twelve hours. Although automatically generated e-mails occasionally wandered into customer inboxes, online travel agencies generally took much longer to provide an individual and detailed answer. Avigo provided the quickest detailed response, which arrived after just two minutes. The slowest response came from FOX-TOURS, who needed more than five days for a curt response telling the customer to refer back to the homepage.
Response quality backlog: only one in five providers fulfilled at least 50 percent of the quality criteria
On the whole, the quality of the responses received from last minute providers left much to be desired. Potential travelers often received a standard e-mail response which failed to answer their specific question and told them to refer back to the company homepage. Only five travel agencies (L’TUR, Travelocity, lastminute.de, Thomas Cook und FTI) provided responses that fulfilled at least 50 percent of the defined quality criteria. The poorest quality responses came from TUI, Opodo and FOX-TOURS, managing to fulfill just eight percent of the given criteria. "The results are far from satisfactory," concluded Peter Samuelsen, novomind AG’ CEO. "Many companies are still struggling to provide professional e-mail service."
Lasttminute leads the field: rapid response times, average response quality
Each company received three e-mails from three fictitious customers. lastminute.de emerged as the overall winner. The online travel team managed to respond to all three e-mails within the hour and fulfilled 50 percent of the given quality criteria. Travelocity came in second, with 67 percent for quality and 80 percent for speed of response. travel4all.de and reiselinie.de did not respond to any of the e-mails. Major travel agencies such as Alltours, FTI or Thomas Cook failed to make the top five. The quality of responses received from Alltours left much to be desired (33 percent), Thomas Cook and FTI took too long to respond to customer e-mails or did not respond at all.
The test: background information
novomind’s e-mail response study focused on 22 leading last minute travel agencies (lastminute.de, Travelocity, Avigo, Hin und Weg, Lastminute-Express.de, L’TUR, telereisen.de, expedia.de, Alltours, Thomas Cook, FTI, 1-2-Fly, travel24.de, Jahn-Reisen, kurzmalweg.de, discount-travel.de, nix-wie-weg.de, Opodo, TUI, FOX-TOURS, travel4all.de, reiselinie.de), each of which received three test e-mails. One e-mail asked whether a particular hotel could be booked under last minute conditions. The second requested a general offer for a holiday "somewhere warm". The third traveler was interested in renting a car last minute.
novomind: software solutions for professional customer communication
novomind AG provides software for the customer communications sector, enabling optimized processes and lower costs. The product department’s portfolio includes e-mail management systems, as well as virtual customer services assistants and interactive online applications enabling interactive communication in real time. The novomind services department develops complex e-business applications, including scalable online shop solutions. novomind’s products and solutions focus on future-oriented service, efficient and personalized communication, and higher-performance administration. A rapid ROI is guaranteed and ongoing customer loyalty ensured. Leading companies from across the market sectors – including Bertelsmann Der Club, Otto, Sparkasse Erlangen, BKK Gesundheit, Travelocity and Hannoversche Leben, as well as public sector representatives such as the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security (BMGS) – have already successfully implemented novomind systems to boost customer loyalty, turnover and public relations.