Saturday, October 02, 2010
Norfolkline - a refreshing example of Customer Service
How wonderful to find a company who resist the temptation to take advantage of vulnerable customers when they make a mistake.
Firstly, well done to Norfolkline for allowing Dover-Dunkirk customers to travel one crossing earlier or later than their booked crossing without financial penalty. How much less stress that brings to the drive to the port when compared to the alternative "deviate from our terms and we'll have a lot of money off you" approach that seems to apply to their rivals.
(The nasty gotcha in most companies' amendement terms is that whilst there might only be a £20 change fee, they then charge the current ("walk-up") fare for the new crossing - which could be vastly more than the advance fare you paid for the original crossing).
But secondly, well done to them for correcting an error of mine, at no charge. Booking different companies for England-France and France-England meant that I made two one-way bookings. And for my Norfolkline booking, I clearly forgot to change the Dover-Dunirk default to Dunkirk-Dover. So we had a booking for a boat in the wrong direction.
We realised this on the autoroute, 30 minutes before our reporting time at Dunkirk. A few minutes on the phone to Norfolkline and they had changed the booking to the right boat, without charge. Thank you Norfolkline.
And thirdly, well done to them for getting us on our scheduled crossing even though we reported with 22 minutes to go (rather than the contractual 45 minutes).
And a nice, clean, boat too.
All in all, a good experience.
Firstly, well done to Norfolkline for allowing Dover-Dunkirk customers to travel one crossing earlier or later than their booked crossing without financial penalty. How much less stress that brings to the drive to the port when compared to the alternative "deviate from our terms and we'll have a lot of money off you" approach that seems to apply to their rivals.
(The nasty gotcha in most companies' amendement terms is that whilst there might only be a £20 change fee, they then charge the current ("walk-up") fare for the new crossing - which could be vastly more than the advance fare you paid for the original crossing).
But secondly, well done to them for correcting an error of mine, at no charge. Booking different companies for England-France and France-England meant that I made two one-way bookings. And for my Norfolkline booking, I clearly forgot to change the Dover-Dunirk default to Dunkirk-Dover. So we had a booking for a boat in the wrong direction.
We realised this on the autoroute, 30 minutes before our reporting time at Dunkirk. A few minutes on the phone to Norfolkline and they had changed the booking to the right boat, without charge. Thank you Norfolkline.
And thirdly, well done to them for getting us on our scheduled crossing even though we reported with 22 minutes to go (rather than the contractual 45 minutes).
And a nice, clean, boat too.
All in all, a good experience.
# posted by John Geddes @ 8:14 am 
