I want to share the sequence of events that I am going through since I planned to book a trip through Thomas cook.
1.This is for a trip to Singapore with my family. Though I read a lot of negative reviews on how Thomas Cook treats its customers, I chose it because I felt I should give it a try myself. Viren Wadhel was my point of contact initially. Until I had paid the booking amount, he was very cooperative and responsive. He would rather call me up 2-3 times a day and ask for my confirmation. But after I paid the booking amount suddenly he became unavailable. I would write him multiple times for a callback but he wouldn’t respond. Later he came back saying he was on leave! My emails to him had others also copied from his team but no one cared to respond if Viren was really on leave. He finally responded, "Kaunteya, don’t be worried"! I am not here to be worried. I am here for an experience called Thomas Cook. They are in the hospitality industry! He does not seem to understand that he was not doing a favor to me. His nhassurances in the beginning that he will be my single point of contact throughout and that he will resolve all my concerns were just bluffs. He failed to understand my initial asks from the tour. I even created an excel based plan on how I want the tour to be but he kept on resending the same PDF that has the standard tour plan. I finally gave in and booked as it is.
2.Understanding that his job was done and he would not be bothering about my case anymore, I called up the 1-800 number and talked to Monu(supervisor). He assured that someone will call me within 45 min and I won’t have to go through this anymore. But no one called.
3.Then came Didar Shaikh. He said that he will be my new POC and will handle all my concerns swiftly. I was frustrated by that time already. I asked for the escalation point of contact. He was not ready to share that saying he will take care of it. After multiple insistence, he shared a mail ID service.quality@thomascook.in. Unfortunately, my emails to that ID bounced back. I was puzzled to see why a customer service agent won’t share the correct ID for escalation. Viren also shared the same ID with me.
4.Today I called up again as I was not getting the escalation route from Didar. Ashrada took the call first. She was outright rude. Even she was raising her voice! My first experience of such customer service anywhere. She did not share her complete name or ID so that I can register a complaint against her. She cut me short by saying that this is her company policy and she won’t share those details.
Then she put me on hold without informing me while I was talking. I finally could get through her and talked to Earl(supervisor). It was nice talking to him. He assured that whatever has happened will not be repeated but, after all, I have gone through, I can’t go by his words. I am not even sure if he will be reachable again or not. I could not reach Monu after my only interaction with him. He had also assured me of smooth transactions thereafter!
5.Earl gave me the other ID: service.quality@in.thomascook.com .I have written to them with the above details. I will go ahead with this trip only after I see improvements in their dealings with me. I am okay to lose that 20K booking amount that I have paid already but I will cancel the trip with Thomas Cook if they continue to be the same.
In a nutshell, it is the lack of proper customer care that is putting me off. The entire team has been either rude or careless in their attitude. They are just bothered about their target. People come to travel agencies like Thomas Cook for a better experience. in stead, if they face agony the whole purpose is lost.
The above experience was up to that point in time i.e. before travel. Though the response improved, I was not satisfied with it. Anyway, we left for Singapore on 5-May-17. On arrival we realized that Thomas Cook is a front end for enlisting customers and they actually outsource the tour to a third party. In our case it was TourLand. The experience with TourLand was better than what I suffered in the hands of Thomas Cook executives. But let me tell you a few highlights from the trip. The day we were supposed to go to Universal studio(3rd day of the tour) we boarded the bus but we were told to get off as we were not in the list that the tour guide was carrying! She just drove off after we alighted! She did not care about what happens to the three of us for the day in a foreign land. I called up TourLand guys and told the same and they apologized saying that Thomas Cook over staff the buses and they have no clue about how many people are coming for a tour on a particular day. I was shocked! On the first day when we went for night safari along with the group, I saw one guy(with wife and a kid) calling up Thomas Cook India frantically because the guide told them at the venue that they do not have the ticket for the entry to night safari. So either they aishwaryasingh23 up or wait outside. That guy was telling that he has already paid to Thomas Cook for the tickets but no one listened! While in the tram ride in the same venue another person from the same group was telling that he even wrote to the Chairman of the company to get his issues resolved while he was in India booking the trip with Thomas Cook!
In a nutshell, I had a very frustrating experience with Thomas Cook. I will never recommend them to anyone I know and would suggest that we look at other tour operators. They may be better.