It’s soooo frustrating!!!!
So you have spent all of this time and money on implementing the system of ALL systems for online distribution and property maintenance. It’s supposed make your life simpler, your business run more efficiently and your team happier but now you have to learn how to use it and worse still remember how to use it.
For ten years I was a travel agent and although we were using different systems I suffered the same infuriating frustration….where do I go to get support? I want someone who can solve the problem then and there, quickly and efficiently and whilst talking to many people within the travel and hospitality industry this seems to be everybody’s main problem.
As I am sure you have found, unfortunately most help desks are either shipped offshore or you have to spend ages navigating the companies website looking for an email contact to send a query too, which means you are unlikely to receive a response within 3 days let alone instantaneously. Worse still you try to navigate their help guide and, is it just me, or are the answers to your questions never there or located in some weird place under a heading that has nothing to do with your problem?
So what do you do about it??? Well you really need to be thinking about this BEFORE you decide which system to implement. When you’re shopping around and talking to the company’s sales team make sure you ask them about support. Make sure they are not just going to set you up and leave you. Find out if their support base is local, ensure you have their phone number and support desk operational hours at your finger tips and don’t be scared to ask them to make up a “clue card” for you. Clue cards have been my saviour on many occasions as you can keep them next to you at your desk and they give you a basic guide on how to do things within the system. It doesn’t have to be an entire manual; a well thought out clue card could mean the difference between you coming across professionally or clumsily.
At the end of they day we are in this business because we love people and wouldn’t it be great if all companies out there had a local support team that you could just make a phone call to, get a person on the other end that doesn’t use tech speak, is patient and understanding and most importantly happy to be helping you.
