Thomas Cook
Competing on price, product or promotion in the holiday business, like most, does not sustain advantage for long. Competitors are very quick to imitate, and special deals – whether they be through the high street, on-line or through call centres – don’t provide much prominence for very long. Thomas Cook leads the travel industry when it comes to customer service, but intended to differentiate itself even more through outstanding customer service and by using service innovation to drive operational cost savings and efficiencies.
Engage for Change designed an engagement programme, launched at a series of two management conferences in Turkey in December 2005, each to a group of 1,000 managers. At the conference, each group of 1,000 participated in a three-hour activity where – using video, drama and creative workshop techniques – in small groups managers created their own world-beating customer-service plans. The two-thousand managers who participated in the ‘Obsession 06’ experience at the conference subsequently acted as facilitators to deliver exactly the same session to all of Thomas Cook’s 12,000 staff.
The result: an organization truly switched on to customer-service excellence, where everyone recognized the difference great customer service can make, why it is important and how it can support the sustained growth of Thomas Cook and their personal opportunity as employees.
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