Agencies respond to mystery shopper

ATN’s ‘Big Mystery Shopper Survey’ is unveiled, but not all agree with the results

Travel agencies have responded to the ‘Big Mystery Shopper Survey’ unveiled in ATN this month. The survey is compiled from mystery shopping results carried out by Ethos Consultancy on 28 UAE agencies.

Dnata Travel received three mystery shops from Ethos. While two branches, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai and Hamdan Interchange, Abu Dhabi fared well, achieving scores of 77 and 66 percent – Rolla Road, Sharjah achieved just 58 percent.

A Majid Al Mulla, vice president Dnata World Travel said “substantial changes” had taken place to improve service levels at Dnata since the survey was carried out.

“Since the survey was undertaken over eight months ago, we have made several substantial changes to our operations to further improve service. These include audits of our customer outlets – both visually and from a customer service perspective, further extensive product training for all frontline staff and an internal review of our customer care processes. We are pleased with the outcome of these changes and are confident that moving forward we will place number one for service excellence.”

Kanoo Travel was mystery shopped twice by Ethos, achieving scores of 56 percent at it’s Karama branch and 47 percent at Rolla Road, Sharjah.

Sunil D’souza, country manager UAE & Oman argued that the survey results “appear flawed” as they are more tailored towards agents that cater to the retail rather than the corporate sector, which may explain why Kanoo fell down on the scoring.

“Some of the criteria used by your survey consultant calls for further clarification,” he said. “Because we are a corporate travel management company where corporates contribute 96 percent of our business, and retail / walk ins accounts to 4 percent.”

He added that Kanoo Travel regularly receives top level scores in Government of Dubai and third party customer surveys done through ZARCA which proves the company to be “in a robust position when it comes to customer service.”

Omeir Travel, Khalifa Street, Abu Dhabi received 61 percent placing it 23rd overall. Reene Mary Thomas, marketing executive, Omeir Travel said: “It’s a great initiative from ATN’s side to conduct such a survey and such assessments can help both customers and the company.”