'Exceeding Your Expectations'

MANDY NICKERSON, MD UPDATE

I realise that I am supposed to be A political so will try to be - but hey aren’t they having fun in PMQ at the moment - it really is back to Punch and Judy and I thought that I had finished enjoying those shows when I allegedly became an adult. I guess none of us can move away from politics, for as long as it affects all our lives via the laws and taxes that are imposed upon us. I think that politics overseas affect our lives more than we realise, especially for those of us that enjoy travelling. Whilst we always say we are not a political organisation, when there is civil or political unrest it often means that we have to abort Our or your plans to travel – normally on the grounds of foreign office advice and certainly for Bales taking full responsibility for you welfare and safety.

Anyway, do not fear - I am not about to embark on a new career in the political world – in fact I cannot think of anything I would want to do more than what I am doing. I do not have delusions of grandeur about how we make a difference to peoples' lives – but I do feel very strongly that every day we work at Bales, we must keep developing our customer service and it is always at the top of our agenda to strive to give excellence. I hope that many of you reading this who travel with Bales believe that we do deliver what we promise and often exceed all your expectations. We fully recognise that your holiday decision is very important….  As much as anything it is an investment in your trust in us that you choose us and we take our responsibility very seriously, to pay such attention to detail that we deliver you the holiday of your lifetime. I would love to say that we always get it right, but that would not be true and then we have another opportunity to come into our own by the way we deal with whatever disappointment we have given you cause to have. I can say we get it right most of the time and in fact ABTA have told us that we have one of the lowest complaint ratios in the industry.

So what keeps me awake at night- genuinely and last night would be a good example – getting up at 3.30a.m. to consider what ways we can improve even further and actually aim for 100% satisfaction. Did I resolve anything last night; well I have to work out how to put my ideas into practice so I can say it is constantly a work in progress.

We were just going to go into our evening of celebration for 60 years of trading since my last blog. Mrs Bales spoke about 60 years at Bales and gave us a great presentation with anecdotes of events that had happened over the years. We had an excellent jazz band– very talented 17- 19 year olds – can see they have the potential to be stars. It was a really happy event and very right that we did something for the staff. Prior to the ‘party ‘atmosphere’ I did my quarterly update to all the staff and there again took the opportunity to remind our staff about service being King at Bales. I like using analogies and to display it here, I asked those to think about if they were arranging a holiday for people they really love – would they do anything better or differently and if they would, then we need to apply that to you as you are genuinely so important to us.

I have been really lucky enough to have spent time with some of the best travel editors and journalists there are, with a series of one to one meetings. Any business can get pigeon holed in as such as people may tend to think of the business that was and not the business that we are today. Journalists could think the same, they have hectic lives, not enough support to do their full research and it is up to the companies to keep banging the drum about who we they are today, the variety of product they offer are and their standing within the industry. What I hope to achieve by meeting the media is of course; more coverage but also for them to respect our business so much that they will come to us as the voice of authority for anything that we are involved with. What does that mean to you? and us? It means that you will become increasingly familiar with the name, Bales Worldwide and perhaps when reading or hearing about us find out about a destination that you were not aware that Bales could do or not aware of the total flexibility we can offer today. Hopefully this transcribes in you choosing to book Bales either for the first time or to travel with us again, though with repeat travellers that already happens because they find that their once in a lifetime trip now has to be an annual occurrence and thankfully choose Bales time and time again.

I have spent time with a lot of senior and responsible people in a cross section of industries and of course have to be on my best behaviour, or should I say try to be!! I found it really refreshing this week when I was with a very well respected and senior member of our bank and he divulged to me that he was a rebel at school. It reminded me of what my headmistress said to me when I left school, a period of my life I didn’t particularly enjoy and I guess I didn’t give school enough of a chance as was naughty and skipped school a lot. Anyway... back to my headmistress – she said that if I stayed, she would have made me head girl. Seeing my great surprise she added that there are some things that you will learn- and one is that if you give someone responsibility they will be too busy to be a rebel. I think that is so true but it does mean that when you spend so much of your time taking responsibility, you have to find small concentrated slots of time to be a rebel. So for all of those out there with a work hard, play hard attitude lets find a slot to have a play hard rebel party!!!!

I have to sign off with my sensible responsible hat, and I will be wearing this hat for the next few hours whilst I sort some exciting new challenges out...

speak again soon

Mandy