MBA Geek

I had an interesting experience with a local company recently. I bought some tickets online from the Steam Packet website, our local ferry company. Anyway, we’re off to Butlins, so booked a ticket to go over with the car, two adults and a child. Anyway; it turns out that after I booked the tickets I found out that Arthur is still classed as an infant not a child and I needn’t have bought a ticket for him. I duly emailed them about the problem and left it at that.

Now, I expected to be contacted about the problem, and maybe not get a full refund as this would have been a change to our ticket (which normally is charged at £5 per leg). After a few days I didn’t hear anything, but spotted a credit from them on my card. Turns out they gave me a full refund for Arthur’s ticket, without even levying any charge. I was pretty pleased with this, but couldn’t help thinking it was a missed opportunity for the Steam Packet to gain some goodwill.

You see, all they needed to do was drop me a line to say that they were refunding me. I’m not even saying that they needed to call me, just an email response would have been perfect. We tend to hear a lot of negative publicity about firms, whether ones that provide transport services, or others that promise you diet pills that work; but unfortunately we don’t always get to hear the good news. This was a perfect opportunity for them to show that they care about their customers, but it was missed. If I hadn’t been checking my card statement, I would never have known that I was issued a refund.

Have you ever had a similar experience?