Holiday laws and travel agents

INTRODUCTION:

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a Travel Agent is a person engaged in selling and arranging transportation, accommodations, tours, or trips for travelers.

Planning a trip is a time-consuming and complicated process. Travel agents simplify this process for their customers in addition to providing consultation services and entire travel packages. They may book flights, cruises, rental cars and hotels, as well as resort stays and events. Agents cater to a wide demographic, serving both individuals and corporations. They may also concentrate in a special segment of the field; many agents specialize in leisure travel, business trips, or location-specific journeys to places like Europe, Africa, or Asia. The primary responsibility of a travel agent is to make the process of travel planning easier for their clients and ensure they experience the best trip possible. Travel agents work directly with the public and converse with clients in order to determine the best possible travel destinations, transportation arrangements, and accommodations for the client's particular needs. They may make suggestions to the client based on their experience, or offer complete travel packages from various resorts or cruise lines. They are often restricted to a budget, and must be highly organized in order to offer their clients travel arrangements that suit both their financial limitations and leisure or business travel expectations.

Agents work with computers or call airlines, cruise lines, resorts, and rental companies in order to secure travel arrangements for their customers. They research information on their client's travel plans and relay important information including weather conditions, travel advisories and required documents for their destination. Safety is also a factor in international travel, so travel agents keep abreast of the latest news, ensuring that each planned destination is safe for their customers.

Travel agents work year-round, but are especially busy during peak vacation times in the summer and during holidays. During those times, agents are busy on the telephone planning trips and making last-minute itinerary changes for current customers. They also sell vacation packages from cruise lines, resorts and other destinations. During the off season, travel agents are busy researching destinations and learning about the latest offerings of prime travel resorts and locations. They will also uncover new destinations and find the best trips for a particular travel purpose, whether it be business-related or for personal leisure.

An agent is someone authorized to do certain acts on behalf of his principal. When he has carried out those acts, the effect will be that his principal is legally bound by the acts. For example, if a tour operator authorizes a travel agent to sell certain holidays, then if the agent sells those holidays, the tour operator must fulfil the agreement with the customers. In return, an agent in the commercial world will be entitled to be paid, usually by way of commission, by his principal. Even if the agent overstepped his authority, but this was not obvious to a third party, the principal would still be bound. For example, an airline authorizes a travel agent to sell flight tickets. After a while, the airline tells the agent that the flight is fully booked, but the agent carries on selling the tickets. The agent is in possession of the tickets and appears to be a validly appointed agent for the airline. The airline will be bound to honor the contract with the innocent member of the public by performing it or paying compensation for breach of it.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term that refers to practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer life cycle, with the goal of improving customer service relationships and assisting in customer retention and driving sales growth. Tim Ehrens

CRM systems compile customer data across different channels or points of contact between the customer and the company which could include the company's website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials and social media. CRM systems can also give customer-facing staff detailed information on customers' personal information, purchase history, buying preferences and concerns.

Components of CRM

At the most basic level, CRM software consolidates customer information and documents into a single CRM database so business users can more easily access and manage it.

Over time, many additional functions have been added to CRM systems to make them more useful. Some of these functions include recording various customer interactions over email, phone, social media or other channels; depending on system capabilities, automating various workflow automation processes, such as tasks, calendars and alerts; and giving managers the ability to track performance and productivity based on information logged within the system.

• Marketing automation. CRM tools with marketing automation capabilities can automate repetitive tasks to enhance marketing efforts at different points in the lifecycle. For example, as sales prospects come into the system, it might automatically send the prospects marketing materials, typically via email or social media, with the goal of turning a sales lead into a full-fledged customer.
• Sales force automation. Sales force automation tools track customer interactions and automate certain business functions of the sales cycle that are necessary to follow leads and attract and obtain new customers.
• Contact center automation. Designed to reduce tedious aspects of a contact center agent's job, contact center automation might include prerecorded audio that assists in customer problem-solving and information dissemination. Various software tools that integrate with the agent's desktop tools can handle customer requests in order to cut down on the time of calls and to simplify customer service processes.
• Geolocation technology, or location-based services. Some CRM systems include technology that can create geographic marketing campaigns based on customers' physical locations, sometimes integrating with popular location-based GPS apps. Geo location technology can also be used as a networking or contact management tool in order to find sales prospects based on a location. Workflow automation. CRM systems help businesses optimize processes by streamlining mundane workloads, enabling employees to focus on creative and more high-level tasks.
• Lead management. Sales leads can be tracked through CRM, enabling sales teams to input, track and analyze data for leads in one place.
• Analytics. Analytics in CRM help create better customer satisfaction rates by analyzing user data and helping create targeted marketing campaigns.
• AI in CRM. Artificial intelligence technologies, such as Salesforce Einstein, have been built into CRM platforms to automate repetitive tasks, identify customer buying patterns to predict future customer behaviors and more.
• On-premises CRM. This system puts the onus of administration, control, security and maintenance of the database and information on the company using the CRM software. With this approach, the company purchases licenses upfront instead of buying yearly subscriptions from a cloud CRM provider. The software resides on the company's own servers and the user assumes the cost of any upgrades. It also usually requires a prolonged installation process to fully integrate a company's data. Companies with complex CRM needs might benefit from an on-premises deployment.
• Cloud-based CRM. With cloud-based CRM also known as SaaS (software as a service) or on-demand CRM data is stored on an external, remote network that employees can access anytime, anywhere there is an internet connection, sometimes with a third-party service provider overseeing installation and maintenance. The cloud's quick, relatively easy deployment capabilities appeal to companies with limited technological expertise or resources.
• Companies might consider cloud CRM as a more cost-effective option. Vendors such as Salesforce charge by the user on a subscription basis and offer the option of monthly or yearly payments.
• Data security is a primary concern for companies using cloud-based systems, as the company doesn't physically control the storage and maintenance of its data. If the cloud provider goes out of business or is acquired by another company, an enterprise's data can be compromised or lost. Compatibility issues can also arise when data is initially migrated from a company's internal system to the cloud.
• CRM systems have moved far beyond traditional customer profiling functions.
• Open source CRM. An Open source CRM system make source code available to the public, enabling companies to make alterations at no cost to the company employing the system. Open source CRM systems also enable the addition and customization of data links on social media channels, assisting companies looking to improve social CRM practices.
• Adoption of any of these CRM deployment methods depends on a company's business needs, resources and goals, as each has different costs associated with it.
• Contact center. Traditionally, data intake practices for CRM systems have been the responsibility of sales and marketing departments, as well as contact center agents. Sales and marketing teams procure leads and update the system with information throughout the customer lifecycle, and contact centers gather data and revise customer history records through service calls and technical support interactions.
• Social CRM. Social media in CRM involves businesses engaging customers directly through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media presents an open forum for customers to share experiences with a travel agency, whether they're airing grievances or promoting travel.
• To add value to customer interactions on social media, businesses use various social CRM tools that monitor social media conversations -- from specific mentions of travel agencies to the frequency of keywords used -- to determine their target audience and which platforms they use. Other tools are designed to analyze social media feedback and address customer queries and issues.
• Companies are interested in capturing customer sentiments, such as the likelihood they will recommend travelling and their overall customer satisfaction, to develop marketing and service strategies. Companies try to integrate social CRM data with other customer data obtained from sales or marketing departments to get a single view of the customer.
• Another way in which social CRM adds value for companies and customers is through customer communities, where customers post reviews of travelling and can engage with other customers to troubleshoot issues or research travelling in real time. Customer communities can provide low-level customer service for certain kinds of problems and reduce the number of contact center calls. Customer communities can also provide new travel ideas or feedback that companies can use in lieu of feedback groups.
• Mobile CRM. CRM applications built for smartphones and tablets have become a must-have for sales representatives and marketing professionals who want to access customer information and perform tasks when they are not physically in their offices. Mobile CRM apps take advantage of features that are unique to mobile devices, such as GPS and voice-recognition capabilities, to give sales and marketing employees access to customer information from anywhere.
• Business-to-business (B2B) practices. A CRM system in a B2B environment helps monitor sales as they move through the sales funnel, enabling a business to address any issues that might come up during the process. CRM systems in the B2B market help create more visibility into leads and, therefore, increase efficiency throughout the sales process.

LIABILITY IN NEGLIGENCE:

Fortunately for disgruntled consumers, the law of negligence offers a more helpful route to enforcing rights against the travel agent.

The Duty of Care:

The concept that negligence which causes damage should result in a right of legal action is surprisingly young in English Law- indeed it does not predate the package holiday by so many years. It only became fully established in the famous “snail in the ginger beer bottle” case of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] A.C. 562. One of the best-known passages from an English judgement is the following from Lord Atkin:

“The rule that you are to love your neighbor becomes in law you must not injure your neighbor; and the lawyer’s question, who is my neighbor? receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor. Who, then,  in law is my neighbor? The answer seems to be- persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question”.

This case established the case to discover whether a duty of care exists in law which, if broken, gives rise to a claim for compensation. However, a normal travel agent’s business would still not have been subject to legal action under the principle established under the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson because the only type of damage which was recoverable under that case is physical, e.g. damage to property or injury to a person. Mere loss of money, economic loss, was not recoverable. Indeed, as a general and simplistic statement of law, economic loss is still not generally recoverable in a claim for negligence.

By: Navin Kumar Jaggi & Harshraj Shakdupia