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Seaforths Travel: Modernisation of the Quality Management System.(1998-2000)
Summary Seaforths Travel are one of the UK’s top 20 independent travel agents with a strong focus upon the business travel sector, including some major corporate clients. The company had recently (in 1998) become a part of the telme.co group that included a selection of business support organisations. In order to support the UK wide customer base Seaforths had offices in Aberdeen, Bracknell and Covent Garden, in addition to the headquarters in Great Yarmouth. The company had a turnover of circa £40 million and a staff of just over 100. The business process was based upon the ‘standard’ travel industry networked, computerised booking systems. In addition the company was a leader in the development of ‘on-line’ business planning and booking systems, marketed as the ‘Ticket Window’ product, that received excellence awards from the overall travel industry. However although ISO9002 registered the Quality Management System (QMS) was entirely paper-based, unlike the balance of the business systems. This resulted in significant customer service issues, particularly with regard to effective complaint handling across the 4 sites of the business. Laurence Brooks was engaged to review and overhaul the processes and mechanisms of the QMS with a view to addressing these issues. Over a two year period the following outcomes were achieved.
Key Actions, Activities and Outcomes. Selection & Implementation of a Networked Complaints Process. The (software) products on the market were assessed in line with the company requirements, leading to the selection of the Q-Pulse product. Following installation, the training of staff in all key locations was overseen, leading to the smooth implementation process. Note: As an intermediate service provider Seaforths Travel typically had to handle a plethora of customer complaints that related back to the first level providers (The Airlines, Hotels etc). The acknowledgement and turnaround time of complaints was reduced to less than 1 day, from a previous value of 4 days. The implementation of the software also facilitated the effective trend review and analysis leading on to corrective and preventive actions, followed by top level review at the Quality Management Review. Secure Ownership of the Quality Processes. Through a people focused approach the responsibility and ownership of the Quality management process was transferred to the line functions across the company. This was accomplished via a mentoring and support role by Laurence Brooks, helping the staff involved to address the issues facing their teams, while avoiding a blame culture / attitude. Through this approach the response rate and accuracy of feedback to the customers (internal and external) were significantly enhanced. Internal Audit Revisions. The internal audit process was less than fully effective with a fragmented implementation across the four locations. A uniform schedule was derived and responsibility taken for the performance of the actual audits (by L.Brooks). Plans were then put in place to train a new team of company internal auditors. Procedural Overhaul. The bank of procedures were overly complex and did not reflect the real processes of the company. The full set were re-written / issued in conjunction with the operating groups such that an accurate reflection of practices was achieved. The new procedures were published via the Q-Pulse software network, hence eliminating the majority of the hard copies. |
