AMEX Upgrades Travel Service
JULY 25, 2006. America's Vacation Center/ American Express is offering a new way to book travel that combines the affordability of travel Web sites with the service, support, and expertise of a full-service travel agency.
AVC's system connects travel consumers with professional travel agents, based on agent expertise, saving customers time and money, without sacrificing customer service.
"For nearly ten years, customers have called up major travel sites, only to be put on hold for long periods of time and then routed to an order-taker who knows less about the product than the customer," said Brad Anderson, co- president of America's Vacation Center. "But with our system, callers are quickly connected with a travel professional who is an expert on the product and destination the customer is interested in."
The process starts with live customer care operators instead of an automated phone system. Callers are never subjected to an annoying, never- ending list of pre-recorded options. Instead, phones are promptly answered by customer-care operators who will assess the customer's needs and route them to an available specialist.
America's Vacation Center has hundreds of professional travel agents for customers to speak with, many of whom have been selling travel for ten to twenty years (or longer). And by using their proprietary Agent Power software, AVC is able to quickly connect customers to the travel professional who is best-suited to answer their questions and find them the vacation of their dreams.
"Before now, travel consumers had to decide between low cost and good service, but AVC's focus on delivering the best value means that customers get a great price, amazing service, and the vacation of a lifetime," Anderson commented. "Add to that the fact that our customers are supported in their travels worldwide by more than 2,200 American Express travel and foreign exchange locations in more than 140 countries and it's clear that nobody offers a better value than America's Vacation Center."
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