Missed calls at a travel agency on hold with the airline

On hold with the airline, and a phone nobody can take

July, late morning. One of you is on hold with the airline. A couple’s outbound was cancelled and the hotel on the other side is already paid. You have the booking reference in front of you. You cannot drop that line. If you do, you go back to the queue.

The office phone rings.

Pick it up and you lose the airline. Leave it and the caller is gone. On an office this size there is no third pair of hands. The person who would have reached for it is listening to hold music. The other pair of hands, if there is one, is at the counter printing tickets.

The same hour brings the last-minute boats, the week in Crete, and the people who already paid and now want to know if they can collect this afternoon. A second line on the same two people still puts the third caller on a busy tone.

That third caller is often already on the street. Your window and the next agency share the same pavement. They will not wait for a beep. They hang up and dial the next number, or they walk in there.

You already count the tickets you issued, the changes, the operator queue. What you usually do not count is how many people tried the number on the window and heard ringing. Eleven seconds at 10:42 is in the provider’s log. Nobody at the desk has asked to see it. They had the airline in one ear.

A Tuesday morning in November can be quiet. Late morning on a Friday in July is not. Average the week and that window disappears into a calm figure, and you hire as if the gap were a missing winter receptionist. Pull late morning on its own, in the months the boats fill. That is the hour the next office is on the same street, and you cannot put the airline down.

Who hangs up, and who leaves a message

Not every unanswered call is worth the same.

Someone rings about a booking they already paid for. Ticket collect this afternoon, a name correction, whether the morning boat still runs. They already have a reference. They know your name. They will record a message, or they will come to the window anyway and ask. These are the calls you see, so these are the calls that shape how large the problem feels. They are also the cheapest miss.

Someone rings about Friday night to Naxos, two people, a cabin if you have one. No name, no card, no trace in the system. They had your window and the next one in the same look. They hear the beep and treat it as nobody there. They hang up. This is the call that would have paid for the week.

Someone missed a connection and wants to leave today. They will not hold with you. They will not leave a name on voicemail. They have three agencies in the same block. If it keeps ringing they try the next door.

Someone asks whether you sell ferry tickets and whether they can collect this afternoon. If nobody picks up they may leave a message, because they already decided on you. Or they may walk two doors along with the same question. Same morning, a different request — and still a call you never counted if you only open the tape.

The messages you do get are not the boats you lost

The people who record a message already have a booking, or want a week in September, or know which operator they used last year. The people who will not record one are standing on the street with Friday to place and three windows in the same glance.

So you hear the already-booked guest asking when they can collect, and you do not hear the couple who rang about Naxos and booked next door. If you judge the problem by the messages, you conclude you miss a couple of ticket collects. The log says otherwise, once you isolate late morning in July.

A caller who speaks no Greek will not leave a long message in Greek. English from a couple off the Athens flight who want a boat tonight. German from a family who walked in from the hire car. French, Italian, Dutch, in the same morning. They hang up at the beep and dial the next office that answers in their language.

A form on the website is a person who decided you were worth a wait. It is a useful channel. It is not a count of the people who tried the number on the window. The couple with bags on the pavement does not open the app. They try the number, then the next number.

If you have never asked the provider for unanswered calls by hour, do that before you change a script or a hire. Four busy weeks is enough to see the shape. Look at late morning. Look at the Friday before a long weekend. Leave the rest of the week as one figure until you have those two.

Three calls while you wait for the airline

The calls do not arrive one, then a gap, then one. They arrive as a Friday boat, a week in Crete, a missed connection, and a “can I collect this afternoon” in the window it takes the airline to come back on the line.

Hire someone for July and they take the first call. Callers three and four still hear ringing, or a busy tone, or the beep. One extra pair of hands still leaves people on the street. The assistant can hold more than one conversation while you stay on the airline.

A second mistake is quieter. Forward every ring at once, including the ones a free person at the counter would have taken, and the guest who only wanted to collect tickets never hears a familiar voice. Then you decide the assistant does not sound like you. Leave the forward on. Set it for fifteen or twenty seconds. The desk keeps what it can reach. The assistant takes the rest. Calls you answer cost nothing.

A second line with the same two people does not change this. The third caller is still waiting. What changes it is that the third call is answered while you are still on hold.

Someone hired in February does not cover this Friday. Easter week, the Friday before a long weekend, the mornings the boats fill — those are the hours the log will show, if you ask for them.

A cabin it must not invent when it answers

Catching the call is not the whole job. A yes the system does not show is a worse miss than a ring that went unanswered.

A cabin open at nine can be gone at ten. A fare you remember from Tuesday is not Tuesday’s fare. The walk-in at the counter may be about to take the last outside cabin on Friday’s boat. If the assistant says those dates are free because it sounded likely, they come in with cash, you open the screen, and the bed is gone. They walk to the next office and do not come back.

It can repeat a published item you marked as live this morning. Unseen ferry inventory cannot. Unseen air inventory cannot. An unseen hotel room cannot. The assistant takes the request and either books a time to come in or takes a callback. A person who can see the screen says the number.

Do not type a hopeful line into the notes. “We usually have something on Friday night” will be read out. If a cabin is not free until you have looked, do not give the assistant a sentence that sounds like it is.

Do not paste last week’s fares into the notes. The assistant will read them as if they were still live.

A walk-in who rings from the pavement and a guest who already paid are not the same person. The first needs the live system. The second needs the booking that is already there. Ask which they are before anyone talks about a free cabin.

A change on a booking that already exists is not something the assistant finishes on the phone. “Can you move us to Sunday’s boat” on a ticket you already issued is a request. You open the operator screen. You decide.

Package, ferry, or last-minute — even on a call you just caught

Picking up is not enough if the first question is “what date”. A week in Crete, a Friday night boat, and a couple who want to leave tomorrow then land in the same note.

A package. Departure city, dates, how many rooms, board — room only, breakfast, half board, all inclusive — and the ages of children. A week in Crete from Thessaloniki is not a week from Athens. Two adults and a child of six is not two adults. Take those facts. Do not skip to a hotel that “should have space”. Do not skip to a brochure price from last spring.

A ferry. A route, a sailing date, cabin or seats, and the names as on the ID. Friday night to Naxos and Saturday morning to Naxos are two sailings. An outside cabin and a deck seat are two tickets. The assistant asks which they mean. It does not say there is a cabin left.

Last-minute. Either of the above, plus today or tomorrow. These callers will not hold and will not leave a name on voicemail. Take the facts and either book a time to come in the same day, or say someone will check the system and ring back. Treat that call as next month and they are already speaking to the office next door.

One call can hold two of these. “A week in Rhodes, and can you put us on Friday’s boat as well?” is a package and a ferry. Hear both. Note both. Confirm neither until someone can see the right screen.

Write the first question the way you would for a new person at the desk: package, ferry, or last-minute. One sentence is enough. Skip it and the request lands on the wrong operator.

A fare is the same kind of trap. An outside cabin and a deck seat are not the same price. July is not October. The assistant may repeat a published figure you typed in and marked live. If you have no live figure, it takes the request. Do not put a “from” price in the notes. It will read the number out.

A change, a visa, a collect — still not a yes

A caller with a booking reference wants Saturday’s boat moved to Sunday, or the hotel refunded because the airline moved them. Change fees and refunds sit with the operator. The assistant takes the reference, the names, what they want changed, and puts that in front of you. It can repeat a rule you wrote — “name changes on this operator need twenty-four hours” — and nothing else. It does not move them onto the next sailing from memory. That sailing may be full. It may not exist.

A visa, a child’s document, Turkey, Egypt, insurance: a note. Never advice. Repeat a line you wrote. If you did not write it, do not invent one.

“Can I collect this afternoon?” is a short answer against the hours you keep for the counter, not a new quote. If only one of you issues tickets, a same-day collect can only go on that person’s hours. A caught call that fills the collect hour with a twenty-minute package is a miss of a different kind: the people already at the door miss the boat.

How CITT handles a missed travel-office call

1. The number on the window stays yours. A forward sends what you do not answer. A call a person at the desk picks up never leaves the office.
2. Several calls are answered at once. July is conversations, not a stack of busy tones against the airline hold.
3. It asks package, ferry or last-minute first, then takes the facts that belong to that request.
4. It does not invent a cabin or a fare. If you have not marked a figure live, it takes a request or a callback.
5. It checks the calendar you already use before it offers a time to come in, and writes the visit into that calendar.
6. It confirms by SMS, in the language of the call — 70+ languages.
7. What cannot be finished on the call — an unpublished fare, a cabin nobody has checked, a visa question, an operator change — goes to you as a tagged note.
8. You get the transcript, the summary, and which of the three jobs the caller named, tagged so last-minute is not one pile called “missed”.

What it will not do

You stay on the airline. The assistant picks up.

It will not invent a free cabin. If the system is not in front of it, the caller gets a request taken, not a yes.

It will not invent a fare, a hotel room, or a sailing from memory. A number that is not in what you entered, and not marked live, is not spoken.

It will not give visa, entry, or insurance advice. A stamp, a child’s document, or a policy question is a note.

It will not treat package hours and ticket-collect hours as the same calendar. Mark the difference, or a twenty-minute quote lands in the hour you keep for people already at the door.

It will not decide a change, a refund, or a name correction. It takes the booking reference. A human opens the operator screen.

It will not drop the airline for you. That line stays yours. The assistant takes the other one.

What you set up first

1. The late-morning slice of the call log. Unanswered calls, by hour, four busy weeks back. If you skip this you will never know whether anything moved, and you will argue from the feeling of the desk.
2. Forward on no-answer, not always. Fifteen to twenty seconds. The desk keeps the calls it can take.
3. Three tags: package, ferry, last-minute. The weekly summary is useless if July is one pile.
4. Who works which screen, and the hours you keep for ticket collects. A same-day collect can only go on the person who can issue it.
5. The sentence for when a fare or a cabin cannot be confirmed. Dates, names, callback. Nothing that sounds like a yes.
6. Re-pull the late-morning log after four busy weeks. Compare unanswered calls, not assistant volume.

Then the published items it may repeat — a transfer you sell, a museum ticket, a figure you marked live this morning. Leave last week’s fares off the notes. One line that forbids visa, entry and insurance advice. Opening hours, who is in on Saturday, where to park, how to find the door.

Rates for the service live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.

Put your own commission figure in

The worked example above is arithmetic on stated assumptions. A two-person ferry on a Friday night and a week in Crete are not the same booking. Put your own figure in. If late morning still justifies the change with your number, the argument is real.

Count unanswered calls in the hours the boats fill. Then count them again.