Going for the least worst option

ToursByLocals has an awesome network of excellent guides.

But they’re also humans - and despite everyone’s best intentions they fail occasionally and when they do, the ToursByLocals support team earns their pay.

This story is about Darryl (not his real name), our star guide of Houston, Texas. He’d always received great reviews and had helped us out on numerous occasions with short notice bookings and taking over tours that other guides couldn’t do. He’d even done press tours for us that resulted in over the top reviews and good PR for ToursByLocals.

But at 2 pm on June 23rd I received a fax from a hospital informing me that Darryl had been in hospital for the past 10 days and was just now discharged.

We were naturally concerned for Darryl’s well being and also for the fate of the many tours he had upcoming.

I showed the fax to Steve Redmond (guide support specialist in our Vancouver office).

He called Darryl to hear a horrific story of how Darryl’s wife had left them and took everything. He had been in the hospital for 10 days under treatment for depression and had no vehicle and no money. He asks for a loan to get him to his hometown where he’ll stay with his family.

Although we were sympathetic to his problems, our main concern was that had a tour for 9 people on June 26, 3 days hence. The group needed to be picked up at the cruise terminal, toured for the day and then dropped at the airport, which as 110 KM from the cruise port. Plus the group needed tickets to NASA (we had advanced Darryl $350 to buy tickets but this was gone and he had no tickets).

We had to act fast, following our guiding principle to do whatever is the best thing for our customer (or sometimes the least worst).

First option - work with the guide to solve the problem and get them to deliver the tour. This is the best outcome as our travellers are often invested with a particular guide - they have ‘met’ them through email and have spent time planning the ideal day.

Darryl seems fine now and assures us that he is looking forward to delivering the tour - provided we could solve 2 problems….

Solving problem 1: no vehicle
Steve calls several Budget Vehicle Rental outlets in the city. It’s hard to find one for 9 people, but he finally does. Total rental cost $200. But this won’t work because the person who shows up at the rental office has to have a credit card. We can’t pay remotely. Darryl has no credit card.

OK, I have a friend in the city who will meet Darryl at the Budget office, pay for the vehicle with her card and add Darryl as a second driver. I’m going to have to do a solid for her to make up for this.

Solving problem 2: no tickets
Steve calls attraction - we can pay for tickets over the phone and have them picked up at the venue. No problem (we’ll work out the $350 we’ve already advanced Darryl later).

So we’re feeling pretty good right now and Steve calls Darryl with our solution. Except he doesn’t pick up. And doesn’t answer our voicemail. Or our email.

It’s now Friday at noon and we haven’t heard. So it’s onto plan B - maybe things will still work out, but we need a back up plan.

Second option - find another supplier
Steve calls several tour operators who list a similar tour - Houston Tours can do it for $730, but they need to know soon. Steve checks in from home on Saturday morning - since Darryl is unreachable, we confirm with Houston Tours and message the traveler. They’re hard to reach because they’re on a cruise ship.

Steve reviews Darryl’s email with the traveler and speaks to the Houston Tours guide to brief him on what the group’s expectations were.

We finally hear back from the traveler to confirm they understand the new situation. The Sunday tour goes ahead and at least from the Houston Tour side, everything went OK.

We follow up with the traveler and discover that they were unhappy with the situation - they really wanted Darryl as their guide. We issue them a 50% refund.

But the alternative would have been so much worse - imagine 9 people from a multi-generation family stuck in Galveston with no tour and no way to get to the airport for their international flight. We would have saved ourselves $500, but the consequence of deeply disappointing a customer would quickly swamp that saving.

Bottom line, we’re out $820 plus at least a full day of a staff member’s time, 4 hours of my time, a basically unhappy traveler and what was a great guide (he's fine, but no longer with ToursByLocals). But I do get to write a blog entry about affair. And give props to Steve and the rest of the Customer Service team for being awesome.