Great brands that people are loyal to, especially now in the social media age, live by their stories. To quote the late Steve Jobs:

“I get asked a lot why Apple’s customers are so loyal. It’s not because they belong to the Church of Mac! That’s ridiculous”.

The quote reminded me of a great blog story that Paul Speakman our IT Director picked up about Apple below:

“[Apple's] focus this week has been to troubleshoot all the iPad 2s that customers are returning to the stores. One iPad came back with a post it note on it that said “Wife said no.” It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it. They sent the guy an iPad 2 with a note on it that said “Apple said yes.”

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/03/18/ipad-2-wife-says-no-but-apple-says-yes/

Our Travel Counsellors build their business through referral and that is based on stories. Each customer will have a story of how their Travel Counsellor has done something or made them feel special, and they tell their family and friends. Travel Counsellors’ high Net Promoter Score is evidence of the level of customer satisfaction the company has, which means that over 90% of our customers would recommend us to their friends and colleagues. More importantly it shows how our agents are interested and passionate about creating long term relationships with their customers.

We celebrate the stories of our customers and individual Travel Counsellor’s in a series of books. The first three editions are called ‘Our Little Book of Success’, and feature a host of tales that tell of how our agents have gone the extra mile for their customers.

We have now also produced a book entitled The World of Travel Counsellors for our customers to have the opportunity to find out what makes the company so special, through the eyes of fellow customers, travel partners, Travel Counsellor’s and their families.

We provide the books free of charge as we think the collation of these stories says more about us than any formal, corporate mission statement. They are real, jam-packed with emotion and they also provide great recognition for the individuals who took the time to tell us their story. In this day and age people do want to thank and recognise those that go the extra mile to look after them.

If you’d like a copy of one of the books please contact us or your Travel Counsellor. If you’ve got stories of great customer service from our Travel Counsellors why not share them with us at mystory@travelcounsellors.com as they may feature in the next book!