{"id":2382,"date":"2022-06-06T14:18:32","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T13:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/?p=2382"},"modified":"2022-06-06T14:18:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T13:18:43","slug":"an-update-from-key-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/2022\/06\/06\/an-update-from-key-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"An update From Key Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Background<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\r\n<p>As the jubilee weekend news has painfully confirmed, the travel industry is continuing to experience the perfect storm, as a result of surging demand and supply bottlenecks, which is impacting on the ability to service customers at pre-pandemic levels. Pressures include<br \/><br \/>\u2022 Increased call rates as travellers need more reassurance<br \/>\u2022 Higher usage of offline rather than online channels for the same reason <br \/>\u2022 Shorter booking windows, due to uncertainty of travel<br \/>\u2022 Increased calls due to continued travel disruption, such as short notice airline cancellations and changing COVID requirements<br \/>\u2022 Continued shortage of available travel industry workers,<\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Key&#8217;s\u00a0<\/strong><b>response<\/b><\/span><br \/>The University&#8217;s appointed travel provider, Key, has made it a continued priority to recruit the necessary staff to navigate all of these challenges. Key has:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Added 20 FTE support staff working UK Business Hours<\/li>\r\n<li>Doubled staffing Sept 21 to Jan 22 and doubled again to May 22, and continue to recruit to help meet un-forecast customer demands<\/li>\r\n<li>Continued to accelerate recruitment and are onboarding staff throughout May, June, and July to meet the un-forecast customer volumes and meet the challenges of the travel supply chain recovery<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>How to get the best out of Key<\/strong><\/span><br \/>Where possible please use the online tool if available as it will normally be quicker and easier. If this cannot happen, and if you require urgent assistance from Key, then:<br \/><br \/><br \/>1. Please use the kent@keytravel.com email and your dedicated service number for all bookings.<br \/>Calls: Please follow the menu:<br \/>a. Choosing under 7days from booking to departure, call wait times are being supported but can be 30mins as a min<br \/>(30% of calls are answered in under a minute)<br \/>b. Choosing over 7days, to reduce your wait times, please use online booking or email when the trip is complex, and the team will prioritise your email by date of departure<br \/><br \/>NB: Please don&#8217;t request to hold as this adds wait time<br \/><br \/>2. Email: please use kent@keytravel.com<br \/>a. We are aiming at 80% in under 8 hours, prioritised by date of departure<br \/>b. accountmanager@keytravel.com; we use travel under 3 days to departure and VIP\/Complex trip support to escalate and any issues not meeting this, we aim to get these sorted in five working days<br \/><br \/>3. Emergency Bookings \u2013 all itineraries now include the emergency number +44(0) 207 843 9602<br \/><br \/>4. In-trip issues, please go to the Kent operational team using email or phone during UK business hours DDI is 020 7843 9672<br \/>Examples: For using the emergency number outside UK business hours +44(0) 207 843 9602<br \/>a. Emergency, personal security or risk issue<br \/>b. Unsuitable hotel, need to move immediately<br \/>c. Cancelled travel\/flights, traveller stranded, or unsuitable options<br \/>d. Local or country risk threat level changes mid-trip<br \/>e. Personal crisis, family crisis needed immediate return travel<br \/>NB: If not a crisis or emergency our emergency team will guide you back to operations<br \/><br \/>5. If you have post-travel feedback on the booking experience should be sent to your named account manager or accountmanager@keytravel.com<br \/>a. NB: You can use the automated booking survey and &#8220;Add feedback.&#8221;<br \/>b. If you need to escalate, please use accountmanager@keytravel.com leaving the subject heading unchanged, and detail the support needed<br \/>c. Using the AM@ email will ensure that the operational leaders are contacted to provide expertise or support on escalations. We guide to a 5day turnaround, depending on the supplier, and will keep you posted on progress<br \/>d. You can choose to add Ulster procurement<br \/>e. Best practice is to limit wider distribution as this can add volume to the issue, delaying responses<br \/>f. All escalations and survey results are reviewed by the Key Travel operations and commercial senior leadership teams<br \/><br \/><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Background As the jubilee weekend news has painfully confirmed, the travel industry is continuing to experience the perfect storm, as a result of surging demand &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/2022\/06\/06\/an-update-from-key-travel\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[178703,137335],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2382"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2404,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/finance-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}