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The mystery shopper strikes
11 September 2000

According to a recent TTG article, trading standards officers are putting the spotlight on Internet 'bait and trap' tactics. They want to make sure that special offers on travel Web sites are genuinely available and are not simply being used as bait to hook customers who will then be upsold.

Personally, I do not believe that any travel Web site operator is intentionally setting out to mislead Joe Public but, being intrigued to find out for myself, I decided to log-on to a few of the Web sites whose management were quoted in the article. The tactic I used was the same as that employed by trading standards officers. I became a Mystery Shopper.

My first stop was dreamticket.com. They had a fine selection of "Hot Deals" all of which can be booked online - on a telephone line, that is. Lead-in prices such as £379 for 7 nights self-catering in Malaga were easily matched by Dreamticket's friendly and helpful call centre staff.

Next was Thomascook.com. Nielsen Net Ratings has ranked the site as number one in UK online travel for June, so I was looking forward to an exciting experience. I was to be disappointed. Clicking through from the first special offer on the home page brought up the message that no departures were available. I had more luck with the second offer. I was able to check flights and prices. I was able to tell the Web site that the holiday was for two adults. It invited me to continue to choose my room, but I literally drew a blank. There was nothing at all on the next screen, just a plain white page. I tried again a few hours later but, once again, the Technical Glitch outfoxed the Mystery Shopper.

My final visit was to thefirstresort.co.uk. I was particularly attracted to seven nights in Gran Canaria for £219 from JMC, clearly the best deal on the page. (Little does Joe Public realise that JMC is actually Thomas Cook. Shame, I think it would really be quite a good selling point.) On telephoning, I spoke to an efficient and friendly member of staff who quickly checked availability and pointed out that this was actually a Club 18-30 holiday. She wondered whether I would still be interested. Unfortunately, I only qualify if allowed to add the two ages together. Oh, I forgot to ask if they had run out of Club 18-30 logos for their Web site.

My mystery shopping exercise was not very scientific and it would be dangerous to draw any firm conclusions. I am sure that there are very reasonable explanations for the failure on Thomascook.com and thefirstresort.co.uk's display of a JMC logo when a Club 18-30 logo would have made more sense. However, 2 out of 3 experiences were poor and this made me feel uneasy, even though I surf the Web every single working day. Being online is second nature to me but I felt I was in frontier territory when compared with the ease with which I regularly book flights online.

It is very easy for Web site owners to be seduced by developers into operating at the frontier - the bleeding edge of technology - where the dream of technical innovation cannot be turned into reliable reality. Think of the online news stories you have read about companies such as egg.com and Barclays Bank where technological advance has not been without its glitches. How do you think Joe Public would feel if faced with a Web site that is faulty? Would he hand over the responsibility for fulfilling his family holiday to a piece of technology that is anything other than 100% reliable? What would be more important to Joe, innovation or integrity?

There is real competitive advantage to be gained through deployment of technology and I am certainly not suggesting that anyone should abandon their ambitious plans. But, if you are developing a whizzy dotcom presence, test, test, and test again. Aim for 100% reliability. You cannot afford to do a boo.com and have a Web presence that is so clever that it does not work at launch. If necessary scale back your aspirations and provide something a little less exciting that works every time.

By the way, when I visited www.thomascook.com, I was re-directed to www.thomascook.co.uk/bold/. Is this how you need to be to book a package holiday online? I hope not!

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