Dear Brian,
Thank you for taking the time to review our services on Tripadvisor... We are very sorry that you were not happy with our guide, and your tour experience. Had you informed us at the time or even after the tour; we would have done everything in our power to rectify this; including a full refund, offering alternative services free of charge or whatever we can do to make you happy. Customer satisfaction is absolutely key for us, and we do everything we can to ensure this.
TO say that we were disappointed to receive your crushing 1 star review is an understatement. I would like to address your points for anybody reading your complaint; so our case is clear:
SMALL GROUP TOURS: We offer a range of small group tours to our customers; offering a better price that if you were to arrange private. We also guarantee departure of our tours; so even one person and we lose money, but we still operate as this is our assurance to our customer. Had we cancelled last minute (as our competition does), it would have left you with nothing.
I apologise that there weren't more people on your tour; trust me out would be better for us too! The reason that our guide mentioned that you are lucky is that you received a private tour for the price of a group tour which most people are happy with! At this point, had you informed us that you were not happy with this arrangement, we COULD have change you to another tour, or made other arrangements for you. But you didn't mention anything...
"I think BYE fails to understand that and thinks people book small group tours merely to save money. Who wants to spend all day just you and a guide?" - We understand this very clearly, thats why we offer Small Group Tours, with guaranteed departure for the convenience of our clients. Can we guarantee that we will have full groups every time? If we could, we would be millionaires. "Who wants to spend all day just with their guide?" Many, many visitors, more than SGT, thats why we offer our guests both private and join-in.
POOR ENGLISH SKILLS
I'm sorry that you felt your guide had poor english skills and you were not able to understand what he was saying. At any point to you ask him to speak more clearly or slowly? Sometimes we all need this reminder. This guide is mentioned positively in perhaps 50 or so of our other reviews, but never a mention that his english was bad. However, I understand what a negative affect this would have for you, and we are very sorry for that.
FEEDBACK AFTER THE TOUR
There are a number of steps that we put in place to follow up with our customers because we actually care about your experience. The main one is that all of our tours return to our office, so that we have a chance to quiz customers on their experience. We are very interested to know if you enjoyed the tour, positive negatives, things we can do better; the lunch and your overall experience.
When you came into our office to pay; my office supervisor Mr Chamrouen came to warmly welcome you back and ask about your tour. Your responses were:
- It was a bit hot and I am a bit tired
- Can the tuktuk take me back to my hotel (Yes, we offered free of charge)
- The lunch was very good (Thank you)
...that was all.
There was no comment about the guide's english, about not being happy to be the only one on the tour and no reason for us to suspect that your tour had been anything other than excellent. Chamrouen and all of my team are empowered to offer FOC or refund if our clients feel that they didn't get what they paid for or make any serious complaints.
We understand NOW, through tripadvisor that perhaps you didn't not receive what you expected; and we are sorry for that. However the only thing we can now do, is say sorry and respond to your TA review...
Given the opportunity, we most definitely would have rectified this. I sent you an email through TA apologising and requesting that if you are still in Siem Reap, I wanted to meet with you to apologise and make it up to you, but I received no reply until now.
1 Star is particularly brutal and I think possibly a little harsh; it does a lot of damage to our hard earned ranking on TA, but we know we can earn it back as we work hard everyday to do make our customers happy. You are completely entitled to review and say whatever you wish; however we really wish that you had told us during or after the tour so we could have done our absolutely best to ensure you were satisfied with your experience and our service.
Once again, we are very sorry for your experience and I hope that if something like this happens to you again, and I hope it doesn't; please give the provider a chance rectify the situation and make you happy.
We wish you safe travels ahead, and hope to welcome you back to Siem Reap some time in the future.
Kind Regards,
Dean and the Beyond Team
