I was disappointed when booking our January crossing to France with Brittany Ferries, as I thought that the price (£263 for 2 adults plus a car) was a bit steep for this quiet time of the year. This price already included our Club Voyage discount, which apparently saved us £96 on the normal fare, but did include an overnight cabin on the outbound leg.
I was so disappointed, in fact, that I felt compelled to Tweet about it. Twitter is not my usual vehicle for grumbling about things – usually, I just rant to Nadine and then calm down after a while. Here’s what I tweeted…
Even with club discount still paying £260 (2 adults + car return + cabin 1 way) Portsmouth-Caen in Jan. Expensive non Brittany Ferries?
Job done, I thought. Got it off my chest and perhaps gave my Twitter community the opportunity to tell me where I can get a better deal next time.
So, what happened next?
To my surprise (and to their credit), Brittany Ferries started following me on Twitter AND sent me a personal reply. Here it is…
@MartinJarvis Hello Martin, are your timings flexible? Generally afternoon sailings are cheaper southbound, and morning sailings northbound.
Now, I already had a vague idea that the price structure worked out like this, and we generally do try to get the best combination of price and convenience when booking, so the content of this reply didn’t really give me anything. However, I was struck, and impressed, by the fact that Brittany Ferries are taking social media seriously enough to be keeping an eye on what is said about them on the web, and that they respond quickly and effectively to head problems off before they cause real damage.
This is a very important lesson to all of us who run businesses…
Tackled correctly, bad news can be turned into something positive for your business – but you need to act quickly, you need to be honest, and you need to offer good information and advice (and an apology if necessary). Most important, though, is that you need to be aware of the things that are being said about you and your business. There are a few tools around that pro-actively alert you when your key phrases are mentioned (try Google Alerts, for example), or for Twitter, you could simply search for your terms on a regular basis and deal with any that require it.”
So, well done Brittany Ferries for being on top of this… although I really would like to pay a bit less for my regular crossings.
Let us have your own views on the use of Social Media for monitoring what your (potential) customers are saying, and whether you have been affected – positively or otherwise, by something said about you. Just remember, social media comments are important and they DO matter.
A quick suggestion, my Mum often books with DFDS (was Norfolkline) as they are a lot cheaper, only downside is you have to get the ferry from Dunkirk and you arrive in Dover! 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion Jo. Unfortunately, the Western Channel crossings are the only ones that are convenient for us (and therein lies the problem). I’m surprised Brittany Ferries have been allowed a monopoly on these.
I have seen that a company called GLD Atlantique run crossings from Gijón in Northern Spain to St Nazaire. Now, if they expanded the St Nazaire operation into the UK that would be very interesting.
Unfortunately If you need to get access to the South West UK there is little option but to use Brittany Ferries.
As an alternative, partly due to my wife not being a good sailor, we drove via the tunnel this Christmas. Even though part of our vist was to north of London I don’t think I shall be doing this again in a hurry as it is pretty much an 8 hour drive from central Brittany.
If Le Havre is not too much of an extra drive for you then LD Lines are very competative to Portsmouth. If you advertise with them, even just on their website, Brittany Ferries allocate 1 off season return voucher for car & passengers for £75. I know their advertising doesn’t come cheap but I believe being able to offer guests 20% off their ferry fares is valuable. But I have to agree with you that getting a ferry from St Nazaire to the UK would be great.