SAN FRANCISCO— By some measures, Orbitz.com has been an astonishing success: 3. 7 million unique visitors in its first month, and more than $100 million in travel reservations booked by mid-July. By other measures— including customer service— Orbitz hasnt been living up to its promises, reported the San Francisco Chronicle. Henry Harteveldt, a senior analyst/Forrester Research, said that Orbitz has succeeded in convincing newcomers to book online, but has fallen short when it comes to customer service— these newcomers need more hand-holding than veteran web users, and Orbitz wasnt prepared to handle the crush of phone calls. However, since Orbitz’s launch, it has increased support staff from 100 to 200, a spokeswoman from Orbitz told the Chronicle. In addition, a few users have booked tickets at Orbitz that couldnt be issued, because smaller carriers were not updating their databases in real time. The paper also reported the site’s hotel service lags behind the competition. Unlike Expedia, which has several sorting criteria such as star rankings, Orbitz simply shows all its hotels for a particular city. SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle
