RiverVoyages.com

The company is focused on a proactive approach – with concierges contacting customers as soon as they hear of any issues to rearrange bookings. One recent example was the closure of Gatwick during the drone incident, where managers and staff alike worked until 2am to find alternative flights for affected clients.

Another challenge was the low water levels last summer that affected large numbers of river sailings in both Europe and Asia.

Rivervoyages.com had one client due to take a China river cruise whose sailing was cancelled with little notice – his concierge put in extra hours and managed to secure a last-minute, land-based tour around China instead.

In another instance, a consultant even hand-delivered tickets to a customer who had misplaced them, despite the company being a website and call-centre business, and the client not living nearby.

The Rivervoyages.com website was revamped in October and is now entirely focused on the customer journey, with more relevant information and pricing featured. As a result the site saw an impressive jump in visitor numbers between October and January compared with the same period last year. Its conversion rate also improved significantly.

Customers are clearly satisfied with this new approach, as Rivervoyages.com has a Net Promoter Score of 83 (anything above 50 is deemed to be “excellent”) and it has an incredible 96% recommendation rate on Review.co.uk.

Meanwhile, training remains equally important, with all of its concierges attending at least one educational trip a year – complete with detailed follow-up reports which they present to the rest of the team.

Cruises lines are also encouraged to visit the team to keep them updated, while webinars are conducted regularly for home-based team members.

Supporting the local community is also an important principle of the business, and Rivervoyages.com is one of the founding partners of Chorley Youth Zone – a local charity which provides opportunities and activities for underprivileged children – with the business raising £13,000 in 2018 alone.