Just about anyone will agree that no matter what your business, it's the service that keeps a customer loyal. And Cheryl Hayward-Chew is making it her business to ensure that at Meyer-Franklin Travel every customer's travel experience is a memorable one.

Mrs. Hayward-Chew, Meyer Group vice-president, took on the leadership of Meyer Travel a year before its October 2002 merger with Franklin Travel.

This merger also took place in the year following 9/11 when all around the globe the travel industry was struggling to recover.

Mrs. Hayward-Chew admits that it was not an easy time as they tried to make sense of what had happened, while taking what they could from their combined experience to benefit the company and their clients.

"Both companies had highly experienced agents, yet their strengths [at Franklin Travel] were completely different from ours. They were a small business, lean and efficient, and we were a large, established company with a strong investment in technology."

"By pooling our resources, we aimed at improving service and increasing expertise," she recalls.

"The one thing we did have in common was that we liked doing business the right way. We liked being positive and honest and providing good customer service."

She adds that best practices were adopted including everything from compensation schemes and sales incentives, to always referring to employees as a "Team" or "Team members."

The accounting department also benefited:

"From an accounting side it's very hard to administrate travel. You need to have been a travel agent and know the ins and outs of what can happen to a ticket, and Sandy Williams' knowledge is irreplaceable.

"When she came over from Franklin she brought a level of knowledge and experience comparable to the best in any agency worldwide."

Five years later and despite pressure on the industry from both airlines and the Internet to cut out the middleman, Meyer-Franklin continues to offer its clients attentive customer service.

"Our agents are a traveller's best friend," says Mrs. Hayward Chew, "sifting through the mountain of travel choices, pricing schemes and offers. They are highly travelled and experienced, and utilise Meyer-Franklin's strategic relationships with travel providers to offer the best value to our clients."

"We have no doubt that our pricing strength is equivalent to anything in the Bermuda market and online. Plus, if the unexpected arises, Meyer-Franklin Travel is there for all of our clients with free travel assistance in more than 2,200 American Express Worldwide Customer Care locations around the world."

Which is why Meyer-Franklin has pledged itself to conducting business in a manner that promotes the ideal of integrity in travel. It is also why many of their clients have continued to return to Meyer-Franklin — some for more than 20 years — to meet all their travel needs.

"A travel agency needs to have travel agents with a variety of personalities, because you need to match your clients with your agents.

"Some clients will only want the facts, while others will want to see all the options available, and they will want to see the destination pictures and get feedback from an agent who has already been there," she says.

"You can't beat experience and the junior agents are teamed up with senior agents so that they can draw on their knowledge."

Meyer-Franklin Travel offers the expertise of 25 travel consultants with over 500 years of combined agency experience.

Travel agents work on either the Corporate or Leisure team, but it's not uncommon for corporate consultants to end up booking holidays for their clients.

"Likewise we have leisure agents who also book business travel for their clients because of the relationship they have with them," she elaborates.

"Our size means we are flexible enough to service our clients 100 percent. We set ourselves apart because first and foremost we are travel consultants. We may sell travel services, but our clients come first, and we make sure that whatever we do is correct and provides them with the best fit."

And where does Mrs. Hayward-Chew see Meyer-Franklin Travel in five years?

"In five years time, technology will be integrated even more thoroughly into our daily lives. Meyer-Franklin will continue to embrace that technology – both the technology used by the public as well as that created for travel agents.

"In the future travel agents may represent a smaller percentage of the travel bookings industry-wide, but there will always be a demand for travel expertise and customised service.

"Meyer-Franklin Travel as an entity was formed five years ago, but our history in serving Bermuda's travel needs goes back a century. There's no doubt that Meyer-Franklin Travel will be here tomorrow as well, offering service to the travelling public, no matter what their need."