Meet the Mobility at Sea Team - Val 

Hi! My name is Val and I have been working for Mobility at Sea for the past 6 years.

I will have spoken to most of our wonderful customers at one time or another as one of my roles is to call everyone in the week before their cruise or land-based hire to double-check their booking details, but some have become particularly dear to me over the years.

Some of these customers take multiple cruises a year, others just take one but it is heartwarming that they ask to speak to me every time they wish to book their equipment and it is so good to chat to them and find out how they are faring.

Other customer interactions are fleeting but very rewarding. I remember one occasion where I took a call just before our 5pm closing time from a gentleman who could not speak English and nobody here could speak his language either.

As you can imagine things were to say the least very problematic for a short while, but with care and patience, I managed to get his email address and, using an online translation service and with my fingers tightly crossed, engaged in a ‘conversation’ about his needs.

The chap required all of our specialist products (profiling bed, airflow mattress, hoist etc) plus he was planning a ‘trip of a lifetime’ transatlantic crossing with a two week stay in New York then a return trip to Southampton on the same ship. The whole thing couldn’t have been more complicated if it had been engineered by our manager Alison as a test case!

I am only human and I confess that I inwardly groaned at my misfortune to pick up that particular call, but what started as a real problem actually became a fun, engaging and rewarding experience.

Our website helped enormously as I could ask the customer to check the pictures of the suggested products to ensure they were the items he required – without this useful tool, I think it would have taken a few more emails to finalise this part of the booking process.

I had to stay on until around 7 pm to make sure we had exchanged all the necessary information but bearing in mind the time of year this took place I was actually quite grateful that the office had closed and I could work with no distractions. If the customer had called during the day it would have been really hard to focus on such a difficult scenario due to the constant flow of incoming calls and the usual high-season working demands.

Just a day in the life of a Mob at Sea worker but a job well done!

• Travel Agents - Find out how your customers could benefit from our mobility services.

Back to the Mobility at Sea blog