Maybe I am really ignorant, but this is the first time I have ever heard of the “Apple Travel Team”.
Apple is currently hiring for the following positions in the “Apple Travel Team”;
For example, the Apple Travel Counselor position lists;
The Apple Travel Team in Singapore is seeking Travel Counselors who will be responsible for providing outstanding service and professionalism to travelers, make accurate and timely travel reservations, and maintain high levels of productivity in our fast pace Regional Service Center (RSC). This is an exciting position for an individual that is extremely customer focused and has a passion to provide service excellence to customers. The right individual must have a thorough knowledge of the travel industry, travel reservation systems, pricing, and international markets.
The successful candidate will:
•Professionally interact with travelers to respond to all travel inquiries including reservations, price quotations, and customer service issues
•Ensure optimum customer service through effective use of phone system, e-mail and positive telephone service techniques
•Achieve individual and team service level goals related to telephone, quality, accuracy and productivity
•Knows and properly uses airline terminology, codes, fare basis, airline rules and tariffs, resource guides, books, and industry contacts
•Maintaining a favorable company image when interfacing with outside resources
•Effectively work in a team environment supporting management and staff, follows policies, providing feedback, assisting in special projects, and taking on additional responsibility
•Outstanding organizational skills that result in high productivity
•Efficiently and effectively respond to customer service issues
•Must work weekends, may require night shift..
All these positions have been posted a few days ago. No one seems to have reported anything strange, which is why I am skeptical of this being something interesting. But never before have I seen the words “Apple Travel” on the Apple jobs site in all my lousy attempts at applying for a job at Apple.
It’s no secret that a large part of Apple’s call centre services for their Online Stores and sales is located in the Singapore campus, but I have never heard of Apple providing “outstanding service and professionalism to travelers, make accurate and timely travel reservations, and maintain high levels of productivity in our(Apple’s) fast pace Regional Service Center (RSC)”.
Pardon me but that totally sounds like the work of a TRAVEL AGENT.
And since when is Apple a travel agent?
Is Apple providing a new service? Maybe this has something to do with their purchase of some company providing mapping solutions a while back? Or to do with the Tim Cook visit to the Singapore campus a while back?
Or am I just plain dumb (well there’s a big chance) to the obvious presence of a “Apple Travel Team” in Apple Singapore all these years?
Anyone in the inside mind dropping me a PM? LOL.
Interesting.
Can think of 2 possibilities:
1. apple is a big enough company to have its own dedicated travel “department”, with many suppliers/contractors in different countries.
2. Google “acquired travel” and you’ll see Google & FB making acquisitions in 2010. Like the ad war between Apple & Google, Apple cannot lose out… Just that Apple’s acquisitions (if any) are not so visible.
That is for arranging their own internal staff travel. So, they do not need to engage external travel companies to handle any travel. They have a dedicated department in Apple to handle all travelling needs of the staff.