The Authorization Chain: Confidentiality and Accuracy in Billing

Honesty, transparency and clarity are cornerstones of Global Alliance Worldwide Chauffeured Services’ approach to excellence in customer service. This is especially important in relation to questions of payment and billing, where unexpected charges or hiccups in securing payment method information can reduce client satisfaction with our services and threaten important service relationships.

With these concerns foremost in our reservations agents’ minds, clarity and accuracy with regards to costs and charges is a main priority in serving our clients on the office side of Global Alliance’s limousine service package. Leaving price quotations and the importance of their accuracy for a separate discussion, it may be instructive to discuss the lens of company policy through which properly authorized payment methods (be they credit cards or invoicing accounts) are viewed.

credit-card-pileWith the rare exceptions of cash or credit card transactions made in the vehicle between passenger and chauffeur, the majority of services provided by Global Alliance are charged either to clients’ credit cards or invoicing accounts. Whatever the payment method, our company’s security policy is strictly adhered to when it comes to our clients’ payment information as with all confidential materials related to their profiles with Global Alliance.

This protocol means that credit card information must be provided directly to our agents over the phone, via email, or through our online booking system. Once a card has been added to a profile, it can be easily but confidentially accessed by our agents for subsequent orders, although our reservationists will ask clients to confirm the card to be charged for each trip should this not be disclosed in the initial request (thus also allowing expired or otherwise unusable cards to be updated in our system).

In the case of both a card on file and a pre-set account, our agents are not permitted to copy or transfer this information from one client’s profile to another or to otherwise charge a given card or account without the expressed consent of the cardholder or provider of the card information, or without the permission of an authorized booker for an invoicing account. Although this may seem an inconvenience to an unauthorized requester, it is a vital policy in protecting the billing details of our valued clients and maintaining the relationship of trust and confidentiality upon which our customers rely. Our agents are happy to reach out to a cardholder or card provider or authorized account user to obtain the necessary permission for a new or temporarily unauthorized booker to charge to the given card or account.

By maintaining this chain of authorization, Global Alliance is able to safeguard the privacy interests of our clients while also minimizing billing errors and unauthorized charges.

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