Shaun E. Smith, CTC
Travel is a dream come true for most individuals. Not only is the trip itself important, but everything leading up to it can make or break the experience. The one thing that most people on this planet expect is great customer service. Great customer service is not on someone’s “want list”, it is not on a “bucket list” item, it is on our “needs list”.
The elusive great customer service experience is sometimes one of the most fluctuating and challenging pursuits in today’s marketplace. Over the last 3 years of the pandemic, the customer service experience has drastically changed for the negative. Although the importance of great customer service still remains, the ability to receive it in most industries has been fleeting. We will discuss some of the ways a business can begin to secure that great customer service experience again with their clients/customers.
Worldwide, close to 90% of all consumers are driven by the customer service experiences with their buying decisions. Knowing that statistic, why is it that most companies don’t continually focus on process improvement with their customer service? Customer service isn’t just a purchase, a phone call, an email, an activity experience, or a moment in time. The customer service experience goes beyond the surface level. Businesses today are built up and brought down by either great or poor customer service experiences. A business can have the greatest product of all times, but continued poor customer service experience will quickly turn a customer away.
The pandemic that the world experienced from 2019 through 2022 has had a drastic impact on the level of customer service that businesses have given. At the start of the pandemic, the vast majority of companies shifted their in-house staffing to virtual employees. However, throughout the pandemic, companies eventually downsized, and outsourced their services to cheaper international labor pools due to the lack of business volume. With this reduction in staffing came longer wait times, less experienced workers, and overall lower customer service experiences. This has been an ongoing dilemma for businesses that require high phone and email interaction with customers. The need for enhanced customer service experience techniques are more critical today than ever before. A businesses greatest asset is not the building they reside in or the products they sell, rather the impact they get to have with each and every customer they touch and interact with.
The travel and hospitality industries have not gone under the radar with the need to increase their customer processes. I will discuss how travel professionals can better improve the customer service experience that they offer to their clients on a regular basis by focusing on the total interaction from start to finish. Let’s begin our dive into the customer service experience for travel professionals.
The first step in working with a potential client is to fully understand the needs of your client. Do you properly vet them to see exactly what they are looking for? Are you the right fit for the client and is the client right for you? This is a great opportunity to begin to put your knowledge of the DISC behaviors to work. Understanding what and how your client communicates with you can help your interactions with your potential client. A key part of the communication process that can hinder the selling experience is when you are communicating with someone that has a DISC personality that’s opposite of yours. In those instances, you must understand when that occurs, so that you and your client do not clash. The ability to master this art is a great tool to maximize the customer service experience and helps you to continue servicing the needs of your client.
During this first step, attention to details is critical. You’ll want to think through these top five questions that are crucial to getting the ball rolling.
• Does your client have any special needs that must be addressed?
• Are the passports within the needed expiration period?
• If the trip is international, has the client traveled out of the country before?
• Are they foodies?
• Are they looking for a location that is a relaxing destination or are they heavy into adventurous activities?
These are just some of the pertinent questions to begin to prepare working with a client. One of the ways to secure this information is by including these types of questions in the travel profile that a perspective client completes. The travel profile will be a valuable tool to load into your CRM program that you use, because it helps you maintain an accurate record of the individual. Once the individual becomes a client, the record can be updated as the client’s needs change.
You’ve secured the pertinent info from the client, now is the time where your industry expertise comes into play. Often, when a client is booking a trip, they don’t know the specific “where” they want to go. As a travel professional, it is your opportunity to shine for the client with your vast knowledge of destinations, vendors, tour operators, transportation companies, etc. One of the reasons that we as travel professionals build relationships with these entities is to make the best match to the desires of our client. Although this is not an exact science, it is a great plus for using your knowledge to guide your client toward a destination/trip decision that is curated just for them.
One of the ways that clients benefit from using a travel professional is we have often done FAM trips in multiple countries and resorts that give us great insight into the properties. Doing and creating FAM trips allows you to help your client in some of the following ways:
• You’ll meet key resort personnel to build a rapport with. This is a critical contact since you’ll want to contact them prior to a client’s arrival at the resort. Often, the sales manager will work with the travel professional to coordinate special requests, based on the relationship that you have built.
• By doing FAM trips at a resort, you get the opportunity to experience the resort from a travel professional’s point of view, on behalf of potential clients. This allows you to vet the following good and bad aspects of a property.
a. What was the quality of the food?
b. What is the level of service?
c. Is the property upkeep maintained?
d. Is the resort easy to navigate for someone that may have mobility challenges?
e. Is the staff friendly?
f. If you had any issues, were they promptly addressed?
g. Is the beach user-friendly?
h. Are the rooms maintained to your level of acceptance?
These are just some of the aspects of the benefits that a client receives from your FAM experiences when deciding on a property. Of course, travel professionals cannot do FAMs in every destination, nor every property around the globe. This is where your ability to do a thorough vetting of potential properties for your client comes into play.
As a travel professional, you can use your DS (Destination Specialist) training to help narrow down destinations that fit what your client is looking for. Being a Destination Specialist allows you to hone in on the specific requests of a client to begin the process of finalizing a destination and then a resort within that destination.
Now for the important part; communicating the destination choices with your client. From the very beginning when you first met the client and started the sales process, you have had a choice that can separate you from others. Here are some questions to ask yourself to keep the communication flowing smoothly:
• Are you timely in your responses to a client?
• Are you listening to your client or are you just hearing them during conversations or emails?
• Do you keep your client updated regularly, before, during, and after the selling process?
• Do you know your clients preferred method of communication?
• Do your clients feel you are personable, approachable, and easy to work with?
As with any business, communication is critical to ensure that the correct message is heard and received. In the travel industry, poor communication can be the difference between a great trip experience or a nightmare trip resulting from a missed piece of the communication puzzle. It is imperative that during the communication process, accurate notes are taken to ensure that you and the client are on the same page.
For an added layer of communication, email or written communication should be the foundation for you to ensure that all information is documented for any correspondence. This step helps to minimize items that may have been missed in verbal conversations.
But wait, now that you’ve discussed the destination, the resort, what your client likes and dislikes; how do you get them there?
The logistics of getting to a location is not always as simple as “here’s a flight, let’s go.” Air travel has become an intricate part of the trip. Especially in this post-pandemic air travel world that we live in. With air carriers being affected by staffing shortages, overbooking, equipment maintenance, etc, you must know how to get there. There are several areas that your client must consider when deciding their airlift options:
• How long is the flight time to the destination?
• Are there direct flights available?
• How long are the layovers?
• Are there multiple airports to fly into?
• How far is the final destination from the airport?
• How will we get from the airport to the resort? Private, semi-private or multi-stop transfers.
• Do I book an early flight in the event of a flight cancelation?
These are just some of the logistical aspects that we help our clients think through to plan their dreams.
Airlift today is critical to get your clients to and from their destinations. There are 2,900,000 passengers that fly in and out of the United States everyday. There are over 45,000 flights handled by the FAA everyday. Getting your clients to and from their dream vacations can sometimes turn into a nightmare with flight cancellations, aircrafts being repositioned, and weather delays, to name a few. Flight cancellations are now reaching the 3% level, and peaking to 6% during busy holiday periods. With these high numbers of flight cancellations, it is important that travel professionals do their due diligence to attempt to book the best flight options for your clients.
However, even with the best laid plans, we cannot control whether a flight will be delayed, diverted, or worse, canceled. When these delays happen to our clients, it can be very frustrating and annoying, at best. As travel professionals, we must adapt to handling this ever changing transportation environ0pment, on behalf of our clients, to get them to/from their destinations.
Our clients count on us and this can be a make or break moment in time for the impression that is left with their pre or post travel experience. Properly navigating your client through this trying moment of time with outstanding customer service, helps minimize an already tenuous time for your client. Addressing the situation promptly and professionally may just save the day for your client. Be ready to act quickly, be ready to wait on hold, be ready to intervene, be ready for when the unknown happens to your client.
As you can see, there are many component opportunities to shine in the level of customer service that you provide to your client. The level of remarkable and extraordinary service that you provide is up to you to proactively focus on and address the many customer service opportunities previously discussed.
Your client is looking to be wowed by the customer service experience that you give. As travel professionals, we are not selling a product, a destination, a resort or an adventure. We are selling ourselves and the service experience that we offer. It is easy to sell a product, but to sell the travel professional skillset and knowledge that you possess, is priceless. So, the next time you want to take a dip in the customer service waters for your client, don’t just skim the surface; take a deep dive into setting yourself apart from the competition, and don’t stop diving.
Bibliography
FAA statistics on flights, FAA.gov https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/
Flight cancellations statistics, Forbes.com, https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/06/30/the-smart-travelers-survival-playbook-for-summer-flight-cancellations/?sh=2ec9cadc3985
