Training expert shares top selling tips with Advantage agents
Travel agents focus too much on finding clients the cheapest rather than the best holidays, according to Bob Morrell, managing director of Reality Training.
In a breakout session at the Advantage Travel Conference in Miami, Morrell said agents should avoid asking customers for their budget. Instead, he suggested they ask for the clients’ price range.
To encourage them to increase this, he suggested they follow this up by asking them if they would be prepared to pay a little more for a better holiday.
"Most people don’t mind paying a bit more for a better option," he said.
To persuade clients to upgrade, agents should focus not on the total cost but on the difference in price between that and the cheaper options.
That way, agents are able to ‘nudge bronze holidaymakers into silver, and silver into gold, and persuade gold to buy platinum’, he said.
Agents often make the mistake of assuming clients can’t afford the most expensive holiday, so they inadvertently cap the amount they spend, he said, adding: "Don’t take decisions away from your customers. Instead, train your staff to sell the difference between cheaper and more expensive holidays and you’ll increase the value of your sales."
Rather than ‘leaping into discounting or finding a cheap holiday’, agents should explain the real value of the pricier option to their customers, he said.
Offers and discounts should be reserved not for new customers but as rewards for existing clients who should be given first refusal on any deals in order to retain their loyalty, added Morrell.
"Think of selling them to clients as ‘options’, such as the opportunity to take an extended family holiday during the May half-term, a break to celebrate their retirement or a chance to recuperate after an illness."
Morrell also claimed: "There seems to be a real aversion among travel agents to making follow up calls."
He said they took the attitude that if clients want the holiday, they will come back to them, but he said agents should follow up an initial proposal with more information to tempt clients to book.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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