Good agent, bad agent

Everyone complains about commission caps, the Internet and the weather, but sometimes the enemy is us, according to Claudine Dervaes, a Tampa, Fla., author, publisher and teacher.

Early in her career, Dervaes, who started in the industry as a travel agent 24 years ago, identified a dearth of practical material for training travel agents.

She eventually developed her own training series and published it through her company, Solitaire Publishing.

In her books and lectures, Dervaes focuses on the need for travel agents to work on interpersonal skills when dealing with clients.

"Travel agents have never faced the customer service issue as much as they could," she said.

Some agents lack patience, for example, when faced with clients who need basic advice about where to vacation.

"Agents don't seem to remember that when consumers ask for brochures and information, these are not stupid requests," she said. "We know so much about travel that we forget many people do not."

She suggested that agents go the extra mile for clients even when the payoff is not obvious.

"Good customer service is something we sometimes have to push ourselves to offer, but it can lead to good word of mouth and more business down the road," Dervaes said.

She also cautioned against the prevalent tendency to steer clients to destinations agents are familiar with rather than find out where they really want to go.

"I may ask questions to confirm that this is where the client should go, but I won't assume I always know what is best," Dervaes said.

To illustrate her point, Dervaes presented the following original script at a Suncoast Travel Industry Association meeting in Tampa:

ACT ONE

Bad Agent sits at an incredibly sloppy desk, looking disheveled and smoking, drinking and eating.

Client: Hello, can you help me please?

Bad Agent: I guess so.

Client: I would like to go somewhere on vacation.

Bad Agent: You want to go somewhere? As in anywhere or nowhere? Geez!

Well, here's the deal; since you have no idea where you want to go, take all these brochures home and come back when somewhere actually is somewhere.

Good Agent sits at a neat desk, smiling, stapling her business card to brochures and looking busy.

Client comes in. Agent stands up, shakes his hand.

Good Agent: Hi, welcome to Dream Away Travel. How can I help you?

Client: I would like to go somewhere.

Good Agent: You want to go somewhere! How exciting!

Good Agent: Let's get a profile and talk about if and where you have traveled before, what you like to do and when you were thinking of traveling.

Good Agent starts filling out a profile form.

ACT TWO

Bad Agent is sleeping with her head on the desk. Client enters the room.

Client: Well, I'm back.

Bad Agent: Wonderful. Who are you?

Client: I'm the guy who wanted to go somewhere. I want to go to Guadalajara, Mexico.

Bad Agent: Guadalajara! What about Cancun? I know a lot more about Cancun than Guadalajara. Are you sure you want to go to Mexico at all? Do you realize they don't speak English there?

Client: I have relatives in Guadalajara that I want to visit, and I speak Spanish.

Bad Agent: Oh ...

Good Agent: It's so nice to see you again. What have you decided?

Client: I would like to go to Guadalajara.

Good Agent: How wonderful! Guadalajara is a nice colonial city in Mexico, and there are some really pretty plazas and churches to visit.

Client: Yes, I have relatives there, and they told me they would like me to visit during the Christmas holidays.

Good Agent: Oh, that is an excellent time to go. The decorations and lights will be so pretty! Let me check on flight availability. What date do you want to depart?

ACT THREE

Client comes in. Bad Agent doesn't say a word, walks away, comes back and hands the client his ticket.

Bad Agent: Here is your ticket. Hasta la vista, baby.

Good Agent stands up and shakes client's hand as he comes to the desk.

Good Agent: I've got your ticket right here. Let me go over the details and make sure you don't have any unanswered questions or needs.

THE END

Sensing sensibilities

Do you sell cruises? Tours? Or resort stays?

Not really. What you sell are feelings. That's why vacation travel products are what marketers call "feeling products."

That is, when consumers think about a Caribbean cruise, a weekend in Las Vegas or a ski vacation, their thoughts are usually more emotional than rational.

It's the feeling that the travel experience evokes that often has the strongest impact on the decision to buy.

Sure, your customers consider concrete issues, too. A cruise's ports of call, a hotel's rating and, of course, price all might be factors in the purchase equation. Still, it's the feeling -- that intangible, emotional something -- that drives the desire to buy travel.

It's also the emotion, or lack of it, that can freeze a customer you thought was ready to close.

Your job as a salesperson is to prevent this from happening. Here's how:

To sell, you must encourage this kind of vicarious experience.

Some people are visualizers. They tend to see things in terms of pictures or images. Others are verbalizers. They use words or descriptions.

It's easy to find out whether a client is a visualizer or a verbalizer -- just watch how they respond to a travel brochure.

The visualizers will be entranced by photographs. The verbalizers will concentrate on written descriptions. Whatever their style may be, play to it.

And that's what sells.

Marc Mancini is a professor of travelat West Los Angeles College.