We were perusing a dinner club online that was located about two hours away from us. We thought it might be fun to go and then spend a night in Raleigh, so we called the club to ask how far it was from the state capital. The very cheerful person who answered the phone had no idea (turned out it was 20 minutes away) and suggested we use Google to find out.
I am positive she wasn’t being facetious or sarcastic. Once upon a time she may have said, “Hold on,” and asked a colleague for the answer. But not today.
The other day I was in Ace Hardware needing to get a key made. The young man at the counter said he didn’t think that they had that type of key but that I could go the store’s website to find out. This, even though I was standing right in front of him.
I turned around and left. Hate to judge, but I think he should have walked over to the key counter to look for the key himself or asked a manager for assistance. Hopefully he wasn’t the manager, or Ace is in big trouble.
A boon for advisors
Ruthanne Terrero, director of luxury content Source: Ruthanne Terrero
As frustrating as these encounters were, they assured me that travel advisors will continue to be in demand as the years go on. Advisors have an incredible amount of knowledge about the world (and how to navigate it) in their brains and they can relay that knowledge to their clients. No shrugging of the shoulders or blank stares, no suggestions of Google. If they don’t know the answer, they’ll ask a colleague, who is also an expert, or find the answer online and return quickly with an answer.
I’m stating the obvious here but as a consumer I’m finding that customer service is slipping because many folks don’t feel the need to know things about where they work. In some cases, shopping is becoming one big self-check-out counter even though there are individuals working in the store, I suppose to open the doors in the morning and to lock up at night.
This is where advisors, particularly in the luxury arena, can shine. I recently heard a speaker at a conference say that the affluent don’t necessarily want to pay for more stuff, they want to pay for fewer problems. Telling a client to Google something is just giving them one more problem.
I’m convinced that professionals who retain their ability to articulate their knowledge about specific topics will leave their fellow colleagues in the dust. Luxury travel advisors will win in a world where other service providers assume it’s ok to point customers to the Internet to get information that they themselves should be able to convey.