Agent Insights is all about giving YOU – the ever so good-looking travel agent – a platform from where you can share your tips, challenges and experiences working in the travel industry.
Can you be a travel agent and still travel the world?
Yep, you can.
This week we speak with Matt Castell from Student Flights – a travel agent come digital nomad and regular KarryOn contributor.
Matt has been travelling around the world for 1.5 years, selling travel and servicing his clients straight from his laptop; what a job hey.
He is currently in Guernsey, Channel Islands (it’s in the UK – don’t worry, I didn’t know either).
So without further ado, meet Matt Castell, and read what he has to say about the job he loves so much.
Left to right: Matt Castell, Caleb van Schmal and Elle Patrikis.
What exactly do you do and how long have you done it?
I’m currently working for Student Flights as a “Home User”, which means I manage my clients from my laptop. The thing is though… My home keeps changing, as I’ve been travelling around the world for nearly eighteen months.
A lot of people I’ve met say: “Wow, I’d love to do what you do… How can I get a job doing that?”
However, it’s not something you can simply sign up for. It’s taken over eight years of working hard in retail locations for me to build a big list of repeat clients and master the skills needed to work untethered, without anyone around to help if things get difficult.
Pretend I’m a potential client for a moment. What do you do that separates you from the pack?
I think I can put myself in my clients’ shoes quite easily. Whether they’re looking to splash out on a VIP river cruise, or are after a great party-hostel recommendation in Cusco, I can figure what they want and mirror their personalities – without coming off as insincere and fake.
Let’s travel back in time. What do you wish you knew back when you started working as a travel agent? And what do you think some of the common mistakes travel agents make when starting off?
I wished I wasn’t as cocky as I was when I first started – I thought I knew everything and ended up doing a lot of things the hard way. I didn’t consider myself an ‘organised tour’ type traveller so I failed to offer them to my customers, meaning I wasn’t always offering my customers the best options.
My advice would be to build your customers’ trips, not airfares.
Have you ever managed to turn a customer complaint into something positive? If so, how did you do it?
Heaps!
If you can show a customer that you’re indispensable when times are tough, then they’ll stick with you – because it’s a rare skill to find.
I once took a call from an unhappy customer that wanted to make a complaint about a travel consultant from another store location. He was pretty fired up – so I let him voice all of his concerns, asked what outcome he wanted (he just wanted to vent) and asked how I could win his business back to our company.
This was over five years ago, and he’s been booking two holidays per year with me since then. I’m actually fixing a drama he has right now where his coach tour in Scandinavia was pulled for operational reasons, and he’s still happy with my above-and-beyond levels of service – like logging in on a Sunday to grab first dibs on forward-facing train seats the day they become available to sell.
What are your biggest challenges at the moment?
Time zones – I’ve been based in the Channel Islands, UK for the past six months. This means Australia’s 9am-5pm is my 10pm-6am!
What are you doing to turn that around?
I’ve created a routine, where I’m always contactable between certain hours – and I make sure my clients know this. I’ve also set clear limits and expectations, so if I have a customer that I think may need faster service then I’ll pass them onto a colleague in the shop to look after them.
Okay, last but not least: how do you see the industry evolving in 2016?
I believe that customers want to see Travel Agents providing a blended service model – that is, the ability for customers to be in control of certain aspects of their booking, but all the while being overseen by an agent and perhaps steered when needed.
Where can people find you if they’d like to make contact?
They can email me at matt.castell@studentflights.com.au
*If you’d like to be featured on Agent Insights, email shaun@karryon.com.au – I’d be happy to interview you!
Have you read Agent Insights with Peter Fiske from Clayfield Travel, Lorie Raymundo from Travel Counsellors, and Ez Yiap from Student Flights yet?
