A client walks into a travel agency… With an intro like that, you’d think I was about to launch into a joke. But no. What I’m about to talk about here is an issue that Travel Agents have pretty strong opinions on.
Last week KarryOn posted another hilarious Travel Agent meme on our Facebook page. And just like a few weeks ago, the post appears to have struck a chord with you guys, judging by the 200+ likes, 11 shares, and 23 comments it received.
Now, in case you weren’t one of the 10k people who saw the post, here it is below.
Ah, the joys of being a Travel Agent…
I mean, don’t customers understand the interconnectedness of all things? Or at least, the interconnectedness of GDS’s all around the country?
Do they think Travel Agents are stupid or something?
Well they probably don’t. But they certainly fail to realise that Travel Agents talk – or at least their systems do – and so when a customer waltzes into a store and inquires about the same flight they’ve already held in with x number of Travel Agents, it’s a red flag that you have one of those customers that are hunting around for the “absolute cheapest price.”
And we all know that they aren’t the most loyal customer types.
Unfortunately, this is a situation that Travel Agents know all too well.
After all, it’s actually a pretty common occurrence.
According to Rebecca Moris, she had a customer just like that only the very day before the meme was posted:
Whilst poor Aasha Wigham had to deal with such a customer the same day the meme was posted. And unfortunately for her, it didn’t end well…
So what’s the best way of dealing with customers like these?
Should you get upset? Or should you see it as an opportunity?
Well, this Travel Agent certainly thinks the latter:
Indeed, at least half a dozen or so Travel Agents even see it as a challenge, pitching two competing Travel Agents against each other in a fight to the death, in what is basically the travel industry equivalent to The Hunger Games:
Haha – great comment Gemma Sinclair!
But in all seriousness, it’s customers such as these that waste a lot of time for Travel Agents. Sure, you can see it as an opportunity to win their business, but then that can only be at the expense of the other agents who have no doubt spent time and effort in helping the customer.
And this being the case, isn’t confronting the client and referring them back to their original agent(s) the right thing to do? Or am I being naive?
But who cares what I think. What do you think?
