Reflect upon and post a comment in response to the following:
How can you confidently lead a customer away from a one product enquiry to a total solution?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- James in Bologna
- Bologna, Emilia-Romagna region, Italy
- Thanks for stopping by and reading the 'bo-log'. In January 2017, I upgraded my MCA (Master of Creative Arts) at the University of Technology Sydney to a PhD. The project, 'Masculinity on Trial', looks for Australian masculinities lost in the establishment of the Anzac hegemony during WW1. From March to July 2017, I am being hosted in Italy at the University of Bologna on an ErasmusPLUS doctoral research writing scholarship.
5 comments:
Kia Ora
Well in Corporate travel we are fairly restricted in what we can offer our clients as they usually have specific requests that are tied in to preferred supplier agreements.
However we are always (well should be) on the look out for just return flight bookings. If just the flights are requested then we can offer to source Accommodation and transfer/rental car options for them.
Generally the commission earned on Accommodation often out weighs the amount gained from just an airline booking.
If offering a total solution you have to be confident and informative about the product offered, otherwise the client will lose faith in your ability.
This takes practice and confidence .. and to be fair not everyone can be an accomplished sales person.
Ideally you will have thorough product knowledge and know the specific needs, wants and desires of your client. You will see the opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell but only if it benefits the client. AS Nick says, in the corporate world we are limited by protocols and policies and cannot jeopardise our relationship with our valued client base. However U see our leisure team excel in this - their expertise is such that they can recommend alternatives to the client safe in the knowledge it will have a good outcome for all concerned
When you are truly thinking about what is really best for the client, in terms of what is important to them and have no other hidden agenda I think you can lead a client to a total solution.
First example it is often better for us to take care of all the clients conferencing needs, instead of us just doing the flights and the PA muddling through the conference room booking, with all the equipment. With us offering a total solution the client saves their precious time and with our contacts we can offer a better price also. In an instant like this I don’t think we would be doing our job properly if we didn’t at least offer the client a total solution as an option.
For me this question perhaps pertains more to leisure than corporate travel but there are times when we may wish to lead a customer to a certain product/service which we feel is superior to that they’ve initially shown interest in.
The fine line here is ensuring we’re not going against any specific wishes of the customers in terms of their travel policy, per diems/allowances, agreement with us.
Example – first time traveller to London. Wants to stay at the ABC hotel in Convent Garden @ GBP250 per night. We maybe able to position with them that the Thistle Hotel Trafalgar Square @ GBP180 per night is a viable option as it’s GBP70 cheaper than the hotel they've ask for, only a 4-5 minute walk from Convent Garden along ‘The Strand’, it's also close to Charing Cross station which connects through to Heathrow airport via the Barkerloo line at Paddington.
What is required for all situations where we want to position a different solution than that of the initial enquiry is knowledge and the ability to ask the right questions so we identify the customers key requirements.
To confidently lead a customer to a total solution, you can use the features, advantages and benefits of booking the whole trip with us. As the others have said, this would be hard in our business as we have clients travel policies that we must follow.
Post a Comment