Agency calls for ’honesty' from clients following rise in customers booking independently

The owner of Wiltshire-based agency Travel By Hannah has called for greater “transparency” from clients after a spate of customers in "active conversation" with the business decided to book elsewhere.

 

Hannah Porter posted a Reel to the agency’s Instagram page on January 5, calling on clients to “be honest” about where they’d like to go and what they’d like to book, even if they change their minds. 

 

The video received traction online among the trade, garnering more than 200 engagements and 25 comments from fellow agents and suppliers. 

 

Porter said in the video: "Recently we’ve been quoting people’s holidays… and working really hard on those and then we’ve had some people come back to us saying they booked elsewhere. Obviously that does happen sometimes but what’s been really frustrating about it is they’re often booking something that we’ve not even spoken about. They’ve found another hotel, quoted it online and then booked, and we actually could’ve booked that for them. 

 

“For us why that’s particularly gutting is it’s basically a loss of income. We’ve already spent time working on quotes for you, we’re trying our best to be really price competitive whilst having a physical location and business. We don’t charge a finding fee, we don’t charge you for quotes. We earn nothing if someone cancels a holiday. We only get income when people travel. 

 

"We are a small business… we’re a small team. We want to work efficiently. You’re not causing us hassle asking us to price the holiday when we’re already working on one for you."

 

Speaking to Aspire, Porter said there was a “widespread misunderstanding” of how agencies work and said the pattern of clients booking a trip independently following a consultation was becoming “increasingly common”, with some customers simply seeing agencies as an “informative service”.

 

“[Customers] don’t understand the effort and time that’s gone into [creating quotes], particularly if they then just use us like Google,” she said.

 

Porter cited a recent example where she had introduced a client to a new destination, only for the customer to book it themselves at home in order to avoid causing her “hassle”.

 

Porter said she had seen clients get “click happy” and book independently because they assume agents are not contactable outside of regular working hours.

 

She said: “Even if it’s out of hours, if there is a new message asking whether someone is about to make a booking, we would absolutely hop on it. I’m keen to not encourage overworking, but we would obviously absolutely take an opportunity like that.”

 

On another occasion, after Porter spent six weeks formulating an extended, multi-centre trip for a repeat client, they booked with another agency without consulting her, "copying" her itinerary and "undercutting" the quote by £100.

 

Asked how to tackle the problem, Porter said: “I’m trying to encourage my team and myself to be a little bit more honest in how we work with customers, because they often don’t actually realise the work that goes into planning itineraries.”

 

She said this involves making clients aware of certain aspects of how the trade works, such as the “potential delays” involved in working directly with overseas suppliers, especially for tailor-made specialists.

 

Porter also believes agents should be more open about the benefits of booking through them, such as making sure they don’t “miss out” on “package protection”.

 

“[Clients] can book with us at the same price and support a local, independent person who’s created their business and trying to make a living,” she said.

 

"They can click ‘go’ [on an online booking] and they’re going to, in theory, have access to the same basics, but hopefully we enhance the experience."