August 2009 Archives

This week Mystery Shopper was in Poole, Dorset, after a relaxing winter sun break in November, possibly to Egypt. This should be a relatively straight forward sale for agents and all of the agencies mystery shopped received strong scores.

Interestingly only Thomson tried to close the sale. Mystery Shopper does award up to five points if the agent tries to close the sale and also will award up to five points if they try to sell extras, such as insurance, car hire or excursions.

What do you think about the emphasis Mystery Shopper puts on these two parts of the sale? As a consultant, would you always try to sell extras during the first consultation?

What about the emphasis on closing the sale? How often do you close a sale on the first consultation? Is Mystery Shopper right to place five points on the agent's ability to do this?

This week Mystery Shopper was in Exeter.

Thomas Cook and First Choice scored the lowest. Although Mystery Shopper was served, she didn't get a proper consultation and was just handed a brochure to research the product herself and asked to return to book.

We often hear of agents complaining that customers use their shops as a brochure pick up point, but it appears from these two consultation that sometimes agencies can appear to act as if they are that and don't seize the opportunity to take the booking.

On another note, yet another strong showing from Thomson - well done! I know Thomson has its own mystery internal shopping system, which is maybe why the multiple generally does so well in Travel Weekly's Mystery Shopper, but it certainly is consistently the strongest of the multiples when mystery shopped by us.

This week Mystery Shopper was in Sheffield looking for a cruise to Alaska.

The interesting point that came out of this visit was the issue of budget.

She had a budget of £3,500 for the cruise for a couple, excluding flights.

The winning consultant from Sheffield Travel Centre quoted £6,354 for two people including flights for The Rockies Highlights and Glacier Bay cruise with 1st Class Travel.

This is way over budget but Mystery Shopper excused her because she sold the package well.

Is Mystery Shopper right to be lax about budget if the agent justifies going over it, or should agents be market down more severely for going over budget?