Agents should avoid the temptation of hiring part-time staff as they are not as effective sellers as full-time staff.
Spear Travel director Peter Cookson said although part-time staff and job-sharers may appear to offer a solution to staffing problems, they are unable to strike up the same relationship with customers as full-time staff.
He added: “Don’t employ a part-time member of staff even if they’re good, hang on for a full-time member, even if (the person appointed) is a bit of a compromise.
“The client wants to speak to the same person as they spoke to before as they have a relationship with that person.
“You need staff who work 9am to 5.30pm, five days out of six.”
However, Cookson said soon it might not be possible to make a choice as he predicted within the next couple of years the Government will claim it is discriminatory to advertise for “full-time” staff and make the practice illegal.
After trying everything from the local press to the internet to recruit staff, Cookson now believes recruitment agencies offer the best candidates.
He said: “From now on we’ll go straight down this route (of using recruitment agencies) from the start as they give me results and a money-back guarantee which I negotiated.”
Once staff are on board he advised being open with them about their sales figures in order to drive them on while he denounced individual commission payments for causing “back-biting” in shops.
Instead he said paying the same commission to the shop as a whole is the best way of guaranteeing a team effort for staff.