As head of 180 agents in The Co-operative’s homeworking division, Tracie Burton this month unveiled a raft of initiatives to help them sell more holidays. Emily Ashwell reports
She has barely been in the job six months but Tracie Burton is already making a big impact.
As head of The Co-operative Personal Travel Advisors (CPTA), Burton is behind several major initiatives which aim to help its homeworkers sell more holidays.
In her first interview since she took on the role, Burton explained how she’s just reached her first major milestone. Earlier this month she attended her first conference as head of the company.
It was also a landmark for CPTA, as it was one year on from the retail joint venture with Thomas Cook in late 2011.
“It was a great opportunity to talk to homeworkers and share the new initiatives,” said Burton.
The new initiatives cover six areas: support, communication, e-commerce, training, public relations and incentives.
New support packages now cover the computer hardware and software – such as laptops, printers and broadband providers – that agents need to do their jobs. Previously, a standard package had been offered, but Burton said CPTA is now moving away from a one-size-fits-all system.
“Some homeworkers might end up with two broadband providers and they question the need. There is certainly a need to be more flexible,” she said.
An online agent portal called The Pulse has also been launched. The site has been designed to be easy to navigate and provide a central place for news and information.
It also has links to other useful websites, such as Gazetteers.com, the online industry ‘bible’ run by Travel Weekly Group.
Burton is hoping the site will soon have a chat facility to provide further support for agents as well as guest chats with suppliers.
She said: “We needed to think about how we communicate with the advisors; so many areas of business come down to communication.”
CPTA is also working on a new e-commerce strategy with a website revamp at its heart.
It plans to start work on a relaunch of the Co-operative personaltraveladvisors.co.uk site in the new year, giving it a fresh look and feel.
“There will be a key focus on increasing quality and content,” said Burton.
“For example, all the CPTAs have their own biography page.
“We’re going to be working with them to make sure they are getting the most out of those pages.”
Burton said the pages can make a huge difference to the individual business of the CPTAs, but added that some agents are better at updating them than others.
The website relaunch will use resource gained from the joint venture with Thomas Cook, but there will also be dedicated personnel assigned to developing the CPTA’s e-commerce strategy.
More money is to be spent on search engine optimisation and pay-per-click. An email marketing strategy will also be developed.
The CPTAs will be able to advertise themselves as specialists in a particular area on the site, although they’ll have to meet a certain criteria to be a specialist.
The CPTAs can now also access the Thomas Cook online training academy where they will be able to take training to become specialists.
And a PR handbook has been launched to help agents market themselves locally.
Coming back from her first conference as head of CPTA, which has 180 agents, Burton said an emerging theme was working more as one team and sharing feedback from each other.
“We’re creating our community and looking at sharing best practice,” she said.
As a result of this, CPTA is putting more emphasis on rewarding its top achievers.
Its fam for the agents with the best sales is now called Rendezvous and will be held in Dubai in March 2013.