Celebrity Cruises has revamped its agent training platform based on trade feedback.
The Celebrity Central Training platform has been split into two main sections: Beginners Programme and Main Content.
While the former aims to support those agents who are new to the industry, new-to-cruise or new to Celebrity, the latter is tailored to members of the trade with experience selling, and features 10 collections of modules aimed at increasing knowledge in different areas of the brand, such as family cruising, culinary offerings, and shore excursions.
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New modules will continue to be added to the platform, including training on ship launches, new deployments and updated itineraries.
Once agents complete all the modules, they can download a virtual badge to use on social media or in their email signature, to show they are a “certified Celebrity Cruises expert”.
Training manager Leon Hand told Travel weekly the platform has been designed based on feedback from agents, and will support agents “like never before”.
The line has also boosted agent rewards in a September campaign.
“We want to ensure the beginners can learn everything from scratch including cruise terminology, the Celebrity brand and how to upsell, while those agents who are experts or experienced can keep coming back to improve their knowledge,” said Hand.
“We’ve also introduced more gamification so at the end of each module there’s a quiz, which agents must get 100% on to pass, as well as wordsearches and spot the difference games.
“Everything we’ve changed and added is based on agent feedback so we are really excited to launch the new programme.
“We have thousands of agents currently registered and using our online training platform so I’m expecting a big uptake for the new programme.”
Leigh Thompson, head of trade marketing, said: “The revamped platform follows all the great work we have done with agents who are new to Celebrity with our Celebrity for Beginners programme we launched earlier this year.
“We want to look after our new starters as well as give our experts a reason to come back.”
Senior sales director UK & Ireland Claire Stirrup added: “I’m delighted that we have been able to invest into our e-learning training platform for agents, to provide dedicated training to agents from beginner all the way to expert level.
“With Clia Cruise Week around the corner, this is the perfect time to relaunch our training programme, to engage and support agents to confidently sell Celebrity Cruises and demonstrate to their clients that there is a cruise holiday for everyone.”