Hays Travel has outlined how foreign exchange is a strategic priority for the business as it aims to be “a market leader” for currency transactions in every town and city where it has a branch.
Speaking at the agency’s annual conference in Bodrum, Turkey, foreign exchange head of sales Beccy Rayner urged branch managers to make sure sales staff “secured a 5% upsell” when making a foreign currency sale to boost annual turnover.
Every Hays Travel agent can achieve the upsell, added Rayner, who stressed how agents’ in-branch approach needed to be consistent.
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She said: “We have a really strong objective for foreign exchange. Our objective is to be the market leader in the towns and cities where we operate.”
Dame Irene Hays explained how her agency staff had learned about forex from ex-Thomas Cook employees who were now working within Hays’ retail network.
Asked why forex was a strategic priority for Hays, she said: “I would pay tribute to Thomas Cook. Thomas Cook were always better than Hays Travel at foreign exchange.
“Whenever we acquire a new business we always learn from the new colleagues that join us. The reason why we’ve made it a strategic priority this year is we know that we can do better by reinstating that revenue stream. Small incremental steps will make a big difference.”
In partnership with Mastercard, Hays Travel offers customers a prepaid money card that can be taken on holiday and topped up. The Hays Travel Money Card launched in July 2021.
Rayner said Hays Travel had already “disturbed” the existing forex market leaders before adding the business had hired more than 200 forex consultants.
She added: “To become number one you need to make sure that you have quality conversation and add notes about the customer at the booking stage.”
Rayner said finding out what a customer’s foreign currency needs were at the booking stage took “seconds” and called on agents to take over the branch’s foreign exchange specialist’s responsibilities when they were not working.
She confirmed the business was working on a second version of the in-house foreign exchange system – called Transaction Processing System – after it launched in July. “With every version, it will get better and better,” she said.