Perfect Getaways is set to open a call centre and a new shop as it looks to manage customer enquiries more effectively and ease staff members’ workload.
The retail agency owns seven Perfect Getaways branches across the north-west of England as well as an appointment-only store called Above & Beyond by Perfect Getaways in Brimstage, Wirral.
Director Dave Palmer now plans to open a call centre at the Above & Beyond site and a new branch – Perfect Getaways’ eighth – in Widnes next month due to the volume of online leads the business has generated.
He said: “What we’ve found is that we’re marketing brilliantly on Facebook and our staff in our shops are really busy, so the idea is for social hub or call centre to deal with these incoming leads.
“We’re generating online enquiries that we cannot keep up with. We’re playing catch up because of the online enquiries. Our existing staff cannot do both.
“We look at our standards of service for what we provide our customers – this call centre will provide instant response times.”
Palmer said he plans to retain the existing features of the Widnes site which was previously a coffee shop when it opens as a travel agency.
The Widnes site where Perfect Getaways’ eighth branch will be
He said: “We’ve always wanted to be different. Previously, when we took over [Perfect Getaways’ first branch] Neston shop that was an old pub.
“Clearly now the thought process is rather than taking on a normal shop and change it around, we’re thinking ‘let’s be quirkier’.”
Palmer said that the first Perfect Getaways branch in Little Sutton cost around £3,000 to set up in 2017, but the Widnes branch will cost between £20,000 and £30,000 to launch.
Explaining the jump in costs, Palmer said: “We’ve got this ‘your holiday starts here’ concept in our shops. There’s a kids’ area, a bar; and large screen TVs on the walls.
“We came up with the concept before the pandemic. We normally take a shop and change it around with the ‘your holiday starts here’ concept but [in Widnes] we’ve taken the existing coffee and kept the existing characteristics.”
Asked about staffing levels, Palmer said “good, experienced, travel staff” were at “a premium” currently.
However, he added that he was confident that the business’s efforts to recruit four new staff for the Widnes branch.
“We’re offering a better package than what other travel agents are offering,” he said.
Palmer also aims to hire four staff to work in the call centre plus another person to join the business’s marketing department.
The business currently employs 33 staff across all the branches including Above & Beyond.
Looking ahead, Palmer plans to add two more Perfect Getaways branches over the next 18 months as well as two Above & Beyond sites.
“We’re looking to trade our way out of this [pandemic] now that holidays are back,” he said. “We would like 10 Perfect Getaways shops and two Above & Beyond offices so 12 in total.”
Palmer confirmed the Widnes shop would also have a bar where alcohol was served to customers. All of the Perfect Getaways shops have a licence to sell alcohol apart from the Isle of Man branch.
But he said bookings at the Isle of Man branch were 161% up against the business’ sales forecast at this point of the year. The branch opened in February 2022.
Pictured (from left): Dave Palmer with managing director Nicola Palmer