Guilt is easy to avoid when clients rarely need to look you in the eye, says Andrea Smith, a Holiday Village agent based in the Peak District
Waiting for my kettle to boil the other day, I noticed the smart meter on the worktop spinning at an alarming rate. By 8am we had used what would normally be a whole day’s electricity. Assuming a major appliance malfunction, I ran around isolating them all to find the culprit, but nothing seemed amiss.
About to make an SOS call to our electrician, we noticed the guests in our holiday let had run an extension cable from the cottage and were charging up their vehicle. Now, I’m certainly in favour of environmentally friendly cars, but since guests who arrive in a petrol car don’t expect me to contribute towards their fuel costs, I didn’t think it unreasonable to politely ask the guest to stop.
I suspect the man to be a serial offender, because he arrived on holiday armed with a long extension cable, and indeed seemed a little put out that I wasn’t interested in paying his fuel bills for the duration of his stay with us. I then spent all week worrying he might vent his spleen with a bad review.
No shame
On a similar note, I recently compiled a complex £20,000 South America itinerary for a doctor who’d been referred by a regular. After I’d put in weeks of work, he rang up and was terribly apologetic – a family disaster meant they could no longer go on the trip. Predictably, this week I happened across his Facebook page and saw photos of him enjoying the holiday I’d effectively prepared but that he had obviously booked independently. I was so tempted to comment on his post!
Like my holiday-let guest, the doctor felt no shame taking from me – in this case my knowledge and time – with no intention of paying for it. Guilt is easy to avoid these days when clients rarely need to look you in the eye.
We used to give lots of help and information to clients that we now can’t, as we need to protect ourselves from a society focused on blame. To me, many of those things were an integral part of our service. If we keep asking clients to do more for themselves online post-booking, can we be indignant when this internet-savvy generation goes full DIY?
Things inevitably go wrong sometimes, but how you deal with that can create more goodwill with a client than if it all went right in the first place. So, is after-sale care now the key?
Is anyone listening?
I’m just back from a four-star all-inclusive trip to Antigua. Restaurant service was very slow and the barman regularly went AWOL. However, the room was lovely and the hotel had some real Instagram-worthy moments at a reasonable price, if that’s your client’s thing.
But how do we get fair feedback to someone who will listen? We are the middlemen with incredibly useful information that can help improve products, but are you confident that a complaint or questionnaire is acted upon? I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure it’s always the case. And can we really blame operators for an ‘earn and burn’ policy in a market dealing with clients who regularly pay for beer and complain it’s not champagne?
Is honour and honesty now gone for good? This dinosaur regrets to say she thinks it may be.
Top tips for Antigua
Here are my top tips you might like to share with your clients.
Rent a car for a few days and explore the quieter beaches. Driving is on the same side as the UK, with similar potholes, so it’s easy…
Airalo eSIM worked on my phone satnav all week for £13. l You can rent two sunbeds and a brolly on a quiet beach for $20 all day.
Carlisle Bay has a beach bar with an ‘all you can eat and drink’ seafood (including lobster) barbecue on the last Sunday of every month ($60).
For the Sunday barbecue at Shirley Heights, wait until the attraction has closed at about 4.30pm, otherwise you pay two entrance fees.
Visit 2SIX8 Craft Brewery for a few enjoyable hours with locals.