Tales from the Front Lines: Lesley Keyter - The Travel Lady Agency

TravelPulse Canada is proud to support Travel Advisors around the globe. Our "Tales From The Front Lines" series is designed to give consultants a voice during the COVID crisis and bring professionals together. Enjoy today's submission.

"What more is there to say about this unprecedented time in travel? We all have experienced the long wait times on hold, the hours of work for little or no remuneration and the angry emails and phone calls.

That is not to say that we haven't had kind and wonderful people too! Stories abound of gifts from customers of flowers, wine, home baked cookies and more. And we love them for that.

We have had sad days when we hear that our favourite BDM has been laid off and we have happy days when we make a brand new booking (not an FTC) and everyone in the office celebrates.

But there have been some surprising benefits from this strange time. Having sent all my agents home to work remotely I decided to hold a daily zoom call at 3.30 pm. We have done this every day since the beginning of April.

We use this time to share information and discuss problems. We also use it to say hello to our co-workers children, husbands and pets. In fact I said to my girls the other day that I feel we have had more interaction as a team and a family since COVID and it makes my heart glad.

We use this "safe place" to commiserate with each other and sometimes to have a good old fashioned vent.

The travel agency model is rather different to other businesses affected by COVID. Most of our revenue is based on commission generally paid on final payment but with so many cancellations we were looking at losing the revenue from these bookings that we had been counting on. Some suppliers protected commission - some didn't. A hard pill to swallow. Fortunately we had cancellation fees in place in our terms and conditions - and yes we do get a signature agreeing to these on every single purchase. Now these really came in useful and we were able to run thousands of dollars - a big help to the cash flow.

COVID has also given me the quiet times to think about the future. How will things look when we come back to normal? How can we ensure that our customers appreciate the expertise we offer them? When we started getting phone calls with questions such as "Can I fly to Manchester?" or "What's involved if I fly to Los Angeles?" we realised that the expertise we brought to the table regarding airline rules, insurance, quarantine requirements and more, was extremely valuable and so we put a fee in place. Not to book the airline ticket but a research fee for our time and expertise. And yes, if they said go ahead and book the flight there would be a booking fee for that. Some refused and said they would do it themselves. No loss to us, no time wasted. Others gladly paid the fee acknowledging that they didn't even know where to look.

My goal is to come out of the COVID tunnel with my team intact, revitalised and closer than ever and a plan to let the world know - Travel Agents Rule!"