Amadeus’ UK team has been scouring the country speaking to agents and finding out their top tips for increasing revenue while maintaining high service levels.
The top ten tips, as offered by agents and assembled by the Amadeus team, include:
1.    Get online and offer multi-channel access to products and services.

á    Provides customers with choice and the opportunity for you to reach more clients at any time of day or night.

2.    Watch out for growth sectors in the market, such as Cruise.

á    Create a sector champion whose job it is to help the agency get up to speed and capitalise on maximising new revenue streams.

3.    Use e-mail to communicate with customers rather than snail mail.

á    Reduces stationery, admin and postal costs. 

4.    Get dynamic and create your own tailored packages using content from different sources such as GDS and the internet.

á    Saves customers’ time and enables agents to bundle an offer and help protect them, from price comparisons.

5.    Be daring and go paperless! Use electronic filing systems and customer profiles in the GDS.

á    Improves staff productivity since searches are faster and more comprehensive and enables consultants to do what they do best - ie focus on selling and customer service.

6.    Load specially negotiated fares, or request access to airline nego fare systems, for automated pricing.

á    Reduces time taken to manually build fares and also reduces the headache of agency debit memos.

7.    Take advantage of favourable supplier offers and switch sell to reward their agent-friendly behaviour.
8.    Cross sell and use every opportunity to demonstrate the huge travel content agents have access to. 
9.    If there is a market for it, set up a ‘personal shopper’ system where discerning clientele are invited to use your most experienced consultant’s expertise.

10.    Create a loyalty scheme where customers can attend events, such as ‘wine and cheese’ evenings, on selected topics. Consider a recommendation scheme where clients are encouraged to introduce a friend and receive gift vouchers, or other benefits, after a booking has been made.

Bill Barnes, Director of Sales for Amadeus UK, said: “The travel industry is fiercely competitive and consumers have a wide variety of options when it comes to booking their trips.  With so much choice available, agents need to look for ways to increase revenue where they can - without impacting negatively on their customer service.

“One of our key strategies at Amadeus is to ensure that we are supporting our agents in the best way possible.  To do this, we are constantly asking agents how we can help them develop and grow their business.  These tips have been fed back to us as ways in which the agents we are working with are improving their own selling and internal processes.”
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