New Referral Tool Links ‘Specialist’ Agents with Clients

The Globus Family of Brands claims to be the first tour operator to introduce a travel agent locator tool that connects specialist agents directly with potential clients.

Called Client Connect, the referral tool steers potential clients to agents who’ve undergone Globus specialist training and actively sell its products.

While Globus brand websites have been equipped with an agent locator function in the past, it was essentially, “a yellow pages listing,” said Scott Nesbitt, Globus president and CEO.

The new Client Connect on the other hand is an interactive tool that identifies agencies actively selling Globus products and enables consumers to connect directly with these agents.

Travel Market Report spoke with Jennifer Halboth, director-channel marketing for Globus family of brands, about the motivation behind Client Connect and the effect tools of its kind might have a agent-supplier relationships.

Why did Globus come up with this particular new tool for agents?
Halboth: When we meet with agent partners–whether at a trade show or at a meeting—and  ask how we can help them more, what always comes up is generating leads and prospecting for new clients.
 
When you get into true lead generation, it is a complex thing. We think this is a smart and equitable way for our agents to make connections.

Why are your introducing Client Connect at this particular time?
Halboth: We’ve been steadily refining our approach to this, particularly as a way to recognize agents who have completed our specialist training in our various brands.

About six or seven months ago we began listing agents with specialist training – putting them at the top. We feel that if they have been doing training, they are the best equipped.

How does Client Connect differ from what other tour companies’ travel agent locator tools?
Halboth: We are the first one to have taken it to this step.  Some of our competitors don’t even have a travel agent locater yet. We think we’re going about it in a particularly smart way that levels the playing field for agents.

Client Connect seems clearly designed to favor those agents who already do the most business with Globus? Is this right?
Halboth: We want to pass a potential customer over to someone who is actively selling us. If they have experience with us, they will do a better job of helping that customer.

Vacation planning is a complex transaction. We want to make sure they won’t be fumbling through the process. Plus, this is a way for us to drive more business to the agents who sell us.

How does this tool work given your multiple brands?
Halboth: Client Connect is targeted to the particular brands the agents sell. For example, if an agent never sells Monograms, they won’t show up there. But they will show up on Avalon Waterways or Cosmos if they sell those brands.

Why does Client Connect only apply to the brands with which agents have a sales history?
Halboth: What this does is encourage agents to get specialized in all of our brands and to cross-sell them. One thing we struggle with is that we have four brands.

Agents sometimes just sell one or two of them even though they are all part of the same company and come with the same marketing support.

Client Connect has an obvious benefit for the agent who is experienced in selling your brands. But what does it mean for the agent who is new to the industry or unfamiliar with Globus?
Halboth: It’s an incentive for them to take the first step of getting the specialist training offered by each of our brands. Our specialist training is designed to help agents who are new to the industry, who may have come from another field or perhaps have only done cruises.

Our training is about the market itself, not just about our brands. It’s a way for new agents to learn about the tour industry and the independent client.

How does it level the playing field?
Halboth: The sales threshold for being listed with Client Connect is not so high that it favors only the big agencies. We want to encourage the smaller guys – they are valuable to us as well. They do have to do the specialist program, but that’s not a lot to ask.

What is your sales threshold for Client Connect?
Halboth: I’m not at liberty to say, but it’s at a reasonable level that is not out of the reach of small agencies.

Are these locator tools the wave of the future in terms of lead generation; how significant are they?
Halboth. These tools are a great way for agents to connect with clients, but they are just one facet of how you grow your client base. Positive word of mouth is still the most valuable way to get referrals. Good business begets good business.

These days agencies are not limited by their locations, so why does Client Connect direct users to agents according to location?
Halboth: We are still zip code-driven, which is a way for agents to build business within their communities. There is something valuable in having real local business – that’s how you can generate word-of-mouth locally. We still the need the human contact and the conversations despite all the technology.

What kind of feedback have you had from agents so far?
Halboth: It’s been very positive. Agents are telling our BDMs, ‘I got the email, I made the call, I got the booking.’