Business Reflections Podcast Episode #39 - Customer Service Tips with Trips Travel Agency

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. I have Katriana Jolimeau, owner of Trips Travel Agency. Katriana, thank you so much for coming on the podcast with us.  

Katiana Jolimeau: Thank you for having me.  

Meredith Matics: I am excited to talk to you because you're in an industry that we're all hoping is going to come back with a vengeance. 

Katiana Jolimeau: Yes. So am I!  

Meredith Matics: And that's the travel and hospitality industry. So what inspired you into getting into travel?  

Katiana Jolimeau: Wow, that is the big question. I actually love travel ever since I was a kid. I went to travel back to my parents' home country as a kid. Haiti. From then on, I decided that I was going to learn and see different experiences. 

I did study abroad in Senegal, so I can like increase my French level. It's very different where most people go to Paris to practice their French. And then I just found that I just really loved the idea of traveling, new experiences. I found that for me to be a mental health break, and I really wanted people to explore that type of option in their life as well, and not to be afraid of getting off to a different destination. 

I started the business in 2012 with the idea that I was going to introduce people who had never traveled or really wanted to up-level their travel and learn languages, take that mental health break. And I was going to do all that work for them and send them the itinerary so they can just enjoy the trip. I started back in 2012 and I haven't looked back since then. I've been in the industry for about nine years.   

Meredith Matics: I think a lot of us are realizing how valuable travel is or maybe what we didn't value about travel prior to 2020. At least I am. I'm like, now that I can't go anywhere, it's like, but I've always wanted to go to Oklahoma.  

Katiana Jolimeau: That is the case. Yes. You never realize how much you want to go somewhere until you're told you can't go anywhere. 

Meredith Matics: Well, we're excited to have you on to discuss customer service. You personally have had a lot of experience with customer service, both in your company and throughout your career. Why is customer service and good customer service so important? 

Katiana Jolimeau: Throughout my career customer service has been,  it's been the Lynch pin essentially so to speak that really makes a person keep coming back over and over again, to use your service. 

I worked in banking, which there's nothing sexy about banking. It's just literally accounts and that's it.  At the particular place I worked that we had to get to know you, to know your family, to know what you're doing. It was more than just a transaction, right. It was really to get a sense of who you are so we give you the right products and not put you on a product just so we can get our metrics up, right? It is the same thing in travel. I can send you anywhere in the world, but if I do not learn your likes, what your family likes, your wants, your needs on this trip, there is no point of me creating the itinerary. 

The itinerary is for you to do something that you'd like. The whole point of view is to go enjoy the vacation to rest or relax or enjoy the adventure, whichever you've chosen and it should be curated for your own. My life's needs wants, and that's where customer service comes on board. When you book travel with us, it's not just book the trip and then go ahead. It is you've booked the trip. If you have an issue while you're on the trip.  You have my WhatsApp. You can call me and you also have people in country that can help you do while you're in the country. 

Case in point I have a client go out to Mexico and the first day they decided that they were not going to do one of their scheduled tours. So it was literally just a message to say, Hey, KJ, I go by KJ mostly. Please change my tour. He sends me the message. He can go ahead and get situated at the hotels since he's just landed. Get a lay of the land. He's not sitting on the phone for 40 minutes trying to figure out if he can change it, he's enjoying his vacation. I was able to do that and I sent him a message and he's like, really? Like, yeah, it's done. 

You can go ahead and enjoy your vacation, and that way there is what you need in times of customer service. It's not just the transaction is essentially how we take care of you. During the transaction. After the transaction. 

And when you come back home as well, we take care of you and just check in.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense. We all have different needs, especially when it comes to travel. What do you think are the keys to good customer service? 

Like if we have a small business listening, that's like, well, how can, what am I supposed to be looking for in customer service? How do I know if I'm hitting the points? 

Katiana Jolimeau: First thing I would say is treat all your clients, customers, whatever you call them the same. And by the same, I mean you're giving the same top-notch customer service across the board. It's not simply, Hey, I'm going to give customer service to this person because they buy a lot of things for me. It's simply like I'm going to give great customer service across the board, no matter what. No matter what the product is. You also have to be committed to it as well. Sometimes we just stay it, but we don't put it in a practice especially their service failures. We don't figure out how to fix those service failures, to bounce back from that.  

The second option, I would say is that get to know your customers as well. For instance, I am very loyal, I fly Jet Blue all the time. I fly Jet Blue because they give me great customer service. They have all the things I'm looking for. They do follow up with me when I return and I also make it a point to not to just say what's bad on this trip. If it was good, I also let them know it was good. That's one of the things I would say, get to know your customer. And of course, I think by now they know I pretty much choose the same seats on all the flights and they know the routes that I run. They always change their metrics. Those are the two things I would say are very important in terms of figuring out your customer service in general. 

Meredith Matics: I think you bring up some really interesting points with those two keys. To go back to the first one with treating everybody the same, I think that is something that I wish even as customers we would realize. Yeah. Because I just think back to so many times that we think of like the quote unquote Karen's of the world going in and being like, I spent all this money here. I deserve so much more than that person. Being in a customer service-based world, we've favored in general those that spend a lot, and it's given this entitlement to our customers. Treating everybody regardless of what their spenditure is or their commitment is important. That's a really excellent point.  

I like your other point about getting to know them. One of the things that I was told very early on in building a business was  the people like you, they'll come back. With that being said, you know you don't have to be everybody's best friend. They don't have to love you and want to go have coffee with you. But if they like you, if they're comfortable with you, if they don't dread talking to you, if they don't dread your emails, then they're going to have a stronger, more dedicated relationship whether that'd be business to business. Or if you're a bank and they don't dread seeing you at the bank. I love my coffee people so I go back to the same coffee place. If you build that connection, they'll come back.  

Katiana Jolimeau: Yes. I've seen tactics out there where it's like a hard sales. I'm not interested in hard sales for the most part. I'm always interested in getting to know the person. Tell me more about your business or tell me more about something. And just have random banter, talk about the sports. Those are the people that I keep coming back to over and over, because those are people that are memorable and I remember that. It doesn't have to just be all business every time. And I'm lucky in the fact that I'm in the travel industry where all of the travel industry is just really good, fun stuff that I have to talk about.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. All right. I'm gonna ask a hard one. What has been your most unsuccessful moment in customer service? What did you do wrong that we can tell others not to do? 

Katiana Jolimeau: I would say, it wasn't anything I did wrong. It really was just the pandemic. Honestly, I would say in the travel industry that I've worked that the one thing that happened was really the pandemic because during the time everybody has all these trips planned. 

Right. Now you have to go and cancel them and there's no funds coming back. I can remember canceling a group of 16 people on an airline  and there are no funds. I had to tell th client, like, I cannot get you any funds back on this flight. At the time we didn't know that the airlines were going to give you credits and they were going to be fully used, like dollar for dollar. 

But having my knowledge from the past, credits, it was never a dollar, a dollar, and somehow you would lose out. I had to tell a person that they were losing out on about 20,000 dollars worth of flights, essentially. Right. It's out of my control. I think that was the hardest. That was the hardest service failure for me. 

Meredith Matics: Do you think it takes intuition or what do you think it takes to be good at customer service? Do you think it just comes naturally? Or do you think that people need to be trained in it?  

Katiana Jolimeau: I don't think it comes naturally. When I was learning customer service in the high touch service areas which is what I do in travel. At first, I had thought treat the person as you would like to be treated. Sometimes that's not the case. I'm okay being treated in one way, but somebody else is not okay being treated that way. I think what I have seen is, it's more of what you want your clients to come to expect. For instance, I went to the Taj Buckingham Palace Hotel  a few years ago. I was expecting high touch experience. It's more of a see the experience as I'm doing the check-in. They really sit in there to explain. Somebody is taking my bags. I have a whole butler. She understands that I was sick. She brought me tea. They kept the room at a certain temperature for me and taught me how to use it because I was very sick and I landed in London. 

That was absolutely impeccable customer service. It was something that the culture was built around it. When customers come to that particular brand, they expect that type of customer service. When I go to Best Buy, I'm not looking for a Butler to come and take me from the door to take me to a private shopping experience. But I know Best Buy's level of customer service is, Hey, we can help you figure out your products. I know the product very well. I can help you choose the right product for whatever solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve. I think that it needs to be built in to the culture and communicated to the culture within the culture to your clients. And that takes some training and there are definitely  various levels of training out there on customer service and sales and whatnot. It does start with you and how you want your customers to feel when they come in for your service.  

Meredith Matics: It brings it back to that consistency aspect of treating everybody equally or the same, whatever that level may be. If you're going to ignore everybody, ignore everybody equally. But the point is it's like, then that creates that expectation for future customers and there isn't this well, sometimes you can get ahold of them and sometimes you can't. 

Katiana Jolimeau: Exactly, exactly. It is consistency across the board. You will get the customers that are looking for what you have, are looking for the experience that you're providing them in general. 

Meredith Matics: I think that's huge about saying that when you said that the customers that expect that will start to come to you because on the flip side of that would be, I'm not a big shopper. I don't really care about fashion. I'm not that great at it so I do not go to high-end stores where they follow you around and want to talk to you about everything, because I don't want to talk to them. 

I just want some jeans. And so I am like a Target and Kohl's girl, because I'm like okay, that size a brand. It fits. Don't talk to me, but then that's why it targets me is because I don't want to be talked to. Is that wrong? No, but that's somebody else's need not mine. 

Katiana Jolimeau: Exactly, exactly. Everybody's different, but like I said, if you create the expectations, the surprises there, the level of customer service across the board. People will start to take notice and say, okay, that's my place to go. That's where I want to be. 

Meredith Matics: Do you have any resources or recommendations of where our listeners or other small business owners might start if they want to improve their customer service skills? 

Katiana Jolimeau: I do have one and I am going to look it up for you. It was the first program I went through. It was this book about Fred. He was a postman. He just delivered strikingly, impressive service each and every time. And still to this day, I use some of the tools that they said. 

Meredith Matics: So the book is called The Fred Factor: how passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into extraordinary. 

Katiana Jolimeau: That's exactly the book. I want to say we spent a year up leveling our customer service skills for this particular job and it was worth it. And I say it was worth it because it wasn't just rushing through the transaction. That is where the client told us. You also have to preface this saying that it was actually at the 2008 recession. Basically, lots of banks are folding and people are looking for a new place, safe place to put their money essentially. 

Cause they're running scared and the rules are changing. Bank, financial service industry-wide and what not. People actually coming into us and bringing their funds because we were actually talking to them, learning about their experiences. Figuring out the right products for them and going above and beyond. 

I actually worked with someone who was losing their house, but I didn't know that until I really went deep and did some probing. They just said, I just need to take my money out of this account. And I said, okay, any particular reason? And they told me, they don't have enough money for the mortgage. Throughout the conversation I found out that they're about to lose the house. There's no way for them to refinance the the mortgage. 

But I then said to them, Hey, have you heard about the tarp program? And took them through the steps. Of course, very hard. You get to get denied, like I think four times before you get approved for that federal program and form, I think two months later they were able to keep their house.  

They did not think that they would be able to keep their house, pay the mortgage at a better rate or a better amount in general. And did not think that anyone could help them because they had gone to their bank and the bank has said no, but they didn't know those stories about the family and what happened. And they came back and said that you were the only one that helped us and had you not asked the questions that you asked, I would not have said anything. 

That is where getting to know your client, asking questions, probing doing customer service, because if you were in the same situation, we would love to keep our houses. Right? Just deep probing and ask them the questions and getting to know the client. I think really made a difference there. Once you have that one great experience, you tend to stay with the company forever.  

Meredith Matics: Especially if you can help people get through a hurdle or challenge, something like that with grace, they do tend to hold your company or you as the salesperson or whoever in the higher esteem for that. They do tend to idolize you or whatever you want to put it as, but it's a great point. Building that customer service relationship is if you can help somebody and you do it with grace. They're going to appreciate that so much and they're going to never leave you.  

Katiana Jolimeau: That literally is the truth. 

Meredith Matics: What is one piece of advice that you have personally received that you want to share with another small business owner that's listening?   

Katiana Jolimeau: I would say the most important advice is always look to recover even when there's a service failure. Do not just say that's it. It's a loss. No, always try to recover until you really can't anymore. Don't just stop at that one try, always ask if there's a way that you can make the situation a bit better for the client or the consumer. And just see what the best outcome is. I always try and make it a win-win situation for me and the client. But you can't figure out what those wins are if you just give up that first time because of a service failure.  

Meredith Matics: Where can our listeners find you on social media when they're ready to travel? 

Katiana Jolimeau: Yes. You can find me on Instagram. I am on Instagram at Trips Travel. I'm also on Facebook at Trips Agency and we also have a Facebook community that is Trips for the Love of Travel Group. We come there every Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern time, and we talk about what's happening in the world of travel. We're doing a couple of events through there. Of course you can find us on our website travelagency.com.  

Meredith Matics: Well, perfect. Thank you so much for coming Katiana. I hope that we're all traveling again soon.  

Katiana Jolimeau: Same here. Same here. Thank you.  

Business Reflections Closing: Please note that these are thoughts and opinions alone. For tax advice, please see your CPA or tax advisor, tax professional for business advice and legal entities. Please see your local business, lawyer, or attorney for advice. And if you'd like to reach out to us for any topics or questions about. Any subject, any episode you can reach us podcast@maticsbilling.com. That's podcast@maticsbilling.com.    

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