Why Facebook Groups Are So Important for Travel Advisors
byMarilee Crocker/
When the pandemic hit, Angel Wilson had three years of experience as a travel advisor under her belt, selling mostly cruises. But then cruising was shut down, and Wilson, like so many others, was forced to redirect her sales efforts.
One thing that was a big help to her? Advisor-only Facebook groups.
“One of my pivots was to start selling Club Med,” said Wilson, owner of Dream Journeys, an Avoya member in Indianapolis. But Wilson had never sold Club Med before, so in addition to completing the supplier’s training and talking to a top producer, she joined a Facebook group for advisors who sell Club Med.
在短短两三个月内,威尔逊预订了40,000美元的俱乐部医学假期。
Wilson credits much of her success in selling Club Med and other all-inclusives to the advisor expertise and knowledge she gleaned from advisor Facebook groups.
“I couldn’t have done it if I had not been able to feed off of others’ information,” Wilson said.
艰难时期的生命线
Travel advisors have been turning to advisor-only Facebook groups in growing numbers for years. They use the private groups to answer each other’s questions, post photos and reviews from their travels, discuss supplier issues, share resources, tips and tricks, and, yes, to vent.
At the height of the pandemic, advisor Facebook groups became a lifeline for many advisors, whose posts took on a different flavor.
“在Covid期间,它变成了‘挂在那里,我们将做到这一点。继续插头,’”威尔逊说。“在我想的那些日子里,‘我再也不能取消一件事',武装同志特别好。”
威尔逊(Wilson)活跃于大约十二个顾问Facebook团体,他说,这些团体还帮助她在困难的情况下找到幽默。“骨骼坐着的帖子或帖子,‘嘿,我刚收到了一个为期500周的夏威夷假期,包括空气,我们互相嘲笑。”
威尔逊说,如今,当获得供应商可能需要几个小时时,小组提供了另一种帮助。“有两到三个小时的时间,当我搁置时,我可以在小组中抬头看其他人是否遇到了相同的情况,并且解决了问题。这是您可以在线上做的事情,还是我需要保持搁置?”
参与飞涨
One Facebook advisor group, Travel Agents Helping Each Other, saw its membership grow exponentially in the early days of the pandemic. That’s when it began streaming frequent Facebook Live and Zoom sessions on timely topics such as how to apply for PPP loans and unemployment benefits and supplier cancellation policies, as well as on business best practices and growth strategies.
该集团的创始人兼管理员兼老板Forever Forever Travel Group在新泽西州费尔劳恩(Fairlawn)的Memories Forever Group的旅行顾问Roy Gal说:“我们在前三到四个月的Covid的前三到四个月中的数字几乎增加了两倍。”
如今,互相帮助的旅行社有7,300名成员,所有成员都已筛选,以确保他们是真正的顾问。加尔说,尽管现在的帖子现在关注更典型的流行时代,但该小组仍然“非常活跃”,尽管帖子现在只关注典型的问题,而Gal每月只举办三次现场会议,而不是每周三到四次。
首选资源
威尔逊(Wilson)在通常的时候说,她发现顾问Facebook团体专注于特定目的地和供应商最有帮助。beplay银行卡“我们不可能到处都是,所以如果我不知道某事的答案,或者我正在寻找一家不太熟悉的岛上的特殊餐厅,我会去我方便的花花公子小组。”
Participants tend to be generous with their knowledge and their time. Many advisors will let a group know when they’re traveling and offer to look into colleagues’ specific questions about a property or destination.
威尔逊说,在某些物业的质量由于大流行有关的问题而恶化的时候,同事的及时警告特别有价值。“我现在正在移动客户。她定于7月去,但是由于我看到的一切,我建议我们将她搬到另一个度假胜地。”
甚至经验丰富的顾问也将顾问Facebook小组跳入同事的第一手信息或建议。“如果我正在寻找目的地的特定度假胜地或信息,那么[Facebook组中]的搜索功能是我的第一个首选,”自2013年以来,S.C. White Rock的Design自2013年以来的所有者Michele Cartwright说。beplay银行卡
Cartwright说,顾问的Facebook小组供顾问组成,其中一些是由供应商建立和主持的,“确实已成为高级资源。”
Great for new entrants
这些小组对新顾问特别有用。威尔逊说:“当您没有身体上的办公室时,感觉自己有一个支持小组,真是太神奇了。”“当您新来时,这是如此重要,因为这项业务可能会令人沮丧。”
Cartwright, who如今,她将大部分时间都花在小组中,回答问题,称为“几乎是该行业新的要求”。
“To come into the profession, brand new, working out of your home and not having anyone to collaborate with, the Facebook groups really bring not just camaraderie – they are a source of education and training.”
Business practices too
这超出了产品,目的地培训和信息。威尔逊说,这些团体帮助她弄清楚了自己的系统和客户互动的方法。当卡特赖特(Cartwright)刚开始时,她参加了一个最佳实践的有益的Facebook小组。
业务利益不仅对新进入者有价值。“它打开了我们原本不会有的一些门和想法。它使我们的业务模式更加新鲜。”卡特赖特说。
卡特赖特(Cartwright)召回了一个CRM Facebook小组,该小组催生了一个离线顾问社区,他们分享了最大程度地利用其对平台使用的想法。在另一个顾问的Facebook小组中,有人建议创建策划组。卡特赖特(Cartwright)最终与其他六名顾问一起参加了一个策划团体,他们定期开会两年,讨论业务的各个方面的最佳实践。
并非全都是玫瑰色
顾问Facebook团体有潜在的缺点,包括不良建议,不正确的信息和消极情绪。
“The biggest pitfall is misinformation or poor advice. That really comes from people who are trying to be helpful but who don’t know what they don’t know, or who don’t stay up to date,” Cartwright said.
如果新参与者提出不知情的问题,他们可能会因苛刻的评论而陷入困境。“当他们提出真正的基本问题时,有时您会让生气的人说:‘您需要做这项工作,您需要进行研究,”旅行社互相帮助的Gal说。
It’s a good reminder, he said, that “Facebook groups will be part of your training and tools, but you can’t learn everything from them.”
抓地力,缺乏专业人士甚至政治上的言语也可能是一个问题。Cartwright说,幸运的是,主持人通常会删除不适当的内容。“大多数小组都有过滤器和一般规则 - 在沙箱中打得不错。”