Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Professionalism Reflects Who We Are
By Jan Shaughnessy

Two telephone calls I received a week ago prompted me to write this article.  I received the phone call on my home phone and it went something like this:

A young female voice says "Hello, is William there?"

"No, he's not.  May I take a message?"  I answer.

"No, that's ok."  Click.

Since my husband had just left for a dental appointment I assumed it was the dental office calling for some reason.  Several days later I received another telephone call that was verbatim.  In relaying these calls to my husband we determined it was his Doctor's office, which he had been playing phone tag.

What irritated me most about these calls was the lack of professionalism to identify themselves.  Has professionalism been checked at the door and forgotten?  Are the young people today not being taught proper etiquette? I'm not singling out young people though, because many old timers do the same thing.  Throughout my careers in the Air Force and travel industry,  I 've always believed telephone etiquette plays an important part in being a professional.

Another area that lacks professionalism now days is in the area of grammar and writing skills.  Perhaps Ipads, Ipods, smart phones, texting, IM's, Twitter and Facebook,  have all made everyone lazy.  I make it a habit to reread my emails before sending them out; checking them for spelling errors and grammar.  No, I'm not perfect, and no one is expected to be 100%.  It's easy to mistake  "Your" for "You're", and many people have a problem with "there", "their", and "they're".  I have a hard time though understanding why any correspondence should go out with spelling errors.  Aren't they using spell check?  Yes, sometimes fat fingers get in the way, so here again; take a moment to reread what you're writing.

If we want to sound professional don't use slang and acronyms.  Two words that really bother me are "Prolly" and "Puter".  I was hoping last month when they announced the "banned words list", that these two would be on it.  Alas, they weren't.  Are we so in a hurry or lazy that we can't type out a couple more letters for a proper word?  You'll save yourself a lot of work too, by not using travel industry acronyms with a client.  You're only going to spend time explaining something they didn't understand.  They don't know FIT, T seats, or category 6a; and most of them don't know airport codes.

We are always reading how difficult it is now days with the competition of big online agencies, the discounters, and the instant travel agents.  If we want to set ourselves apart then let's start with our professionalism.  Slow down and take time to smell the roses.  Listen to your voice mail message.  Does it sound professional?  Take a moment to reread your emails before hitting send.  Our professionalism says a lot about who we are as a travel agent.