ABTA Convention Special: Bolton-based agent Andrew Dickson of St Andrews Travel believes independents must differentiate themselves from multiples to achieve success.
“We invest in people, we train people, we do everything we can to be different from the multiples,” said Dickson. “We’ll change our systems just to be different.
“We also offer more products and can give the customer what they want. We just recruited someone from Lunn Poly and she said she couldn’t sell some of the products the customer wanted, so she used to direct them to us!
“We are always learning. Over a year our staff will see 50 tour operators. Training and product knowledge are vitally important.”
Dickson said he was focussed on making profit for his business and consequently being able to give his staff a year-end bonus, rather than worrying about what his competitors where doing.
“We are part of Worldchoice, so we now have access to good deals and can compete on price with the multiples. I actually believe it is now getting easier to be an independent.”
Dickson said his agency created a fun, buzzy atmosphere and included the customer in social chats to make them feel at home.
“If you just give them a brochure and tell them to go away and look at it, you’re saying goodbye to the customer.”
Dickson told retailers to have a vision of where they are going and then to break it down into bite-size chunks so that they can achieve their goals in stages.
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