RELATIONSHIPS
could not do. They hadn’t had a TMC before, so, of course, there were those who wanted to carry on doing what they had always done. In the end though, it was probably one of the easiest implementations I have ever done.” Click’s tailored solution (including a bill- back element eliminating the old pay-and- claim expense hassle) went live in January, and 500 of Guide Dogs’ travellers signed up to it within two days. “We didn’t have any negative feedback,” says Joyce. Tech-focused Click Travel, 14th in BBT’s list of Leading 50 TMCs, does not specialise in the not-for-profit sector, but Joyce sees plenty of potential. “We have some not-for- profits already, and we are looking to grow that. However, it’s all done by recommenda- tion, by word of mouth, so you have to know absolutely that the system will work.” After just a few months, Mabbatt is already trumpeting Click’s virtues, so this is clearly a double act that will run and run.
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE Steve Spurgeon, head of Reed & Mackay’s Plat- inum Club and Liz Harwood, managing director, RepsUK Airline & Passenger Management Services
Liz Harwood and Steve Spurgeon are used to unusual, even outlandish, requests from their VIP clients; such demands are part of their day-to-day professional lives. The Platinum Club is a VIP management service that caters to the super-rich. Harwood, managing director of RepsUK Airline & Passenger Management Services, helps the Platinum Club’s head Spurgeon achieve the seemingly impossible. “I should stress that all our clients are
VIPs,” says Spurgeon, “but some are VVIPs, and are prepared to pay more for what is, essentially, a concierge service – we’ll get them through the airport, sort out their dry-cleaning, buy flowers, whatever. Basi- cally, we’ll do anything as long as it’s legal.” To mere mortals, what is “legal” can be surprising. In Jakarta, for the modest outlay of US$30, the local police will provide an SUV – complete with blues-and-twos and motorcycle escort – to whisk clients through the Indonesian capital’s traffic jams – all legit, all above board, and easy to organise.
buyingbusinesstravel.com
FROM THE OUTSET WE KNEW
IT HAD TO BE A PARTNERSHIP, AND WE HAD TO BE HONEST ABOUT WHAT WE COULD AND COULD NOT DO
Other demands are less straightforward. One particularly tall client will only stay in hotels that can provide him with an extra-long bed and there are plenty of weird and wonderful dietary requirements but, for the most part, VVIPs insist on being fast- tracked through airports. “Most of these people insist ‘time is
money’, so if you can get them off the plane, through the airport and into a car as quickly as possible, they are genuinely grateful,” says Harwood. It works both ways. “A lot of us are nervous at airports, and these people don’t want the responsibility or the hassle of working out which queue to get into – they’re too busy looking at their phones.” It helps to have had a lengthy career in the airline industry, and Harwood’s goes back to the 1970s. Crucially, it also means she has built up a contacts book to die for. If two people are travelling together but aren’t assigned adjacent seats, all it takes is a quick call to someone senior at the airline concerned, and the problem goes away. That skillset led to an approach from the co-founders of RepsUK, who subsequently moved to Spain, leaving Harwood to take over the company. Today, all her employees are, like herself, ex-airline staffers with the knowledge – and contacts – to iron out VIP travel’s little wrinkles. RepsUK’s relationship with Reed &
Mackay, and Harwood’s introduction to Spurgeon, began “five or six years ago”. “We get on very well together,” she says. “He knows he can email me, call me, any time day or night, and I just take it from there. It’s all about fulfilling what people are wanting, and every client has a different take on that.”
2018 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 73
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