NEWS SPECIAL REPORT Zoom training TITAN TRAVEL


A Titan Travel agency sales manager has been overwhelmed by the welcome she has been given since starting to visit agents face-to-face again this month. Michelle Halsey has visited


about 15 shops in the past fortnight. Although she admits she was tentative at first, and some meetings have been “fleeting”, the vast majority have been positive. Halsey, who oversees agents in the southwest of England and Wales, is currently the only one of Titan’s three agency sales managers back out on the road. However, that could change in the coming weeks if some regional lockdowns are lifted. “I am very lucky to be living


in a part of the country that has been relatively unaffected and had such a low number of cases,” Halsey says.


“I was speaking to agents all the time when we were locked down. And I had so many people saying I would be welcome [in shops], so I thought ‘why not?’ I asked if Titan would be happy for me to get out on the road and they said they’d be delighted. “They have been supportive. I went out very tentatively initially, because I wanted to see what


Michelle Halsey at Dave Criddle Travel in Taunton, Somerset


I had so many


people saying I would be welcome [in shops], so I thought ‘why not?’


the reaction was, and it was overwhelmingly positive.” Halsey says agents have commented that they have seen few business development managers back out on the road. “There are a lot of agents saying that there are not many BDMs and it’s hard to get hold of them,” she adds. “Now we are out there again, agents are happy to see us. It’s about being visible.” Head of trade sales Edwina Coppock says virtual meetings have been “the next best thing to shop visits”. She adds: “Going forward, some agents may even prefer to arrange virtual meetings even when social distancing becomes a thing of the past.” Halsey has also met agents


virtually, using Zoom and Microsoft Teams, as have her fellow agency sales managers at Titan. “I would never have video- called an agent before, but that’s now a normal thing too,” she says.


Tasha Smith (top centre) hosts agent training on Zoom


Kevin Richardson with Julie Young (left) and Linda Thompson, of Home or Away Holiday Shop in Tyne and Wear


Tasha Smith


Agent training on Zoom has been “the best thing to come out of lockdown”, according to Palladium Hotel Group’s Joanne Peters. The senior business devel- opment manager has been offering sessions on Zoom to ensure agents have been kept up to speed with Palladium’s progress during the pandemic. The return of Tasha Smith


PALLADIUM HOTEL GROUP It is important


agents see us out and about, but we need to be responsible


The sessions last for 35 to 45 minutes.


and Kevin Richardson from furlough on August 1 has enabled the business development team to meet agents face-to-face again. In the past two weeks, the team has visited agents in Evesham in Worcestershire, Newcastle, Crewe, Cambridge and Norfolk. However, Peters and the team have continued to offer Zoom training alongside in-store visits. Smith and Richardson have been tasked with putting on 12 Zoom training sessions every week. Peters says: “The Zoom


training has been the best thing to come out of lockdown.


“It is important agents see us out and about, but we need to be responsible about how we are doing that. That is why we have gone down the road of Zoom training. Our store visits are to give a brief update and to ensure we stay at the front of agents’ minds.”


Asked if bookings had been made off the back of Zoom training, Peters says: “Loads. Every time we do Zoom training, we ask agents to message us if they make bookings and we have quite a lot. We put that message on social media to say ‘thank you’ to that agent. We are really grateful for agents’ support and this has been shown by the number of bookings that have come in.”


travelweekly.co.uk


3 SEPTEMBER 2020


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