Most of your customers won’t encounter an emergency while traveling. But those who do, need a quick andefficient response. Whether it's a naturaldisaster or a canceled flight, your customers will need solutions and immediately.

In this guide, we go through the best practices to ensure you offer your clients the best possible customer support in case of an emergency, as well as the best tips to avoid problems that may arise while they are traveling.

Prepare Your Clients Before Departure

The best form of customer support you can give is help to avoid a problembefore it arises. If you customers face a problem during their vacation and you’ve given them tools and solutions beforehand, you’ll solve two problems at once: not being the one they call first when they have a problem and earning their loyalty (and repeat business) for the amazing value you have provided.

Create a Pre-Travel Checklist

Make sure your clients are ready for their journey before it starts. Do they need their passport? A visa? They will appreciate all your help, this is what makes you an outstanding travel advisor and why they choose you over an OTA.

A good tip is to prepare a template cheat sheet for printing or sending via PDF to your clients.

Some ideas to have on your sheet could include: all the relevant directions, a map, phone numbers of local hospitals, taxis, police, a few useful phrases in the local language,the location of the nearest embassy, the emergency telephone of your provider in case there is any issue with the accommodation, and your own phone number and e-mail address.

Think about preparing your own guide to each country, which you can later tailor for each traveller.

Why Offer Travel Insurance?

Offering travel insurance to your client is a win-win business opportunity! Try to partner with an insurance company and boost your revenue with referrals while offering a valuableproduct to your customers.

Travel Insurance can make a huge difference when something goes wrong. Whether it is a flu, flight cancellation or worse scenarios, they will thank you for suggesting a reliable travel insurance that can help solve their problem.

What Should Advisors Do in an Emergency?

Offer fast and effective support when your clients need it most. This is very important, as how you react when clients face an emergency can affect your business, from not ever wanting to work with you again, to advocating for your travel agency and using your services forever. Here are some tips to tackle their problems as soon as possible:

Be reachable

When your customers have an emergency, they need a solution now; and they will probably be nervous as they encounter a situation that was not planned.

The sooner they can contact you, the better. Remember that they see you as the travel expert that can help resolve and change the situation. Embody the empathy and support you would expect as a traveller in their circumstances.

Ask for help from your business partners

But first, have the right partners! Make sure that you can trust your suppliers when things go wrong! Bedsonline+’s customer relationship center is on hand 24/7 whenever you or your clients need us. Canceled flight? Problems with your hotel booking? You can quickly reach one of our advisors who can quickly and smoothly resolve the issue.

Be calm

As mentioned before, if your customers face an emergency during their trip, they will probably be nervous. So, it is your job to calm them down and explain what’s next. Try to be patient and empathetic while researching the possible solutions and answer as many questions as possible.

After finishing the conversation, try to sum up what comes next: what you are going to do on your side to solve the problem and what they need to do. And always, always, keep them updated on progress.

Act

They’ve reached you and you responded, you´ve calmed them down and now… what? Act—don't spend time overthinking. Your customers will appreciate a proactive response as much as a researched solution.

Call the agency, research the possible solutions and try to be as supportive as possible. Always keep them in the loop and find the best solution within the most efficient timeframe.

We hope this has been helpful. Consider keeping this link handy or printing out a copy to keep at arms-length in case of emergency.

Remind yourself regularly how to act, hopefullyemergencies don’t happen often, but when they do you don’t want to be caught off guard.