The art of adding value at Ensemble

The first thing Robert Herjavec did when he stepped up on stage at the Ensemble Travel Group 2016 Conference yesterday morning was tell everyone about the time he dumped Lori, his travel agent.

After changes in airline commissions forced her to charge his company a service fee for bookings, the celebrated entrepreneur, star of the popular reality show Shark Tank (and formerly of Dragon’s Den) and keynote speaker for this year’s conference decided it wasn’t worth the extra 25 dollars.

“I thought, we’ll just book our own travel,” Herjavec told the audience in his introduction.

“I thought people would love it,” he said, describing how he had his employees pick their own flights, seats and hotel rooms in the name of saving a few dollars. “They hated it! It was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made.”

Suffice to say, Lori became Herjavec’s agent once again - and has remained so for 12 years.

For Herjavec, the defining difference was in the little things Lori provided in her service that couldn’t be found on the Internet.

“I find it fascinating that you sell something that I can buy online, and you add value to it,” he told the room full of Ensemble members and suppliers who had gathered to see the Canadian celebrity speak.

“The more intangible the service or product, the harder it is.”

Herjavec admitted not knowing a lot about the travel industry, but if there’s one thing the television star, motivational speaker and business guru is an expert on, it’s business - and he was adamant that in a world where the Internet is the indisputable go-to resource for travellers, it’s imperative for agents to bring something extra to the equation.

“You don’t sell anything that a customer can’t figure out the price of,” he told Ensemble members. “You don’t sell anything that somebody can’t look up. So how does that change your industry? Because everybody has access to information, and it all comes down to how much value you add.”

It was a great start to day two of the annual conference, which is running this week from Oct. 19-22, and there was no denying the relevance of Herjavec’s address; after all, learning to bring value to service is precisely what Ensemble is helping its members accomplish.

This goal was later reiterated by Ensemble Co-Presidents Libbie Rice and Lindsay Pearlman, when they sat down with media to expand on the organization’s latest news and initiatives, some of which were announced yesterday.

Ensemble Co-Presidents Libbie Rice and Lindsay Pearlman

Here’s a quick roundup of what’s new with Ensemble:

Climb aboard, partner

AMA Waterways has been added to the list of Ensemble’s 17 new preferred partners acquired in 2016, expanding the organization’s breadth of cruise offerings once again. The river cruise line joins Anderson Vacations, Boutique Journeys of Europe, Oceania Cruises and Select Registry as the most recent additions to the organization’s network.

ACTA incentive

Ensemble has launched a membership initiative for ACTA, offering a 20 per cent discount on membership if they sign up for a two-year membership at the conference. The program, the first partnership model of its kind for ACTA, was put in place to encourage greater commitment to the Canadian association, and acknowledge the importance of securing a following - and funding - for an organization which is positioned to be the voice of travel agents.

“As it is, our membership levels on the ACTA side are already quite high,” noted Pearlman, who has sat on the ACTA board for the past five years. “We think [an advocacy association for agents] is something the industry desperately needs, and we have a responsibility as a community to fund these types of issues.”

Charting out Navigate

The new integrated booking tool announced on the conference’s first day is not yet fully ready for roll-out; it’s currently being beta tested by select members and launch should be taking place in about four months.

Designed to connect marketing resources, multi-level training and new-hire development across one consistent platform, Navigate will start by offering cruise products before integrating other verticals such as air, hotel and tours.

“Members will have access to it in four months,” Rice said, adding that while the beta testers are raving about the experience, Ensemble has yet to test the popularity of the tool with a broader scope of Ensemble’s agents. “The implementation plan is based on the size of the agency and cruise volume.”

From a product perspective, Pearlman added that the platform will allow agents to evolve product according to the needs of the members, ultimately helping them to be effective and efficient and competitive in the marketplace.

Back to school for Ensemble members

“The whole philosophy of University of Ensemble (U of E) is that it ties into our strategic plan’s three pillars, and creates continued reinforcement,” Pearlman said of the new training and professional development initiative, designed to deliver live and online workshops, webinars and certification courses covering Ensemble-related products, supplier-related products and services, as well as professional skills and development.

“U of E allows our members consistency over a period of time,” Pearlman stated. “There’s no gap to wait for the next training session. There may be three months until the next live session, but in the meantime, they’ll still have access to the library for refreshers.”

“At the end of the day, we just want to make sure people know that they only need to go to one place to access any type of training,” he added.

Ensemble’s current training programs will also remain in effect, and as the University has soft launched already, it's scheduled for a full rollout in the first quarter of 2017.

What do agents really want?

According to Rice and Pearlman, learning how to enhance and close a sale is still the primary concern and request for agents.

“The recession sort of purged the industry,” Pearlman said. “The order-takers of the world kind of dropped off after that. The survivors know how to sell, but the nature of survival has changed … It takes a certain skillset to listen to what’s been said and then ask the right questions.”

Hence the arrival of Navigate and U of E, two tech-based products designed to help agents add value to their services. Just as Herjavec stressed the importance of added value in services, Pearlman said Ensemble is trying to help agents expand on that value in cutting-edge ways - and make the unavoidable transition into the rapidly evolving world of technology a little less daunting.

“There’s basically two things that drive the Internet,” he joked. “We know what one of them is ... and the other one is travel. Our members need to understand not only what technology does, but more importantly, what it doesn’t do.”

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t think,” he continued, “and it doesn’t change the fact that agents still require the skillset and development to be able to leverage technology to effectively grow their business.”