It's important to remember the vast majority of your clients will be great and value your time, expertise, and service. But if even 5% of your clients are "difficult people" (to put it nicely), it will fester like a tumor in your brain, and can lead to burnout and even quitting entirely. Trust me.
Some say that if it weren't for clients, this would be a great job. Not me. I would never say such a thing ...just SOME say it.
So, how do we avoid difficult clients, grandiose expectations, complaints, and other difficult conversations? The simple answer is, you can't entirely. But we can limit it. Here's how.
Explain what you do in the initial conversation very clearly.
Easy right? You're a custom travel planner and you're going to craft them the dream trip of a lifetime, where everything will be perfect, the birds will sing, and the tour boat operator will definitely not spit chewing tobacco into a cup mid-sentence on the tour.
Nice.
The end.
Step 2 = Profit.
Wrong! This is a recipe for disaster. Save that kind of verbiage for your marketing, but when you speak to a client on the phone initially (always phone), you need to have a courageous conversation about the harsh, gritty reality that actual travel can sometimes become, and shatter their fragile little dream world. This is important, because you, as the travel planner, can control almost nothing once you've released your little ducklings into the world on their trip. Explain to them that you will do your best, and use your best judgement and expertise to help avoid issues, and choose the best reviewed travel activities and lodging, but you can't control the weather, or if Sheila at the desk is not getting enough sleep.
Selling the service
You are a service. Repeat after me, you are a service. Like a plumber, but prettier. You might not be able to get them a deal. You are here to take care of something they don't want to do themselves. You are not their personal bargain hunting negotiator. You are physically going to scour the internet and other sources, using best practices, to craft a lovely itinerary for them and their loved ones. If you can score them a deal... great. But at the end of the day, you're crafting a roadmap for them to execute themselves. You will provide them with all the details they need to manage it while away from you. Did your plumber do a good job? Did he plumb to the best of his/her abilities according to the expectation you mutually agreed to? Good. Same goes for travel planning.
Which brings me to...You are not a 24/7 concierge
Unless you want to be. I don't. So, you need to make sure you've gone over the trip in its entirety on the phone before they leave. You will provide them with an app like Traveljoy's or Tripit to execute the plan, and it'll have all the phone numbers and confirmation numbers they'll need to make modifications on-the-fly. They should not call you for this, unless you want them to. At Jess.Travel we are not a full time concierge, and we explain that upfront. You may actually lose business saying this. That's ok. You will quit so fast the second you're up at 4am rebooking flights for someone. Which is why we don't book flights. But you mostly all have second jobs, and simply can't do this. Once the handover of the trip is done, and you've completed your final phone call (which we call Vacation school), the trip is theirs and modifications they have you make are charged extra.
"But I can find all your suggestions online. I hired you for your expertise!" - Difficult Client
Your mind is not the internet. You have access to the internet. They have access to the internet. You will use the same internet. Secret travel locations may exist in your mind, and your travel expertise in that particular location will come in super handy, but you are not to be expected to just craft fictional crowd-less secret locales. People think that travel planners harbor some hidden information; like there are secret coolkid hangouts everywhere - that only the travel agent dark web knows about. No. The vast repository of information is on the internet for all of us to find. You're here to copy and paste it into their life with pictures and the occasional emoji.
The weather sucked, the concierge was a jerk, the hotel didn't have Egyptian cotton, and other unavoidable no-good very bad days
That sucks. But you are not a mind reader. If you had an effective initial interview and asked appropriate questions, and the fact that they despise "X thing" didn't come up - that's unfortunate. Make sure your initial interview does as much data scraping of their brain that you can get ahead of these complaints. But a final question like "Is there anything that you hate about certain hotels or activities that you haven't mentioned to me?" might just save you a complaint later. Most sensible people will understand this about themselves and the human experience to say "Hey, my travel planner didn't know I'm afraid of iguanas," but you are not always dealing with sensible people.
The trip that never ends
We've covered this before, but it's the most popular reason custom travel planners go postal. The client that hires you in January for a trip that happens in December, and proceeds to become your pen pal for infinity. This is super hard to avoid at first. You must establish boundaries in communication and schedule. While it's easier said than done, the most effective approach is to always use the phone. Have set times for conversations, because you can get across so much more info on a call than 57 emails. But one of our newest strategies at Jess.Travel is to simply pick a week or two-week period to get the job done.
We informally call it "7 Days to Air." In this agreed to period (which can be whatever, but less is more) the client must be somewhat available and so shall you. You will take this project from start to delivery in this time period, executing a perfect hand-off to the client as the buzzer sounds. This will keep you disciplined, and will hopefully keep the client engaged, as the number one issue travel planners have is getting timely responses from their clients. Plus, this maximizes your profit, as time is money. A project that takes 6 months to complete effectively makes you slave labor.
What to do when/if you receive a complaint or negative feedback
First, relax. You will be both mad, sad, and worse disappointed. Disappointed in yourself and/or life. It's important to know we've all been there. And not to get too stoic on you, you can not control anyone's reaction to anything, only your own. So, easier said than done, wait a bit to respond to it. Assess the situation and see if there's validity to it or if the complaint is without merit. Evaluate your process and refine it. Go back to the drawing board and put in new safeguards. Most of all, don't get discouraged. Babe Ruth had the most strikeouts AND home-runs, yadda yadda. Encourage a phone call, not a back and forth email chain. Tone is hard to discern in email, and nearly everyone is not as mad or disappointed once you get them talking. Don't take the feedback too personally. You too are learning. Most often the solution lies in the expectation, which hopefully we are always managing. You can be the judge as to whether financial compensation is in order, but most likely it isn't. I have had to go to bat for client refunds on the phone with a business development manager (or two) when it's they that have done both me and my client wrong. I usually win these battles. That's my super power.
Namaste.
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