Queen of Shops...

Mary Portas ‘Queen of Shops’ does not come across to the casual observer as someone who is often stuck for words, but after a barnstorming presentation in Madrid at last week’s Advantage Conference she was brought to a standstill by the very first question from the audience.

For seasoned travel conference attendees the question was as familiar as the houses they live in: ‘How can travel agents stop customers from taking their advice then just walking away and booking on the internet?’   Good old Mary stood stock still in the scariest pair of open-toed wedge platform shoes I’ve ever seen and in a single word gave the most honest – and shortest - answer I’ve ever heard on a conference stage - ‘Dunno!’ 

To be fair to Mary I imagine she thought she was going to be asked how we should transform the travel agent experience, but she had over-estimated her audience.  Such questions are for other high street retailers – in travel it seems it’s just about the price. 

Realising that ‘Dunno’ was probably not going to suffice as the full answer, Mary gathered her thoughts and zoomed in on the only victim within earshot.  Poor old Colin O’Neil was suddenly thrust into centre stage. ‘This is a question for Advantage,’ triumphed the Queen, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ she demanded accusingly. 

‘I have the answer!’ Colin replied calmly, before realising that he didn’t in fact have the answer at all.  ‘But I’m not telling you because you’ll just sell it back to us.’  Genius! 

For a moment it looked as though Colin was going home with an open-toed wedge shoe buried in the side of his head but then Mary had another thought, ‘You should charge your customers for your advice!’ she announced with the conviction of someone who believes she’s right about absolutely everything and who, more often than not, is.

And so the question of agents charging for service was dusted down and once again debated at the lunch tables and in the bars, and even on Twitter (#Degsycom).   Those in favour argued that customers already pay for financial advice and for legal advice; they pay for architects to design their homes and interior designers to fill them so why not pay travel agents to design and build their holidays?  Those against argued that holidays just aren’t as important as pensions or legal disputes so they don’t value the advice in the same way.  And anyway, unless every travel agent could be persuaded to change to a fee based model at the same time, customers would simply move to those that didn’t charge the fees.

Meanwhile, Mary reconsidered her position.  ‘Maybe...’ she said before she left the stage ‘Maybe it’s not about charging at all?  Maybe it’s about providing such amazing service in the first place that your customers will simply not consider booking with anyone else?’  Thank you Mary Portas.   It was the wrong question but still you gave us the right answer.