Setting Boundaries

Work time vs. personal time. Emergency vs. non-emergency. Michael, Chris, and Scott discuss setting boundaries with clients and how to navigate being available in this on-demand world.

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Beyond the Handbook. Practical installed from the monuments behind the menu. Your host of the authors of the best-selling travel advisors handbook series. All of Fame Cruise Counselor, Michael Lakana and Chris Crown. And the late cruise counselor, Scott McCallister. It's time to go beyond the handbook.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And this is going to be one of those episodes that might be controversial, although we don't ever get like crazy controversial. But I suspect that we might have three different angles on this particular topic. And the topic is setting boundaries with a client. And I would bet beyond this, we probably have listeners that are going to have 25 other different ideas as to what the correct answer here is. And probably we should start with there is no one answer to this question because I think it comes down to what you're comfortable doing and what is most appropriate for your brand, your lifestyle, and what is going to make you mentally comfortable and physically comfortable. Because we certainly don't want you to run yourself into the ground as a travel advisor either mentally, physically, or emotionally. But when is it okay to say, hey, this is where my wall is and you can't go past it? So I guess we'll go around the room and I'll start with Scott since Michael seems to always have the answer Scott's going to have. So poor Michael has to do it this time. But Scott, talk about setting boundaries with your clients. And you can go in any direction you want with this, whether it be time management or just general boundaries. But what do you do to set boundaries with your clients?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, and I like to bring these up as soon as possible in our relationship. You know, so for me, that's going to be during the uh the customer consultation when they say, Why should I work with you? And we gotta talk about how wonderful it is to work with me and everything. And I'll lay out kind of my hours of operation, right? I'll tell them if you know we have a standing dinner with my wife and her parents pretty much every Sunday, uh, six o'clock local. We're usually done by about 7:30, 8 o'clock. So I throw that in to that consultation, but I do it in a very conversational way. When I'm talking about working local and everything, how we give back, you know. Oh, it keep in mind if you have a great question on Sunday evenings between 6 and 8, make sure you call me because I'm at dinner with my in-laws and everyone enjoys no. I really do enjoy spending time with my in-laws. So if you call me during Sunday and during those times, you might get my voicemail. Now, if I know you're in Europe and you're on your trip and you're calling me, something's going wrong. I'm probably gonna excuse myself and take your call. But if I know you don't leave for 18 more months and it's likely not an emergency, please forgive me. I'm gonna allow that to go to voicemail, but I promise as soon as we wrap up family dinner, I will get back in touch with you. So that's just one example how how band how boundaries can be can be set with clients. Michael, what do you do in this regard?

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Well, you know, I think I'm I've I've kind of gotten in the habit of taking the sort of opposite tact. Um seems like you know, I find that um I rarely have to set boundaries with the clients. I I more have to tell them it's really okay to call. If you're on a complex itinerary and um let's say you just got picked up, everything's going well. I would love to hear that that happened. That way, you know, I I I don't have to kind of worry about, hmm, you know, I haven't heard from anything, I haven't seen an invoice come through on that particular one. They usually charge me as soon as they pick up the client. You know, those types of things might be kind of going through my head. Um I love hearing from them when when they travel. But I think also, you know, I try to set up itineraries where there will be um either a destination management company or tour guide or some point of contact um where they're traveling. I mean, I love it when we can set up an itinerary where there's a single point of contact for flights, for transfers, for insurance, for um, you know, any any variations on their itinerary, and love it better when it's not me, if that's possible. Now, not everybody um um, you know, opts for that type of travel. But the more we can push uh our clients towards sort of all inclusive, safe, consistent types of travel, I think the less um we're going to get those calls while they're traveling.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

And I think it's interesting, you guys immediately took this to the while they're traveling aspect, which is something that, quite frankly, when I thought of this topic for the podcast, was not a direction I'd considered, but it's an interesting direction. And I think that I'll add on to that and say that, you know, one of the things that I like to do with the customers when they're getting ready to travel is go over the documents. For example, if they purchase their flight, say through the cruise line or through the destination company, I will say, here is the on-trip number. This is going to be your best resource. I am happy to help as well. But essentially, we're all going to be calling that number. So if you're in transit and you know that your flight's delayed, this is the best option for you right here. And set those expectations ahead of time so that they know what's going on. And I say, I'm always in point of contact, always happy to help you, but you may wish to go to guest services on the ship first before calling me because they may be able to solve it instead of calling me, having me call them, and then they sort it out. And so those are the types of things you can set up ahead of time, Michael, to maybe alleviate some of those set situations.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Well, I just wanted to clarify one thing when I said that, you know, I love it when their point of contact is not me. What I really mean is that um if they're on site and they say have a tour guide or destination management expert, that that's somebody who might be right there at the hotel who can just fix it immediately. And so that's why, you know, I love it when they have somebody that uh we can set up in advance that can help them on the spot rather than me trying to call, connect to the right person, which I'm happy to do. Oh, absolutely. I want them to get um a timely response as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

And I think this is a good point to bring up, and it wasn't something necessarily tied to the topic, but a good thing to tell your customers is you know, if you do have a situation you run into while on a vacation, whether it's on a cruise ship, at a hotel, at a resort, at a theme park, tell somebody right then and there, don't be the martyr and wait till you get home and suffer through your vacation for something that possibly could be solved right then and there and make your vacation better. Because I can't tell you how often that happens where we get stuff after the fact and it's, well, I had a whole week of this. Well, did you tell anybody? No. Well, I didn't want to create any problems. Well, it was creating a problem for you because you weren't having a good vacation and just saying something, they may not have known that it was an issue. They didn't know the air conditioning didn't work in your room, or didn't know that it was too cold or too hot, or that the food wasn't the right temperature, or too salty, or too mild. All of those are things you can bring up and they will do their best to solve them no matter where you are. Trust me, the hospitality business, they want to fix it. But let's go a different direction on this, guys, and talk about um uh we talked about on the trip things. Let's talk about setting boundaries as far as um office hours and is it okay to text? Is it okay to call? Um, go around the horn again. Uh, Michael, you talked about, yeah, it's and I love this because I get this question a lot. You know, I didn't want to bother you. I I it's a simple thing and I didn't want to talk to you, but I would rather be bothered and give them the correct answer than have them guess or go somewhere else. You want to expand on that or maybe talk about how you manage your personal time versus business time?

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Well, yeah, I usually tell people, you know, you can call or text anytime. I mean, if I'm in a meeting or if there's uh, you know, something um um that is uh really pressing that I'm dealing with, uh it might be important in your text or um voicemail to indicate, you know, whether or not it's urgent. And if it's urgent, I'm often able to uh interrupt what I'm doing. I mean, I'm thinking back to this last fall. I mean, I get a couple calls and it would be sort of like, oh, well, no, now's a good time to uh to talk because I'm not going in for surgery for another 15 minutes, but um probably better make it quick. So I mean it's like you're welcome to call, but there are certain things that you know I probably won't get back to you.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Once I count to 10, I'm not gonna be able to understand you. So Scott, what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

You know, it's it's difficult for some people, right? In personal lives or business to set those boundaries and hold people to it. So I want to start off by saying generally speaking, people treat us the way we allow them to and the way we train them to. So that's what all we're trying to do here is to tell people how to use us best. So we could boundaries could look like if it's an emergency, I suggest texting me first, even though this whole thing's been done through email or calls, because and I'll explain why a text might work better. If I'm Chris Grum and I'm on a Broadway show seven nights a week, and you know, I can look down at my phone quickly or during a break or something and see, okay, this is an emergency. I need to wait for the next intermission, or maybe I need to excuse myself. You can pop a quick text back saying, Hey, tied up right now. Can this wait 15 minutes? So a text could be a little bit more immediate than you know, waiting until I have access to listen to a voicemail. So that's the first thing I want to do. That, you know, if it's an emergency, call, sure. If you get my voicemail, send me a text and let me know that you know we need to do this now. Because at that point, there kind of are no boundaries, you know, unless you're about to go under the knife and you can't perform your your duties legally because you're gonna be under the influence of anesthesia. But um now, if it's not an emergency and I'm at the show, it might wait till later that night or in the morning. But we tell them, if we tell them that up front, they know what to expect, and that helps reduce their anxiety. Because sometimes something that's not an emergency can become an emergency when they feel like we're ignoring them or blowing them off.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

And I'm gonna push back on something here. You will not see me texting at a Broadway show ever. Well, no, period, full stop. Uh no, no. So what I do there in all seriousness is you know, I'll check my messages and my emails right before I turn the phone off. Because I do, because I hate interruptions in the theater, whether it's movie or Broadway shows. It's just too prevalent nowadays, and it's simple to go to airplane mode for an hour and a half, and then at intermission, I check again. And if somebody's left me a voicemail, I might call them back and say, hey, listen, I'm at the theater tonight. Can I call you first thing tomorrow? Right. Done. Uh so my take on the personal space is kind of like this. Uh I've mentioned another podcast that I am uh dating a teacher. And teachers, anybody that knows them, Scott's wife is one, they don't work nine to five. They bring it home with them, they're working at night, they're grading, they're doing different things. Their hours are all over the place. And so thankfully, I have somebody that understands that travel can be similar. And so what I look at, I look at it this way, um, kind of like with Michael said earlier, uh, please always reach out to me. And I think Scott, you alluded to this as well. A text or a call is fine if I'm unavailable, because let's face it, we have other clients. We might be on a consultation, we might be at the theater for an hour and a half, we might be doing this or that or the other. But that short window of time shouldn't be a problem because that's just a short little hour, hour and a half where we're not available. And then I immediately get back to somebody as quickly as possible. Now, if I'm getting out of the theater at 10:30, I might not call them back that night, but the first thing the next morning they get a call. During the day, same thing. I try to return phone calls and emails as promptly as possible. However, what I do try to also do is let them know hey, um, there's certain times that I'm going to be unavailable. If I'm on vacation or out of the office, I might put a little recording on my phone, maybe on my email that says I'm out for this. Reach out to Scott or reach out to Danielle or whoever you need to reach out to. I always want to have that lifeline because let's face it, guys, people want to talk to us when they want to talk to us. And one of the challenges as travel advisors is we need to at least appear to be available to them. And that brings me to another topic on this, and that is office hours. And I seek some travel advisors that put office hours on their website. Now, I'm curious to get y'all's take on this because I look at that as a probably not the best idea, especially if your office hours are only a few hours every day. Because it gives the illusion that you're not full-time into the travel business. What say you, Mr. Ocana?

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Well, yeah, a couple things about that is if you put down office hours, it kind of implies that uh if they call during that time, you'll pick up the phone. But what if you're talking to somebody who just called because you have office hours? I mean, you might not be available for that call because you tried to fit everything into that narrow window. Um, the other thing is when we put too many barriers in place for why people call, we miss some of the most important calls. And I would say, and I know um Scott and Chris, I talked to you about this one, but I received a call once at 1215 at n at night or morning, if you will. And it was one of the most consequential calls I've had. And the thing is, it was somebody who was traveling that it wasn't a problem. They wanted to tell me about five people on their cruise ship that gave them excellent service, and they were very thankful. And um odd call. I don't get many of those, but I'm so glad I took it. And as it turns out, about um um two weeks later, I was on the same ship, and I had had some difficulties on the ship where um I needed somebody to reach out for, and you know what? Four of those five people were still on the ship, and I was able to make um first of all personal contact with each of them, thanking them for how they treated my client, and then also when I had a need and reached out, wow, they bent over backwards to help me. Love that. Scott, let's say you on office hours.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I hate them. For all the reasons.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

So same reasons, same reason why?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, because why set limitations? Why set yourself up for failure? Now, a lot of people automatically well, and I can understand this mindset, especially if someone's transitioning from the corporate world or retail or what have you into being a travel advisor and self-employed. They their mind kind of goes, Well, if I don't have office hours, I'm giving them permission to call me at 1159 at night. And well, in a way, yes, you are, but most people aren't gonna do that. Uh, if you don't have office hours. Most people, we've been doing this, what, 15, 16 years, Chris? Something like that. A long time. Other than clients that are traveling at the moment and have a concern or they forget the time change. How often has your phone rang after 9 p.m. with just a general inquiry? It happens, yes, but more often not. Yeah. So does it happen? Sure, absolutely. They're usually ready to buy. So, you know, you probably are playing the pricey game at nine o'clock at night. They're they're probably ready to do something.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

No, but I've had a few customers, Scott, and I'm gra- I'm glad you brought that up. I've had a few that would text at odd hours, let's just put it that way. And I do leave my phone on for emergencies. And so what I've done in those rare situations is I've gone back to them and said, hey, listen, I'm happy to get your text until about nine or ten o'clock at night. If you need to talk to me after that and it's not an emergency, put it in an email. And here's why. Because I need to leave my phone on, and my poor girlfriend doesn't want to hear ding ding ding ding ding every five minutes. It's it's only for emergencies. And every time I've said that, they're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, no worries. I'm happy to do it. But that's how you can sort that out, Scott.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Right. And that goes back to people treat us the way we train them or allow them to. That goes directly back to that statement. But yeah, it office hours posting them on the thing, I don't think we need to anymore because we know if we're being honest with ourselves, this is not a Monday through Friday nine to five job. No, it's not. It it's it's much more than that. But you can still manage the expectations of people. Like Chris just gave a great example of a time where he had to do that, but man, I can't think of a time where I've just received a random phone call at 10 o'clock at night because somebody was on the website. And well, they don't have hours. I'm gonna call and see if he's gonna answer. You know, I can't remember in 15, 16 years that ever happening. So yeah, I don't like it being put in a box. Don't put baby in a corner. Don't put yourself in the corner by posting office hours. Michael.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Well, thinking to a couple calls that uh have come in um when I've been out on a bike ride. Now on Sunday, I'm usually on a bike ride for like two and a half, three hours. It would be great to just, you know, not have my phone with me and and ride. And and most rides are like that. But every once in a while, I'll have something come in that's an inquiry from a new client um that uh maybe found me at say uh agent finder or you know, somewhere else on the web. And um, you know, the question is, you know, how did you know to call me? And they say, well, you weren't the first one I called. You were the first one to answer. And um what I'll say is, well, you know, right now is probably not the best time. I'm on a bike ride. I don't have access to my computer. Can I call you back in about, you know, two two hours? And then when I call them back, you know, we're we're able to resume. But the just that sense of availability on initial contact can often win over a client.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

And you know, the the thing about office hours is you guys have said, and I'm against them as well. The reason for that is it is limiting. The beauty of saying not saying anything on your website about when you're available is people will think you're always available. Now, that doesn't mean you can't turn off the phone to go to the movies, turn off the phone for the family dinner Scott mentioned, or divert things, but you don't want to make them think you're not available for an entire day because that might be the one day that their favorite cruise line is having that big sale. And they look at you and go, oh, well, Scott's not available that day. Now I've got to book somewhere else. And there goes that customer. And that's the kind of thing you don't want to have happen is it's okay to set boundaries and take your time off, but do it in a way that where the customer thinks you're still thinking about their interest, you have just won the internet for the day, as they say. And and I'll wrap up with a story we put in one of our books, but I think it's it's kind of apropos for this uh for this podcast and for setting boundaries. Uh, whenever we go to Cruise 360, which we just got back from not too long ago, uh, we always like to meet other travel advisors. And one of the things that I like to do is go take a peek at what they're doing. I'll go to their website when they give me a business card and I'll go and check out, you know, what's the theme of their website? Are they up to date? What are they coming up with? And every once in a while I'll go, ooh, that's an idea I can steal. Um, but I like to see what other people are doing. And Scott and I, about I guess it's been about 10 years since we saw this now. We went to a website one time and we both went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. And when we went to their contact page, it's at our office hours or Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, on weekends and after hours, call the supplier directly. And we both looked at each other and went, Did I just read what I think I read? And sure enough, that's what we saw. Now, now imagine this scenario. And this is why you want to give the appearance of availability, even if there might be an hour or two here or there that you're not. So imagine you're the client and at 4 55 on a Friday, you realize, oh my gosh, I've got an issue with my reservation that I need to get solved. And no matter whether it's something you're traveling a year from now or next week, to you as the person, it's urgent right now because I want to get it done right now. So you pick up the phone, you go and dig around on the internet, you find your travel agency's phone number, you call and it's 501. Oh my gosh, I've just and then the recording says our office hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You go, okay, well, I'm gonna go to their website. And you go to the website and you think I'll send them an email. You go to the contact page, and then it says, after hours and on weekends, call the supplier directly, and you go, oh, okay. So then you pick up the phone and you call Cruise Line XYZ, and they answer the phone after about 20 minutes of sitting on hold with It's a Small World or whatever it may be. Uh, or we have some cruise lines that play one song in one loop of 60 seconds. So 20 minutes later, you get somebody on the phone and you give them their reservation number, you go through all the stuff. Oh, I'm sorry, this is a travel agent booking. You need to call your travel advisor. So now you're upset and you get to spend the whole weekend fuming because they sent you off to someplace and made you do this, and then they can't help you. I bet you that Monday morning phone call when that office reopens is not going to be a pretty one, gentlemen. It's gonna be one of those calls where it's like, why am I working with you if you're not available to me when I need you to help me with a question? And by the way, spending five minutes over that weekend answering that question could be the difference between keeping that customer and losing that customer, and you never know. That customer might buy a seven-night cruise from you now, but next month they may be looking at a world cruise, and you certainly don't want to brush them away. Go around the horn for final thoughts. Michael, final thoughts on setting boundaries.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Uh well, yeah, I I mean that's all um all good stuff. I I think that um, you know, the clients that we choose to work with will make a big difference in whether or not we even need to set boundaries. Um I really haven't had many clients. Where um it's been a problem. And often when there's somebody who's been calling, um, what I sort of feel is obsessively what I try to look at is what's the value of that business to me? And if I look at um not just um uh the the commission that I might be making on their sales, um, but I have this one guy that love him to death. He calls a lot when he has a need. Um usually either no commission, not very high commission, but you know what? He puts a good word out for me in the community and um um has made referrals to me that are glowing. And so um, you know, take those calls. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Scott, wrap us up.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

You know, I'm just still in disbelief that it, well, this would have been what 2025 or so that somebody still has their website Monday through Friday after that up yours. It's pretty much what there's I just can't, I just can't get over that.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I mean listen, if a travel agency will put on that on their website, I'll work with them just for the sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Well, it it it's being honest, that's what they're saying. You know, the 80s called and want their office hours back. I mean, should I should I fax my reservation to you?

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Can we send them the wave with it?

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

But you know, I think that the the simple answer to all this, and I'm surprised that we all agreed more than I thought we would on this, is it comes down to one thing. By putting a limitation on something, you're saying no to certain times and certain options when maybe you can't say yes, but you can give the appearance of saying yes by not limiting. And why would we limit and pigeonhole what we can do for a customer and give them more reasons to leave when we can potentially give them reasons to come to us? And so uh hopefully you've got a way to set the healthy boundaries that you feel comfortable with because there's no right answer. But do what feels comfortable for you, but also keep in mind what you're telling the clients by setting those boundaries.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Thanks for listening to Beyond the Handbook. Visit tahandbook.com to order our books. See our upcoming schedule of seminars at Steve and listen to episodes on demand. We'll see you next time when we go beyond the handbook.