'Agents don’t want to be training call centre staff on cruise lines' behalf'

He hopes these changes will help drive Crystal to greater heights in the UK. Progress since the brand’s relaunch in 2022 has been “slow”, he says. He later reveals the UK and Ireland accounts for around 7% of Crystal’s overall business.

However, Lira, who joined the ultra-luxury ocean line from Silversea in 2022, says business didn’t start moving until January this year. “We found we really needed more boots on the ground,” he explains.

Now that commercial deals with the likes of The Travel Network Group, Hays Travel and Barrhead Travel have been signed, Lira says the incoming RSMs can train new agent partners across the UK and Ireland.

Making a call

Another change Crystal has made recently is “localising” call centres in its “key” UK and Irish and Australian markets to provide “a more personalised service” than was available previously.

“Travel agents don’t want to have to train call-centre staff on behalf of the line," Lira insists. "This stuff cannot be taught from textbooks.”

Lira hailed Crystal’s London-based call centre staff as “incredible”, highlighting how many have been on a luxury cruise before. “We take product knowledge very seriously,” says Lira.

“We want to make sure our travel agent partners get answers quickly rather than being put on hold or being de-escalated to ‘level two’ or ‘level three’ support.”

Opening up possibilities

A further sign of Crystal’s progress will come in the form of a new B2B portal. Lira notes: “Agents can look forward to really helpful, attentive regional sales coming online as well as more resources. We’re in the middle of finalising our data load for our B2B portal.”

Agents will be able to amend bookings and access sales and marketing resources via the portal. Looking ahead, Lira gives some insight into why Crystal is investing so much time and resource in international markets outside North America.

“Under the previous ownership, Crystal was a very US-centric brand with more than 80% of guests coming from that market,” he says. “We want to diversify. We want to get closer to a 35:65 split.

"We’re investing quite heavily – I’m confident with the help of [the new] RSMs and the consortia arrangements we have in place, the UK and Irish market will exceed where it was.”