Travel agent closes ‘dream’ shop after a year but reaps rewards by returning to homeworking

“I’ve decided to go back to basics,” Marshall affirmed, pointing to examples where she is now visiting clients in their homes or meeting them to retain face-to-face contact. 

“One of my clients told me they actually prefer this to being in a shop environment,” Marshall added.    

But one of her biggest drawbacks, she said, was staffing.

“The overheads were getting too much, but staffing was absolutely abysmal to be honest. A lot of it was down to a lack of experience, but they were also unreliable. I spent a lot of time putting in an ethos of the level of service I would expect and being clear that we were talking about more than a transaction with our clients.” 

“I was more focused on training them, which took away from my time with clients.”

Marshall candidly said becoming a homeworker once again has helped her regain a work/life balance, with less worry about the bills and staff turning up, freeing more time to get her day-to-day work done and “spend quality time on marketing”.

She revealed she may consider opening a shop again in the future, but “let’s take baby steps. Right now, I’m going back to basics”.

Marshall said her strongest demand was for long haul and tailor-made holidays, selling to groups. She was also quick to praise the virtues of Tui – adding that she was proactively selling the operator’s product, a point echoed by industry peers, she revealed.

“I’m favouring Tui over Jet2 at the moment. A lot of us are choosing to promote Tui, and I think they’re back on their game [with the trade].”