Hey, it's your travel industry best friends, Robin and Jen from TIQUE. We're obsessed with practically anything that touches your business and allows you to scale to the level of success that you've always dreamed of. With Robin’s background in sales and marketing, and Jennifer's experience as a management level HR professional, we grew a small itinerary creation company into a multi-million dollar travel agency, and now we aim to help others skip the hard stuff and get right to the big wins. We're probably recording this with a glass of wine in hand, so pour one up with us, grab a seat, and join us to talk about all things travel and business.
So today we're approaching one of the most debated and controversial topics within the industry and that is fees. So, what made us feel so bold as to tackle the subject, in case you haven't heard, is that ASTA officially adopted the philosophy that all advisors should be charging fees for their services. So with the shift in the industry it's time to talk through it, the benefits of implementing and charging fees for those who are charging fees already we're going to also talk about additional fees that you may want to implement.
I'll say that this is going to be part one and we've definitely, when we were talking about this episode before recording, decided that we're going to do a part two follow up to that's where we'll talk through how to implement those and how to have this conversations with your clients who can do so confidently. But first I'm going to have Jen kind of share her interesting take on fees because it has changed over the years.
Jennifer: It sure has! I was originally adamantly team no fees, and I'm not saying that if you aren't charging fees, you know, you're doing a bad job. I'm not saying that and you're not here to say that, but we are going to share our personal evolution of why we went from not charging fees to ending up realizing that it was really advantageous for us and essentially the client to ultimately charge a fee for services.
When I started booking, my whole approach was based off of helping others find travel approachable, and I thought by helping people feel like going anywhere in the world was approachable, I was helping the business and helping the industry. I'm not saying that's not true but I was approaching it as here are our deals and I don't charge fees, so don't be intimidated to reach out to me. And I think that a lot of people start their business like this, honestly, I think that people are sharing the deals and making the barrier to work with them very low so that they can build their clientele, which makes complete sense. However, what I ended up doing without realizing it, or intending to do so, was creating a book of business that didn't value my time and wasn't brand-loyal.
So, I was having people come to me through Facebook, through text, every way possible because they didn't do my business as a true business, and messaging me and saying “Hey I want to go here can you send me a quote for XYZ” and I would do it because I was hungry for business and I wanted them to utilize my services. Well then I would not hear from them ever again because there was no process, they didn't use me as a professional, and maybe my quote was not as low as Cosco.
Robin: They’ll getcha. I am so fascinated by it. How do they do it?
Jennifer: I have so many questions.
Robin: It’s like $5 to go anywhere in the world. I don’t get it.
Jennifer: And it’s like are you going below net what is it what is the deal here. I truly don't know.
Robin: We should interview the CEO of Costo travel.
Jennifer: That would be even more controversial than this episode.
Robin: That would literally, that probably be our most tuned-in to episode. I would tune in.
Jennifer: Now I want someone to do it.
Robin: We aren’t bold but are you bold?
Jennifer: If you have a podcast contact Costco and you get them on there and talk about how they price their trips because we all want to know how you do it.
So, ultimately that is what ended up happening, was I had come to a point in the road where I realize I have no brand loyalty, I have people that yes I'm absolutely making travel approachable for them but the next time something comes around they're going to use someone else if it's a better deal. I'm not creating a book of business, I'm creating transactions.
And what happened was when 2020, I mean the curse word of it, all 4, I guess 4 numbers but not 4 letters, but 2020 happened and our entire book of business was completely demolished. Robin was an advisor at the time, we had other advisors, and because we had not been charging fees we had nothing to pull from. Our entire income was demolished, and then, if there was any need for service recovery we had no funds to pull from. So we're just working, we're essentially paying to work daily, because your time has a value to it. So, if you put a value on your time and you think about 2020, we were paying to work, because we weren't making any income from anything that we were doing. We had worked for an entire year, and I'm preaching to the choir here really, we worked together as an industry to build up all these beautiful trips for 2020 and 2021, and then to undo them and then to also not have anything in coming for that year it was just a complete demolition of all financial stability.
That's when we realize okay, it's not incentivizing the client at all to come back to us, because we never got a fee, they can book anywhere else. So even when they rebook they're not necessarily going to be loyal to us that they just landed on us one time and we have also nothing to show for it and nothing spare bills with. That's when the team got together at the retreat and we had a conversation about getting comfortable charging fees and we talked through the model that we wanted to utilize and we're not going to dive into that on this episode. That’s definitely for you to do some research on and find out what you're comfortable with with your clientele demographic. Because I think it is heavily reliant on what kind of book, and how long they are, what your client demographic is, the complexity. But we got together in a room and created a tiered structure of fees and decided what was best for our business and then we rolled it out.
And that's why we're going to address it in the next episode is because we have been on both sides of the fence, we've been very proud and happy that we didn't use these, and then we actually implemented them and it's working wonderfully. So, we're going to talk through today, the whole point of this episode is to also talk through why we believe you should be charging fees outside of just the fact that you want extra income, and you want to live a stable financial life and getting valued for your time, but actually go into the why behind each of these tenants.
So, Robin, you want to kick us off?
Robin: Yeah, so Jen hit a lot of them in the like learning curve for us that was 2020. But one of the biggest ones I would say was attracting those ideal clients, attracting more of the ideal client that valued our time as travel advisors. You know a lot of us aren't brick-and-mortar, were online based businesses, so you have to pay for websites and certain platforms like TravelJoy and stuff. But our real overhead is our time and how much time we're spending on these trips and the heart that you're pouring into them.
So by implementing fees and having that fee on the front end before people work with us our client has skin in the game, so to speak. So when they're investing with us they're actually like, less likely to get ghosted. You aren't having to chase down clients and say like tell me if you like this quote like I just need to know. So all of a sudden once we started doing these fees our ideal client was respecting our time, they were getting back to us with more frequent communication, I would say, and a little bit more professional. So it was just a huge indicator of like a successful relationship moving forward when they were respecting our time and seeing us as a professional. Because I mean lawyers, they’re not really giving you really anything, they're giving you their knowledge and their time, their accountant, same thing. People don’t question their fees and what they are because if you don’t work with a lawyer that’s tricky. I mean the same thing with us, like there are times where clients has been royally screwed over by travel mishaps, and not had us in their back pocket.
If they're disrespecting your time, if a little majority of your clients are just disrespecting your time, or you know doing the like the quote and disappear into the abyss sort of thing, I think it might be time to examine that philosophy on fees.
Jennifer: 100%, and I think back on my ideal client and they're never the ones that are utilizing my time on the phone or abusing my time on the phone. They are concise, they provide feedback in a timely manner, they respect the amount of calls that they are allocated based off of our fee structure. Which we'll get to that. But by managing expectations and telling people what they're getting when they actually pay that fee, you're making it very clear what the inclusions, are and only the people that disrespect your time are going to be the ones that challenge that.
Robin: And whether you think you sell luxury travel or not, luxury is such like a broad term, because my level of luxury could be totally different than Jens. But like no matter what type of travel you service you are a luxury service provider. People go to you to make their lives easier, they go to use your expertise, and charging that really it solidifies in their mind that like you are worth time and effort to like invest back in.
So yeah I think that was like one of the biggest biggest shifts that like made the most sense. Because at first I didn't want to charge fees because that's how I was getting clients, especially young honeymooners, who are like anxious to go to like a $3,000 honeymoon in Cancun or whatever, they didn't have the extra money for fees. So I was like I think a lot of my clients are going to not be able to pay this, but it’s weird that just didn’t happen. I got rid of maybe a couple of them, but they are probably the ones texting me late at night and I was annoyed about.
Jennifer: I think you brought up a good point though because once you implement fees you tend to get a higher average price point anyway, because if someone comes to you and they're wanting a $3,000 trip and I believe in my heart of hearts that if someone has $3,000 I still believe any price point deserves a beautiful trip, but I don't necessarily want to service that trip as as a service provider. As like you said, we are a luxury service, whether the type of travel we are organizing is “luxury” or not. So, once you say okay yes I will absolutely work with you here is how we work, here is the fee structure, if it doesn't align with their budget. Then you're going to get rid of a trip that potentially isn't worth the time for you. Because again every hour of your time should have a value to it, and if you're spending more time than you're gaining with that commission, the math just doesn't work. And so there kind of does have to be this minimum. And I think that naturally just happens when you implement fees. It's not even like you're requiring a minimum anymore.
All right so the next thing, is that your knowledge came at a price or will come at a price, even if you're listening to this and you’re newer to the industry. And you’re thinking “i'm new, do I have value, does that justify me charging a fee” and the answer is absolutely yes. If you ask anyone who is tenured they are nodding their head right now, I can just feel it. But I want you to think about lawyers or CPAs/accountants, no one questions being charged for their time because they invested in a certain amount of education. So yes, someone went to law school and they got a degree and now they charge $300/hour just to give their advice. And I don’t say just to minimize it. I’m saying that it’s not a tangible product that they are walking away with. Just as you creating a proposal for your client isn’t something tangible that they will experience right away.
So, with that being said, there are multiple ways that travel advisors are investing in their business. One is going to be a FAM, if you’ve gone on a FAM you’ve paid for the FAM, you’ve paid for the flight, and you stepped away from your business. And that comes at a price.I guarantee you probably went on vacation sometime in your life that fueled your fire for travel or gave you some kind of background on a destination. I know plenty of my vacations, I don't even know that word applies for certain vacations anymore, because now I always increase integrate site visits in the vacation.
Robin: Which you should still travel on vacation Jennifer.
Jennifer: Yes, and I have those coming up, officially on vacation.
Robin: I love that. I feel like should do a podcast on how to vacation. Because people forget how to vacation when they vacation.
Jennifer: That’s so true, it’s so easy to forget how to vacation because most people are just productivity mindset. And this is a whole different topic and we've touched on it before, but if you're vacationing, that’s a different investment. You should actually budget for that, that's not a comp rate, that's not a net rate, they're going to make you do a site visit, that’s not a vacation.
So, you also as a travel advisor, you have probably paid for a retreat or you've gone to a host agency retreat, that's again taking you out of your office, away from your desk, away from servicing clients, and that comes at a cost. And paid trainings, if you have attended a destination masterclass with Tique, or if you've invested in a workflow with Tique, I mean there are and I'm not just saying our product is the only one, there are plenty of trainings that come at a cost. That even if it's not a degree or certification you're paying for those things, you're paying for the knowledge. And we definitely, like, our whole philosophy at Tique is if you run your business like a business you should be investing in your knowledge and your client experience. And so we know that if you're listening to this you're probably thinking in that same thing so if it's a certification, a paid training, a retreat, and vacation, a FAM. Then you have invested time and money and there is value to that.
And even if you haven't done those things yet because maybe you are newer in the industry, you have to gain capital to be able to do those things. Every business had to start somewhere, even a law firm. And they charge capital to learn as wel,l so sometimes learning does come at a cost to a client and that's just the way the world works. So whatever your investment looks like for knowledge, 100% it is justified that you're charging a fee for that on the flip side.
Robin: And on the flip side and investing. I mean my next point is all about income and your bottom line. Implementing fees prevent you from being the Robin and Jen who had a huge book a business and was going to be a super profitable year and then all of a sudden a little germ comes along and takes it literally like the wind out of your sails. I mean I just can't even tell you as I was like knocking like nicknames off my Excel spreadsheet and like my booking commissions tracker, I was just spiraling. I mean thank God like my husband had a great job so it was fine, but we really had no sort of like non-cancellable income coming in or like any income at all for that year. At least in my case, I know Jen with all the overhead of having advisors underneath us, it's a lot, and to start paying out of your pocket.
So that in and of itself you can't control whether your clients will travel or not, you want to prepare them, you want to send those documents. But things happen, like I've had you know family members passed away, and people die. It's not that they're just canceling the trip to cancel the trip, they are legitimate reasons. But that still leaves me in a pickle and now I invested 40 hours into this trip and I'm not going to reap any of that benefit.
So, 2020 definitely proved to us the need to recession proof our income. And many of us are in the seasonal business, right, like there's highs and lows seasons of travelers. There's June, where it's just mass chaos and like commissions only get paid out afterwards. Or low season, so you're not bringing the income, and fees at least allow you to have some stability. It also allows you to forecast, like I’m a big metrics tracker and I would like to see the income potential in the new year. I am like at the time of this recording, it's wrapping up to going towards our 2023 revenue plan for next year.
And because now Tique is different from how it was when we were booking travel. But I'm able to sit down and look at how to make this much money, and our team is making this much money, how many services do I need to sell in order to meet that payout. And that can be the same for you, like okay I need to look at this amount of fees per month to ideally, of course commission will be different so bigger commission checks will come and go, but being able to track your fees and say “okay this is where I am stable, this is what it’s going t take to run my business”. So, if all else fails, at least you are making enough to make ends meet and maintain it.
I always come back to yes this job is fun, but is it profitable? You know, you are pouring in this time, this effort, into a business that isn’t profitable, and I just don’t see the point. You deserve to make a profit, like your expertise is valuable. So making sure you have that year round income is huge. That’s what got me to make the jump, like okay, 2020 was not fun and I never want that to happen again. And how do we avoid that? We charge fees.
Jennifer: I mean, I can say that COVID hit at the worst time, for me personally, because I am very Europe heavy. So when it came to my commission I was in starvation mode since December. I don't do ski, and I actually at the time was doing very little Caribbean, obviously that changed because COVID was like, all right change in the game everybody now book the Caribbean only, and Mexico. So, I like missed out on all of May, which accounts for probably 50% of my income for the year. And when do people plan for Europe? They plan for Europe at Q4 typically, so I could have actually been in a decent place, but I really handicapped myself in that way where I wasn't collecting fees and I wasn't creating a cushion. I mean we can all say that 2020 made us think a lot about how we should be safeguarding our business in so many ways, but financially was definitely one of them, and that was absolutely not what what I had done and it just it felt exacerbated by the timing because of the seasonality of European travel. So, woof that was tough.
Robin: Losing Europe was atrocious for Jen’s business, but here you are. You live to tell the tale.
Jennifer: Hahaha I live to tell the tale.
All right, so the next thing is very simple, and probably the hardest for people to actually quantify, and that's establishing yourself as a professional service. Once people establish themselves as a professional service there's no question as to whether they should be paid for their time. However, the thing about travel is, a lot of the time, depending on what your niche is, a lot of the time, it is leisure based. And so when people are booking something leisure, they do so leisurely, and that's why people send a Facebook message or send an Instagram message, because vacation is fun and those platforms are light and they are leisurely. However, once we start to not only Implement fees, but also incorporate a true structured process, that exemplifies that you are a true business professional and you're now taken seriously and your services are to be taken seriously. And that gives confidence to clients. Like yes, it can seem intimidating when you were implementing it, like oh my clients like this, well maybe not at first, but there's an educational curve to that and then they never know that it was any different.
I mean Robin knows that we've changed our business style model structure so many times and yet we still have clients from day one that have evolved with us, because they've liked working with us as people, and they respected that as we grew we became more of a true business. And people find credibility and value to that, so by saying “hey yes this is how we work, this is my fee” it is establishing yourself as a professional and stating that you have something that they want, that you have, and that's the entire point of a business.
So I know that that is actually probably the biggest piece of the puzzle, and why ASTA has now changed their philosophy, not changed the philosophy, but really stood behind fees being paid. But I would say it's probably the hardest to quantify, from an advisor perspective, because it's conceptual, and it's more of a philosophy, and it's not it's just not metrics based. So, we have a hard time talking about it on an intake call, if someone were to push back and just say, “because I'm a professional service”. You know that doesn't that doesn't necessarily give a why in a gentle way.
So, to us, especially from the Tique philosophy, we believe in treating your business like a business. And that is marrying the concept of having an actual workflow, having an intake call, having the processes, having a true brand, and having a fee that goes along with that to create this entire professional appearance in the industry. And that's the only way, I think, that we're going to elevate the industry as a whole. Is when everyone decides we are professionals and there's a value to our time.
Robin: Right, like differentiating between a hobby and a job. Because I mean, do you want this to be a hobby? Because travel can be a hobby. But like you're not, it's not a true business until it's profitable, and like you're positioning it as a business. So, that’s such a good point.
Another thing that fees allowed me to do, which is a total game-changer for me because I always used to, when I would mess up, so for any service recovery sort of issues that would arise, because let's face it those happen. Like you can be the most detail oriented thing and there's something that will slip through the cracks. But when that would happen to me before I implemented fees, that would come out of my commission. Which fine, but that's still coming out of my income. So, something that fees allowed us to do is protect that income from a service recovery. So, in case there is an area you need to fix, you'll want the income to be able to pull from rather than having to like remove it from your commission.
So, we also recommend ensuring that your commissions are at least 12%, if not 15%, and you are collecting that fee. So, again, if there are no issues in your client travels, and it's wonderful, that’s amazing, that’s the goal. But again, things happen, and you want to be prepared for them. So, you can also use that fee like almost like a type of escrow account. You don’t count it as income until you are confident about the delivery of the trip but it's tacked on to the end to make sure, should things go wrong that you have that safety blanket there. So, if something goes wrong you have that safety net and you don’t have to pay for it yourself. And I think that was really big for me. Not saying that I messed up on trips a lot or anything like that, but just that extra safety blanket. And you are working for that money at the end. So, you get the full commission, you get that full fee at the end.
And if you take the time to audit your trips when you're supposed to, and you know, handle any issues as early as possible so they're not in destination and you forgot to book this Positano Cruise or something. Heaven forbid, and they are waiting in a dock expecting a boat and you have to go buy one really quick and charge something to your card. So that was really awesome for service recovery and a really nice safety blanket.
Jennifer: I have had to service recover multiple times and a lot of the time the client didn't even know. So it is good to have that income, and I looked back, as I remember the one I got hit with the hardest. But I was a wash, because I was just relying - I don't want to say padding because then that could be misinterpreted, people don't necessarily like that too. But ensuring that your commissions are at a fair price point. So, between 12% and 15%. I think 15% is more appropriate now with the amount of extra responsibilities that travel advisors have on their plate: for auditing, adding concierge-level services, COVID regulations.
Like 15%, I think, it's incredibly fair for what we do. So even if you are adding to a pre-established commission structure, that is defined by your consortia or your host, and then also having a fee. It only helps you make sure that their trip is better. Because sometimes our brand is reliant on service recovery and sometimes the service recovery isn't even our fault. It could come from any place of their trip. could be their hotel, and guess what, you picked the hotel. So, ultimately it does come back to you. And maybe they're, you know, they went with a group and half of the group was booked on one catamaran cruise than one couple of got booked by the DMC on a different kind of marine cruise and you have to buy them extra tickets.
I mean the reality is that we deal with people and there is going to be human error. That doesn't mean you're bad at your job, it doesn't mean they're bad at their job, it just means that there are a lot of hands in the pot to make sure something goes smoothly and we need to safeguard ourselves to make sure that we have the resources to right the wrong, whether it's on our side or theirs. I mean I think we've also had to fix something that like wasn't actually a problem, but the client deemed it as a problem, and we've just tried to put a bandaid on it so that we can go back to sleep. It's service recovery in all senses of the word.
But to go hand-in-hand with that, is all so you're also wanting to create a cushion, where if you provide a budget for gifts or amenities, so maybe you want to surprise someone with an experience and/or a glass of wine or a bottle of wine in their room something like that, or thank you notes when they get home. There are so many different ideas for gifting. I actually like have a whole thought process on gifting and that will need to be an episode. I swear every episode we mention that. But there needs to be one on gifting, because I have a lot of thoughts on gifting. If you are the type of business that is actually sending the boxes with you know just kind of like the pre travel with the luggage tags and all of that stuff. That has to come from somewhere. That should not come from your commission. Your commission should really be going towards operating expenses, and obviously income.
But your fees, to me, are overhead of servicing the client itself. And to me, those gifts and amentities should be built into the fees, because you're going to be spending that regardless. And a lot of things can happen in the trip that impact your commission, but that box or gift or whatever it is, is being sent regardless. So build that in if you want to have those. I personally don't, I've sent lugging tags and we've sent custom stationery at times, but we never really did the whole structured box thing. I think that it’s fantastic for brand recognition and I know a lot of people really love it, but those are expensive to send and actually to fill. So, make sure you're actually looking at your expenses for that, for one, but that really needs to be associated with a higher ticket fee, I think from the get-go.
Robin: Yeah, and I think honestly, if you have like a bookkeeper, we have like a contact CFO that we talk through. We we talk through pricing, she ensures that like any pricing we create for Tique and our services, is not only covering the overhead of our time than what we want to pay ourselves but also like include that profit margins, so that like you do have a budget for gifting and stuff like that. If that's important to your brand, you do have money in the bank or a budget, for you know website updates throughout the year or like branding tweaks when you need them. So, you have these things, the business is fueling the business, and then also your paycheck. But I think this is a really awesome thing that a contract CFO person could be for anybody who's like “I don't know how much to charge”. Like I think that you know you need to look at how much you make, and how much time you are spending on trips, and there is a whole mathematical equation to figure that out.
But this is where, I think when we started pricing stuff for Tique, it was just kind of like this seems good, like i’d pay this much for a service. But then we were like well, we’re spending a lot of time on this, our team member’s time on this, this needs to go way up. And also we need to cover everything that's associated with this. So if there’s a commission payout, or a welcome gift card, that needs to be included in the fee that we are charging. So, I really think investing in a financial person or a bookkeeper who can look at your business and get comfortable and get comfortable and familiar with your business, would provide a lot of insight for somebody who's like “I don't even know what to charge”. At least that’s what was helpful for us.
Jennifer: Yeah, there's this taboo thought process around charging for your time. Because again it's not quantifiable necessarily, it is subjective, but guess what, you get to pick it. That’s all based on what you want to make, but it does require a lot of math. I'm not going to say that coming up with a fee structure isn't necessarily easy, because to Robin’s point it's a lot of intangible. That's a lot of calculating time invested into each step of the process, and it's going to probably require time tracking, and that's not always what people want to do. But throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks, to just like, like to say okay we're just going to try this and see if this works. That is not necessarily the business route I would recommend going.
Robin and I have done it at all turns our business, until he got really methodical, and I think a lot of travel advisors when they first start their like I'll just try this until it doesn't work. But it is very hard to undo something, especially if your client starts to learn how you do things, and it's much easier to actually ask a community around you what's working for them. And I think we are scared to because we often work so individually. So, 1) don't not value your time and 2) don't shy away from asking others how to do it because the right people answer honestly and share their wins with you, and everyone has different perspectives.
Robin: I feel like we have conversations in the Niche community about fees all the time. It’s something that is constantly being talked about. And it's great because everyone has different perspectives. I think that's so important, because it's easy for somebody to slap you on the wrist, and be like you need to charge a fee. But like we get it, we were on the other side of this thing, where we were adamantly against it. And so seeing both sides and the benefits it’s had for our business, but also knowing how difficult it is to climb that hill and train your clients about the fees, like that’s a whole process. And I think it's really powerful to talk to other people and see what works, see what they're doing in their business, and how you could apply that to your business. I always say, take what serves you and leave what doesn’t.
Jennifer: Absolutely, so, we’re going to end this just kind of like giving you some options of what fee structures look like.
For the 1st off, obviously is the service fee. This is something that would be charged right up front after an intake call. Some people actually charge that before the intake call. But I don't like that for me because I don't want to be tied to someone if the intake call doesn't go well.
Robin: Peach. There are some people that are not your clients.
Jennifer: Exactly, and you don't want to be tied to someone, you always want to have the ability to say I may not be the right fit for you, but I have the potential solution for you, and refer them out. I mean obviously you don't want to pass on bad clients, but if it's just genuinely not your type of client, it's completely fine to refer them to someone else. But to me again, that like comes from having honest conversations. When you have that how we work conversation on the intake call, they may not be your client, and if they haven't paid, it gives you a nice out and you don't have to refund something. You can bless and dismiss right there. And a lot of the time they think they want something or they need help with something it's not going to fit your model.
The next thing would be a change fee. And this is something that I think a lot more people have been doing since 2020, because there were so many trips that were rescheduled, and when you reschedule, that doesn't mean it's just like pick up and drop it in new dates. We all know that availability has completely changed, and you may need to completely restructure the trip with a different order or different hotel. The price point is going to be completely different because the demand and supply right now is throwing everything out of whack. So, now you're dealing with a different budget and maybe they want to take days off. Like it's never simple right now. It’s just not simple. So, I mean here is the beauty about fees, you can always say hey client I'm waving this for you because XYZ, but as long as they know about it, you are empowered to charge it if you feel like you need to. Again you have the autonomy, most of the time, I mean if your host agency is requiring a certain kind of fee that's one thing. But if you are an IC you probably have the autonomy to make that decision yourself.
The next thing is a cancellation fee, and this is probably something that if we had like a focus group, we could have a talk for an hour about. Because, I think this sometimes leaves a bad taste in people’s mouth, like no one likes canceling a vacation. No one's like “hey I'm so excited we're going to cancel this vacation and I'm really happy about it” so then you charge a fee on top of that. I think this one you can totally gauge. But again you could put it in your terms and conditions so that you have the ability to charge it, if you need to, if you feel like the circumstance makes sense. So if someone just says like “we bought a house and we want to cancel” this and they're super lackadaisical, just very relaxed about your income and the time that you've invested. For me, that's probably a situation that you could say “great there is a voluntary cancellation fee however”.
Robin: I like that word, voluntary. Because you’re right things come up, people unfortunately have emergencies happen. So a voluntary cancellation fee is awesome.
Jennifer: I mean we're human, human things happen, so you may not want to charge the fee sometimes if it's something that obviously this person is dealing with, a hardship or something like that. The next one's my favorite.
Robin: This is my favorite.
Jennifer: This one was like a brain child, when I was starting to have panic attacks, because of people who were abusing my time, even if they had paid for my time. But I'll take it back to the service fee real quick. Because in the service fee invoice it is so specific and what is included and what is not included. Like you get this many touchpoints, this is the number of proposals you get, here are terms and conditions specifically for our service fees. So we started to notice during COVID that people wanted more and more calls because they were feeling more and more uncertain about traveling. Which is natural, they were nervous, and they had more questions. And even after regulations were lifted there was just still this like some nervous energy about traveling in general and people wanted to go over their plans again and again. And alot of travelers, if they haven’t been out of the country, they want one call per month but they booked 10 months out. So, now that's 10 hours right there that I need to account for billing wise.
So, this next one is a supplemental call fee. And it’s actually noted in the service fee for Explorateur Travel’s direct fee, for when they originally pay their service fee. And it says supplemental phone calls will be charged at a rate of YZ because they already get, I think it's 3, 1-hour phone calls included in their service fee. Now I know someone listening is probably appalled at this concept, but I'm not a phone call person, Robin is not a phone call person. You are not listening to people that love to jump on the phone and talk through things. We love loom we love recording her our thoughts and sending them over for review, rather than getting on a phone call that could really bleed into our day. So, a supplemental call fee, again, you can always waive it but you can't always employ it.
So having it in your terms and conditions and saying a supplemental call fee will be charged at $150 per hour and should you want to schedule this at any time during your planning process here is a link. Because guess what, Calendly allows for payments to be accepted. So, for them to even be able to schedule a supplemental call, they would have to be able to go through calendly, and you could collect through square, and a payment in advance. Of course you could direct pay it however to ensure that you're actually getting those funds before the call. To me, why not integrate it with your systems, we love a good automation anywhere.
So, that's the last thing but, I just I didn't mention this before, and I forgot to actually add it here, but the last thing that I want to stay about why to charge fees, is that if you do need to break up with a client you need to do that blessing release. Having a fee that you can return is a very cut-and-dry way of blessing and releasing that client. They can't really argue that they haven't gotten anything delivered to them if you say this relationship is not working, I'm going to go ahead and return the fee. I'm not promoting refunds, Robin and I, we don't do that, we don't love a refund, and I think they're a very rare occasion that you should ever refund a client or any fees. However, sometimes we know someone sneaks into your client workflow and it's just nice to be able to put an actual number on that break up, and is very clear that way. Like I return your money, there's no harm no foul, no one is walking away with something more or less than they came in with. But if you say, just conceptually, hey I'm going to go ahead and say this relationship isn't working, there's much more of a chance of them pushing back. Wouldn’t you agree, Robin?
Robin: 100%. Yeah, it is that very line in the sand, we’re not working. Im not best for you, you’re what’s best for me. Here’s your money go find someone else, or book direct, whatever that may be. So, we do use this in Tique, I used this in Explorateur as well. You never want them to be like “you took my money and ran”, you sent me this quote and then never got back to me, you stole my money. That's never a good look. I'm so like crazy about reviews I never want somebody to like blow us up and like give us a bad review. And that that is a really awesome way to be like I mean there’s nothing really to complain about, we weren’t a good fit, here is what you paid, bye.
Jennifer: No I completely agree, and again, we're not we're definitely not promoting refunds but we are promoting protecting your peace. That's what all of this episode is about. It's to protect your peace with fees, they protect your wallet. If they protect your financial peace they protect your mental peace. So, we are pro fees now I've I've changed my tune. I'm here to admit my faults.
Robin: We’ve learned the ways of the past are not the ways of our future.
Jennifer: Thank you everyone for listening to Tique Talks and we will catch you on the next episode where we are going to talk about how to implement those fees.
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