Ask great questions.

Being able to ask the right questions is a tool to be honed in any situation, and what sets apart a good travel agent from an excellent one, suggests Matthew Upchurch his latest interview with McKinsey & Company.

Not only it proves that you care about your customers enough to put in the time to listen to them, but also nurtures long-term trust, switching the gears in your relationship from purely transactional to a true partnership.

In times of extreme personalisation, especially in the luxury space and especially when catering to VHNIs and UHNIs, the kind of questions we ask must go beyond the usual ("What is your favourite hotel or hotel brand?") and dig deep into the WHY of travel.

What is the need to be filled? What is the feeling being craved? What kind of transformation is wished for?

Let's imagine putting ourselves in the shoes of our client to start off. To do this, we'll need to know who they are and what they do, then to picture what their stress points in that position may be. It could of course be a high-pressure job, but it could also be a young family, or a recent event that brought grief and/or upheaval (a divorce, a bereavement, an empty nest or, sometimes, something as mundane as a move), etc.

Don't stop at the obvious: a Paris family trip is never only about Spring Break. It's the wish to capture those precious moments with your kids before they are old enough to fly with their own wings.

Once you are in their shoes, you need to imagine yourself in the location they will be travelling to, and see it from their point of view, and not the one of a travel advisor who has already seen it (almost) all. What makes you tick, may not be that important to them, and viceversa. That's why you need to play the long game with your clients: your debriefs from previous trips will be essential to know what their pet peeves are.

Here again, don't stop at the surface (room size, bedding, dining options, etc.), but dig deeper: what's the vibe of the location? What is the staff like? This is where relationships and experience come in, as Upchurch says, and where your expertise can shine.

What if it's the first time they book through you, and you have no prior knowledge to build on beyond the information you collected in the on-boarding phase? Simply make the most of each interaction, to collect extra details that will help you. This is essential while the clients are on the road, because they may have needs they did not anticipate, and neither did you, but if you come to the rescue (not just in emergencies, but also on the little last minute requests), they will feel listened to and nurtured.

You might think that this is very nitty-gritty, and does not answer the Big Questions mentioned above. But, like any Type A personality will tell you, if the details are not right, your clients will not be able to rise above and focus on the more existential needs that travel is meant to fulfil, because those details will keep distracting them. Our job is to make travel so smooth, that they will find the answers, and will keep coming back for more, because we fulfilled their unexpressed needs.