Sceptre Vacations is in business to sell tours, but the company spends as much time and energy on providing travel advisors with the tools they need to sell. Sales support is an important differentiator for the company, which focuses on “helping advisors understand not just destinations and how to build a package, but how to run their businesses,” said Jeff Klainberg, head of marketing.

'Lead Nurturing

“Sales enablement” is the term Sceptre – which only sells through advisors – uses for its tools, which were reinvented during the pandemic. Sceptre has met the challenges of the crisis with even more content and support in what Klainberg called “lead nurturing” – helping advisors stay in touch with potential clients even as there is hesitancy to book.

“Just as we see advisors as a secret weapon for clients,” he said, “we see ourselves as a secret weapon for advisors.”

Even as it has guided advisors in adjusting to changing circumstances, Sceptre has undergone significant adjustments itself. While the company had previously sold travel in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean it expanded those offerings significantly.

New Partnerships

This crisis has forced Sceptre to be “more creative and resourceful in developing new partnerships,” Klainberg said. For instance, the company has developed an inventory of hotels to work with – all either well-known and desirable or recently opened.

The tour operator is returning to its traditional European destinations as quickly as possible as they open to visitors.

While Sceptre will customize any program it also has tools to make packaging easier.

The company has 75 Prebuilt vacations so that advisors can quickly get a suggested itinerary and price quote to a client.

“If you can show them an itinerary instantly, that is very powerful,” Klainberg said.

Itinerary Building

Also available to make selling easier is PerfectFIT, a self-service online tool that enables advisors to quickly build out a package and get a suggested itinerary and a price to a client. With so many advisors now working remotely, Klainberg said they might be sitting on their laptops at 11 at night and get a lead from social media. Using PerfectFIT, they can put together an itinerary with air and hotel, and quickly send it to the client.

An innovation Sceptre introduced into PerfectFIT is what Klainberg calls a “baby CRM,” which alerts advisors about whether a client viewed a quote – or didn’t.

The advisor can then either follow up to see if they’re interested or “nudge” them to look at the quote.

Every quote created by an advisor online or on the phone becomes a custom online brochure that can be shared with clients.

It is a beautiful virtual guide, said Klainberg, branded to the advisor and with the client’s name on it.

Sceptre's Agent-only Website

The content on Sceptre Vacations’ website, which is available through an advisor-only firewall, is wide and deep – from articles on “How to Ace Your First Phone Call With a new Client” to a webinar on “Client Comfort: Getting Clients to Book in Challenging Times.”

There is even postpandemic information like a webinar on “How to Prepare for the Coming Boom” and an article on “Selling Travel to Risk- Averse Clients.”

A cluster of content falls under a Travel Rebound Roadmap umbrella, a sort of pandemic-era curriculum, which “helps advisors weather the storm and grab business,” said Sceptre’s Jeff Klainberg.