The 48-Hour Follow-Up: The Simplest Thing You Can Do to Keep Clients Coming Back

Hello WorldVia Travel Network Family,

Across the country, travel advisors’ clients are landing right now. Coming home from Santorini, from Alaska, from that Disney trip they spent six months planning. Their suitcases are in the hallway, the laundry pile is growing, and the vacation high is starting to fade into back-to-real life reality.

I think what an advisor does in the 48 hours after a client comes home matters more than almost anything they do before a client leaves.

I know that sounds like a stretch. You spend hours working on the itinerary, tracking down the details, options, and upgrades, confirmed the dietary restrictions, sent the pre-departure email with all the details. That is real work, of course, and it matters. When the client boards the plane home, the job’s not done, it’s just transitioning to the next important step. Fortunately, that step is pretty simple. 

A text. That is all it takes. "How was Santorini? I want to hear everything." Just nine words. You can send it from your couch on a Sunday evening while you are watching TV, and it will probably do more for your business than any social media post you write this month.

When a client comes home from a trip an advisor planned, that client is sitting on a pile of emotions. Gratitude, excitement, maybe a little sadness that it is over. They want to tell someone about it and if you reach out first, their travel advisor who planned that trip becomes that person. If you wait, the moment passes, the emotions cool, and you become another vendor they used once.

We’ve talked many times about repeat clients and how important they are to building a successful business. One follow-up conversation is usually the reason a client moves from a one-off booking to someone who starts calling someone "my travel advisor." 

Think about the best service experiences you have had in your own life. The doctor who called to check on you after a procedure, the contractor who stopped by a week after the project to make sure everything was holding up. You expected the competence, but when they demonstrated that they cared enough to circle back when they didn’t have to, well, that’s memorable!

That is what a post-trip follow-up does for a client relationship. It tells them you were thinking about their experience even after the credit card payment cleared. 
That follow-up conversation, if you approach it with genuine curiosity and not a sales pitch, very often opens the door to the next trip. 

• "We loved Greece so much, we are already thinking about Croatia next summer."

• “The kids are obsessed with snorkeling now, where should we take them?"

It compounds, too. The client who hears from you after every trip becomes the client who calls you first for every trip. They stop browsing online because they already have someone. And when a friend mentions they are thinking about a vacation, your name can be the one that comes up, because that post-trip text, to them, made you feel like someone who is personally invested in their travel life.

I would challenge all advisors to do one thing this week. Look at your bookings from the last 30 days. Find every client who has already returned home. Send each of them a short, genuine message asking how their trip was. No templates, no surveys, no upsell. Just a real human being checking in because you actually want to know.

Some will reply with a paragraph, some with photos. A few will reply with "so, about Christmas..." and you will have your next booking started before you even sat down to prospect. Some may not reply at all, but don’t let that discourage you.

One text. One little step to add to your sales process ritual that will help build the kind of business where clients rarely leave and referrals show up without being asked. 

Best Success,
Jason

P.S. If you try this and a great conversation comes out of it, I would love to hear about it. Drop me a line at jblock@worldvia.com. Have a question you’d like me to address, share it with me!