Meet Michelle.

We recently caught up with Michelle, our Head of CX Consultancy, to hear more about her role and to learn about her overall experiences within the travel industry.

By Hannah Worthing26th November 2020

Tell us about your role within Inspiretec?

I head up the CX Consultancy team. Myself and my team work very closely with our customers both pre-sale and during implementation and post implementation. Our role is to firstly understand our customers business and processes and educate customers on how best to make use of our products to fit with their business requirements today and for the future. We work on a consultative basis always ensuring we have the customers end goal in mind and that we are aware of the full system capabilities. My role is varied working on pre go live projects and supporting the customer post go live.

What would you say were your main areas of interest and expertise?

Anything that really aids the customer in use of technology to improve their business, giving them room for growth and new opportunities. I have a robust knowledge of our systems and have used them in the past as a customer so I feel this gives me an edge when understanding the importance of user experience. I particularly love being given a complex problem to solve and working out how best to make use of our product suite to resolve problems.

How long have you worked within the travel industry for?

Most of my working life. My first ever role when leaving school was in my parents hotels as the Hotel Receptionist. From their I enjoyed a short sprint working for British Telecom and then I moved into the Travel Industry working for a luxury bespoke tour operator. I started my career in travel in the brochure fulfilment area, moved into sales support, then sales, the commercial department and then into the technology side of the business. I spent 18 very happy years working in tour operating and then moved from tour operating to Inspiretec (Comtec at the time) and have been with the company for 12 years now.

How did you get into the industry?

I fell into the industry by chance really. I had given up work to look after a family member who needed support during an illness. Once I decided to go back to work I decided on a change and thought the travel industry may give me lots of new opportunities and so I took myself off to the job centre, the first role I saw advertised when I got there was an advert for the ABTA COTAC course and came with work experience so it felt very much like I was being guided into the industry by higher powers lol. So I hastily applied and within a week found myself working in tour operating and within days understood this was definitely where I belonged.

What is it that you like about working in the travel industry?

Oh this is an easy question. EVERYTHING. I love the complexity of travel, the fact it is ever evolving, the people you meet, the experiences you have, the very fact that I have travelled to some beautifully jaw dropping places in the world, met people from all walks of life and the fact that there are so many different roles within the industry that give you a broader outlook on life. I was told of a quote about travel that has stuck with me throughout my years and is so true “Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind and fills your life with a thousand stories to tell.

What would be your perfect holiday?

A yachting holiday, 14 days of barefoot elegance, sailing the beautiful crystal clear waters of the Caribbean or the Maldives with my own private crew stopping for picnics on remote islands along the way.

What does the future hold for the travel industry and what part has Inspiretec got to play in it?

The travel industry over the years has seen some very difficult times but each time it manages to bounce back with vengeance. It adapts to those challenges and approaches them with new ideas, concepts, customer loyalty and security. How the travel industry deals with a crisis has always given me great hope and inspiration – after all when the chips are down it is how you react to that and move on that makes you a stronger business and stronger people. I believe during this latest time of need we have as a technology partner been able to move closer to our customers and also work closer as a team with a clear goal in sight. Technology will be forefront of any changes needed to re build the industry. We need to be ready to hit go when people resume travelling, the systems to support this need to be robust and ready to support that increased demand. Key to this will be the end customer experience and building on loyalty and security and we will be ready to support our customers to support their customers.

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