Expected characteristics of our gulet cruise representatives!

This blog post is all about the difference between a very good company representative, a very bad company representative, and “the ugly” company representative. We experienced all 3 and in this post, we will explain each.

Organization of groups that book gulet charter holidays can be a challenge. That is why it is extremely important our representatives know their job.

You know this movie? (with the best song theme tune ever if you ask me)

What is a gulet cruise Representative?

Let’s first clarify what is a “gulet cruise representative” as this is something completely different than any other “hotel“, villa, huge cruise liner, or any other sort of travel representative out there.

I think this is one of the toughest & hardest jobs out there (if done properly of course) and it demands to be done by a person who really knows what he is doing. Forget young scared students or people without any experience. Also, forget people with lots of experience but without a real character.

In gulet business if you wish to be a representative you MUST HAVE these qualities:

lots of flexibility,
lots and lots of patience,
lots and lots of ability to improvise while unexpected events happen,
you must be open-minded and good with people,
even if you are in a bad movie you can not show it to clients (ever),
you must do this with your heart – if you suffer doing this – it will never work,
you must have strong character if you are pushed around by hard clients or if a gulet owner not doing his job as he should,
you must be friendly and nice on 1 hand, and professional and strict on the other hand,
if you are a person that likes to complicate you will not be able to do it,
if you do not know foreign languages (minimum very fluent English) – you will not be able to do it
if your hygiene standards are low – forget about it!

Those are just the most important ones. The list does not end here. We have tried to optimize the Gulet Check-in procedure to serve the clients the best possible way and it is not as easy as it looks like.

Let’s just name a couple of different situations that can happen on a check-in day:

You have transfer ordered from airport to gulet at 15.00 but your flight has 2 hours delay it is high season and a transfer car has to go to pick up the next group. What to do?
The gulet should pick you up in the harbor in Trogir but there is not enough space there in the port for the gulet to go there? What to do?
Clients arrive on the gulet and they realize they forgot something at the airport (some very important things). How to assist them?
There are 150 gulets parked in Bodrum and the transfer company can not find your gulet? How do you handle that?
The people arrive on the gulet drunk, crazy acting, and with drugs. What to do?
Clients bring with them 10 boxes of beer even if it is clearly stated it is forbidden to bring their own drinks on board?
The owner says he will pick up the clients in Marmaris harbor but he is waiting for them on the anchor (not in port) and he does not notify you about this?
Clients should pay € 5.000 during the check-in process as part of the payment and they say they do not yet have the money and that they will pay in a couple of days? What to do?
You find out gulet owners are drunk when doing check-in? How to act?
Clients call you during the week they need help with some organization. What do you do? Can you help them?
Owner calls you saying the clients are behaving like animals and that he will go crazy and throw the clients out of the gulet.
You have to make a check-in procedure for 6 different groups in 1 day. How will you organize yourself properly?
Gulet owner is calling you every 20 minutes and complaining about every single thing you can imagine.
One of the clients slipped and broke his leg. Can you help him and how?

The list goes on.

We have most of the things from this list covered with our “scenarios lists” however new things happen all the time and the last thing we wish is to have our representatives calling us every 10 minutes during Saturdays.

The good representatives act like this:

is a very good organizer and has all sides covered (transfers company, gulet owners, clients, and Goolets agency).
knows everything about clients’ extra payments, wishes, preference list,s and other stuff connected to the group that is coming.
knows when he can solve the situation on his own – and when it is time to call the Goolets agency to make things perfect.
knows how to make a warm welcome when clients arrive and know how to introduce the group to the crew.
he can find good parking spots, is fast, efficient, and professional.
he knows how to dial a phone to help the clients solve their problems.
he is interested in long-term cooperation with the company and knows if he will do the job properly there are many different possible upgrades when it comes to cooperation.

The bad representative will:

call the agency every 10 minutes for every single small problem that will occur,
never call the agency and act 100% on his own behalf,
not be flexible and will make gulet owners and clients organize according to his schedule and not the other way around,
be arrogant toward gulet owners and cold against clients,
lose his temper fast and go into arguments,
have a bad smell,
not be on time,
always blame others for any problems,
not be oriented toward solutions but will be only oriented to find who screwed it,
put himself first and the client second.

The ugly representative will:

take the contact info from gulet owners and try to open new company next year on his own (very very short term thinking),
take the contact info of clients and try to sell them something “on his own”,
will screw up and not inform the agency about it,
will see the owner screw up and will not tell the agency about it.

The main mentality of Goolets agency is like this:

“It does not matter if somebody screws up by mistake. Just inform us about it we will solve it, learn from it and move on”.

“If you are a person that has very high goals for his career (we are searching for this kind of people) tell us about your plans. We might help you achieve them. Nobody should do this business for more than 3 years in a row without moving further in his career”.

(cheesy picture, I know, but it is our plan to achieve this kind of cooperation)

We take a lot of pride in our work and we expect everybody in our team to do the same. And gulet cruise representatives are one of the most important puzzles in our “Customer Happiness Equation!