I have always felt that the agent community was challenged by the fundamental battle of who they worked for; the customer or the Supplier.

After all they are called Agents and in the historical context they were paid by the supplier. However in today's environment that relationship has changed and the agent is really the agent of the customer.

Or so he/she should be. Too often the case is that the agent still thinks they are not acting for the customer. They choose easy solutions – but mostly they choose safe solutions.

And this today is where the agents of today are frequently failing their customers.

I have a colleague from Asia who recently wanted to define a trip to Europe. There were some intraEuropean segments in the itinerary. The agent using the conventional tools found the conventional answers. Yet every agent should know that there is ALWAYS another answer called a low cost one. If the differences are minor no problem. But when they are hundreds of dollars/euros – then if nothing else then the user must be made aware of these options. Sadly in the case of my friend the agent didn't do that.

Then my friend asked the fundamental question which every agent should shudder if their customer has to ask.

"…. this agent only does what you tell them to do. they don't propose or recommend.
Am I the bad customer or are they the bad agent? "

And this my friends is the question that when asked with the wrong answer probably destroyed the conventional agent model. The failure to evolve. So yes there are still good agents out there who evolved. And darn it I think there is a fighting chance for them and I would like to see them survive indeed thrive.

However for the others who either don't get it or refuse to evolve. They do deserve to go to the great eCommerce scrap heap.

Cheers
Thanks for reading - private comments please to professorsabena@gmail.com

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