Home-Based Business Agents: A Powerhouse Emerges

This is the first installment in a series examining the emergence and impact of business travel agents who work from home.

Home-based corporate travel agents don’t get much respect from the rest of the travel agency community. They don’t get much disrespect, either. They’re just not very visible to most of the industry.

But they do get plenty of respect where it counts — from corporate travel sellers like Carlson Wagonlit, from major independent agencies like Montrose Travel, from their clients, and from a steadily rising tide of profits.

All of which is just fine with home-based corporate agents like Catherine Romanov, president of Romanov Consulting, who left the corporate world and launched a home-based business a decade ago.
 
“I had expected to become the president of a large agency in Houston in 2001, but that fell through at the last minute,” Romanov told Travel Market Report from her home office on the Florida Space Coast. “I had expected to open an agency anyway, so I just did it on my own. I love my life, I love my clients, and, most of all, I love being my own boss.”

That’s a common refrain from home-based corporate agents. Reactions are just as positive from the corporate agency and host agency side.

“Home-based corporate agents have been a real success story,” reported Janet Wheatley, Carlson Wagonlit Travel vice president, traveler and transaction services.

How many out there?
While precise data on the number and percentage of home-based agents exclusively selling business travel are not currently available from any industry group or association, CWT’s data is a good indicator of the vibrancy and dynamic growth trajectory of the segment.

“We’re seeing 30% growth year on year for our home-based corporate segment,” Wheatley told Travel Market Report. “About 35% of our corporate agents work from home, most of them for several years. I expect the home-based segment to continue to grow.”

CWT began exploring home-based agents around 2005, Wheatley said. The company realized that technology had reached the point that an agent could be equally productive from a corporate office or from a home office.

What began as a handful of home-based agents became a significant work force in 2006 when CWT acquired Navigant International. As CWT consolidates office space and closes smaller offices to cut costs, more corporate agents see an opportunity to continue working at home.

“We don’t have a strategy to put everyone at home,” Wheatley said. “There are some people who don’t want to go home. And there are some people who should not go home.”

When the office is better
It’s the agents who should not work at home that worry Andi McClure-Mysza, head of Montrose Travel’s corporate travel operations.

Montrose is based in Los Angeles but has a few corporate agents spread across the country. Some are employees who wanted or needed to move away from Los Angeles. Others are independent contractors who worked with other agencies but wanted to join Montrose — and brought a stable of clients with them.

“Many companies have jumped on the home-based bandwagon,” McClure-Mysza said. “We haven’t. We generally want our people under our nose, in the office. It’s a control issue. If someone wants to go home, I either have to be convinced the person can handle it or they have to come to us with clients already signed.”

But despite her reluctance to put corporate agents on their own, home-based corporate agents are an extremely lucrative segment, McClure-Mysza said.

Home-based power source
Home-based corporate agents tend to be highly focused, highly motivated, highly disciplined, highly customer-focused, and highly successful.

They also tend to work long hours. Working from the privacy of your own environment means no commute, minimal office overhead, and fewer distractions, said Mia Formani, a Montrose independent contractor in Florida.

But working from home has its drawbacks.

“When you are so close to your work, it’s easy to extend hours,” she said. “You create your own monster when you start answering customer calls and emails after hours. They love the service, but they also come to expect it. Learning when to cut it off is not easy.”

Some home-based agents make a conscious decision not to cut off customer contacts regardless of the hour.

Irene Strintzis, owner of CTS International, closed her downtown Pittsburgh location several years ago and moved the operation home, including two agent employees. Her phone is always on and she checks email just before going to bed and first thing in the morning.

“Working at home means no office rent,” she said. “It also means you truly can offer service. If you have an email at midnight or a phone call at 3 a.m., you can handle it. In the office, it would go untouched until the next day.

“When the Iceland volcano disrupted travel in Europe last year, I had my people rebooked and out of the trouble zone faster than some heads of state. Clients don’t have a problem with my working from home. They’re delirious with the service they can’t get anywhere else.”

Next week: An in-depth look at why home-based corporate travel agents like working from home.