The line’s First Mates SeaCiety is a closed Facebook group open to agents registered on its trade platform FirstMates.com, which provides “social learning content in a variety of different ways”.
Although tight-lipped as to the exact nature of how training would be delivered, Stacy Shaw, vice-president of sales and business development, told TTG it would be “in a very Virgin style”, moving away from “traditional, multiple-choice certification programmes”.
Agents’ engagement within the SeaCiety, (liking and commenting on posts, participating in polls, watching videos), will be tracked using Virgin Voyages’ own metric called SeaQ calculated by an algorithm using an agent’s activeness and sales made to issue a score between 1-10.
The figure will be used to reward highly engaged agents with invitations to events and sailings.
“It’s more than just money,” Shaw added. “Selling well is important, of course, but we want to know who loves the brand, who is active and engaged with it and trying to learn and spread the word.”
Meanwhile, Virgin Voyages’ chief executive Tom McAlpin claimed his line would operate “the smartest ships at sea” and use onboard technology “in a more powerful way than anyone has ever done it before”, including offering unlimited free Wi-Fi.
“It’s as simple as having USB ports by your bed – we’ll have six in the cabin – it sounds silly but it’s important,” he said.
“There are ships launched in the last few years that don’t even think about that stuff but we do… it’s about customer experience. Other lines are looking at technology to see how they can make more money out of people – that’s the fundamental difference in how we think.”
