Back in the third week of September, a dissatisfied customer of a friend’s travel agency posted a negative revie win a popular Facebook group. Since then, we’ve had many discussions about how to address the issues that led to the client’s bad experience during their trek booked with his travel agency.
Backstory
The client had booked a trek and was expecting the travel agency to share necessary information well in advance. However, the agency was late in sharing these details. At the time, protests were happening across Kolkata, making it difficult for the client to arrange the necessary documentations and items required for the trek. The client’s perspective was that, had the agency provided this information at least a month earlier, they could have made the necessary arrangements more easily, without the last-minute rush. When the client posted this review in the Facebook group, many other dissatisfied customers joined the same thread and shared they had similar experiences with the same agency. As a result, my friend realized that they had likely lost many customers due to this communication issue.
The Problem
Clients are not receiving important communications in a timely manner, which prevents them from properly preparing for their trips of treks. While trips can be managed with some flexibility, on treks, if a client forgets to bring essentials items, it can escalate into a dangerous situation, potentially putting their lives at risk.
The Solution
It’s not just my friend’s travel agency – many explorers have had similar experiences with other agencies as well. Thousands of travelers face the same communication issue with different companies. Currently, most of the travel agencies create a WhatsApp group about 30 days before the trip, adding all participants and sharing necessary details there. The biggest problem with this method is, if someone books the trip at the last minute, they miss many important notifications that were already shared in the group, as WhatsApp doesn’t allow sharing chat history to new group participants.
The simple solution for travel agency owners is to implement a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. This will automate the communication process and provide analytical data on customer behaviors and patterns.
To explain it in detail, you need a CRM software where you input all your customer data from those enquiring about a tour or booking a trip or trek with you. The CRM will also store your yearly trips data, meaning you can add all your destinations and trips schedules in advance. Once everything is set, you just need to assign the customers to their specific trip schedules, and then the system will hand the communications automatically. Obviously for each communication there will be an option for the customers to contact directly with your support team.
The CRM should have automatic message triggers. For example, when a trip or trek is booked by a customer, a welcome message can be send by the system automatically, followed by a notification 60 days before the trek and list of necessary documentation and medications needed for the trek. If a customer books at the last minute, the system will automatically send all previously missed notifications to them as well. Means, the system will also track what notifications are being sent to whom and you should be able to customize and set these triggers by yourself.
These notifications can be sent via both, emails and WhatsApp. You can purchase a WhatsApp business API and integrate it with your CRM to handle the automated messaging. To enhance further, your marketing team can manage customer enquiries or questions that arise.
Once you have explained these requirements to your web developer, you can consider adding a few more additional features that will further enhance your travel agency business. I run a digital agency, Neuvo WebTech LLP, where we provide Digital Marketing, Application Development and Web Design services. For a serious digital marketing campaign, it is essential to have accurate data on your business’s sales flow and your client’s behavior patterns.
Frequently, we lose customers due to bad experiences or insufficient communication The best way to address this problem is by analyzing customer data and spending patterns using a CRM. In your CRM, you can maintain a ledger for each customer, tracking their quarterly or yearly trip bookings, how much they spend per booking and the last time they booked with your agency. With this customer analysis data, your sales team can personally reach out to those customers, discuss their pain points, and even offer them discounts to encourage them to book their next trip with you.
Using a data-driven marketing approach can help you revive many inactive clients. If don’t reach out to your customers, they may never know that you’re still offering the same services. This is especially important for small businesses like ours where we matter, the brand hardly gets any reputations.
Additionally, you can integrate a newsletter outreach system into the CRM, which will allow you to sed targeted communications such as tips on how to pack for a trip or information about your next promotional offers.
There you have it! If you are running a travel agency, or even a similar business, I hope you now understand how to bridge the communication gaps and deliver important messages automatically to your clients. A CRM can be developed using PHP frameworks such as Laravel or CodeIgniter, or even by customizing more premium CRM/ERP solutions like Odoo.
If you would like to know more about how a CRM can help you grow your business, please feel free to reach out in the comments or book a free 30-minute consultation with me. I’ll analyze your business’s unique challenges and suggest a solution tailored to your needs.