1. Duplicate data entries
We consider a travel business as a data collector. You, as a travel business, receive a lot of data from different platforms (website, social media, call centre, resellers, etc). The difficulty here is to avoid creating double entries, meaning to create twice the same buyer persona! You can definitely deal with different lead sources without having any duplicated data, however, you will need a lot of time as well as an excellent communication within your team and even between multiple agencies, if it is the case. Nothing is more annoying than to push an advertisement two times to the same prospect! Isn’t it?
2. Dealing with many enquiries
Because the demand is increasing in the travel industry, travel agencies and tour operators have a lot of enquiries to deal with. Coming from different places and at the same time, it’s quite difficult to organise your workflow without missing anything. Personal information, type of room required and even the payment method needed… In addition, travel businesses have generally so many suppliers involved in the travel itinerary that it can become a nightmare for them to deal with.
3. Costly mistake
We know that from a travel agent point of view it’s complicated to deal with many suppliers, different currencies, client and supplier payments, due dates and so on. Isn’t it important from a business perspective to have good relationships with suppliers? Do you think that paying them with many delays or the wrong amount will help you create a good one? Definitely not!
4. Wasted time
Travel agents lose a precious time (in most cases) trying to find information from the itinerary builder, supplier payment dates to the client’ preferences. Creating an itinerary involves finding the right suppliers (matching the client’ requirements), searching for the right prices as well as defining the margins accordingly. This is a waste of time, you would rather spend this time with another prospect!
5. Liability of not knowing your client requirements
What is also frustrating for a travel agent? What is their big weaknesses in terms of customer service? The knowledge of their customers! You as an individual, a buyer, you want your provider/travel agent to be able to know who you are, what you want and what you might be interested in. Isn’t it such a frustration when you call your travel agent to book a fantastic holiday trip and he/she starts asking you the questions you have already answered a thousand times when you booked your last trips? What a travel agent needs is automation, all clients requirements, budgets, interests and marketing campaign preferences in one place, otherwise we will come back to the previous point… waste of time!
6. Streamlining the processes from Marketing to Post Sales
What is more important than your Sales & Marketing department? All businesses want to know where the money goes, how and where they make a profit. Once again it’s not easy to deal with all of it, to gather all the information in the same place to compare your different spends and losses. The ideal would be to have all information in one place and measure your real performances.
