Having trouble keeping on top of all your customer interactions and their travel plans? Sounds like you need to try a special travel agency CRM solution.
So many travel agents see their job as a simple numbers game, where selling trips is the only objective. Others have accepted that a travel agency CRM tool will keep them organized, but they’re not using it to its full potential, preventing any business growth.
A travel CRM system is far more than just a customer database. You can improve all areas of your business with:
workflow automation,
lead management,
contact management,
measurable pipeline management,
more personalized customer relationships,
account management,
creating effective marketing strategies,
supplier management,
access to sales performance insights.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in our 7 advantages of using a travel CRM solution to stay on top of the tourism industry.
Whether you’re working in business travel or tourism, efficiency behind the scenes is paramount. Between last-minute changes and the massive traffic you receive around peak travel times, tour operators need to be on the ball to offer the best service and customer experiences.
So, how can travel agency CRM boost your productivity?
Well, if your travel CRM only has a limited number of instruments, not much can be done. However, CRMs like Bitrix24, which come with native project management tools, are an ideal way to organize and enhance your internal efforts and sales processes.
Workflow templates for every department help your teams standardize processes, removing all the guesswork while staying compliant by covering every process you need. As an example, at peak times just before summer, you can equip your sales teams with a workflow of tasks that is ready to deploy at the click of a button. You can check for extra availability, get in touch with all the relevant parties, and confirm all payments and reservations without missing a beat.
Automations work in tandem with your workflows. Rather than running around the office checking if one task is done before assigning the next, you can use dependencies. In practice, one team member confirms completion, which triggers your travel agency CRM software to assign the next step automatically.
This allows you to step back from stressful micromanagement and endless administrative tasks to track progress instead and only follow up when you detect an issue in the travel agency's operations. And that detection couldn't be simpler with a ravel CRM at hand.
You can configure project management software to send a notification when a task is reaching its deadline. With all the time saved through your workflows and automation, you can react to customer inquiries and potential issues in real-time to intervene and plug any gaps before issues snowball and turn into lost deals.
With travel CRM software, remote teams get the same dashboard, the same information, the same customer records, the same notifications… you get the picture. This gives you the freedom for all kinds of working formats. So whether you want a multinational team scattered all over the world or simply to improve staff retention by offering hybrid work, you need to centralize customer data on the cloud.
Synced in real-time, you'll never need to rely on manual data entry in multiple locations, which speeds up all your travel agency operations. What's more, travel agents have a unique need for simultaneous updates to avoid unintended double bookings.
It's secure too. The best travel agency CRM software comes with multiple levels of security. With data backups, two-step authorization, and malicious software blockers, data protection is as close to foolproof as possible. All your team needs is access to the internet and a suitable device.
CRM software is often equally suited to desktops, browsers, or a mobile phone. This allows your team to receive updates, reply to requests, and sign off on reports from the palm of your hand.
But how does all this relate to you and your customer relationships?
Being able to easily access client information with special travel agency software means that your team can pull up all the information they need on any customer — all at a moment's notice. These include:
communication history;
customer preferences;
travel history with your company.
Rather than relying on your memory for your client information, you get a record of all valuable insights, so you're always ready to respond and can create custom itineraries to create personalized customer experiences.
With hard-hitting travel CRM, you can segment all your clients into custom-made categories. This is great for targeted sales efforts rather than pushing a blanket, one-size-fits-all approach. This way, you can provide personalized services and create brand loyalty.
As we mentioned earlier, automations are a key part of improving the productivity of travel agents and tour operators, and it's no different when it comes to your sales funnel. From lead management to recurring sales, you can implement automations to help you create personalized messaging that suits customer preferences.
Take customizable lead generation forms for customer queries. With fields that allow users to choose their top travel destinations or preferences for family, gay-friendly, or adventure holidays, your new leads will be sorted automatically into the ideal category before you can blink.
The next step is to customize automated email drip marketing to nudge your leads toward a sale. A professional CRM solution for a travel agency means you can combine mass marketing with a personal touch, customizing each communication with the information originally submitted through their first contact form.
In terms of your email content, you can speak to your travel businesses' contact lists in a more professional voice while inspiring holidaymakers with aspirational language. And you don't just have to assume what will chime with your customers. Try A/B testing to refine your strategy over time, and track clicks, reading time, and deals to measure your progress and customer engagement.
Once you're up and running as a travel agent, one of the best resources for understanding your clients is… your clients! Creating feedback forms takes literally a few minutes with travel CRM software. With valuable data, you can:
Learn where to look for new potential customers;
Attract leads more effectively;
Get a much better ROI on your marketing efforts;
Match customer expectations better;
Improve your customer satisfaction rates.
Got a new signup? Ping them a feedback form to see who they are, where they found you, and what they want from you. Customers just got back from holiday? Ask them what they liked about it and how you could improve your service. These simple forms have a native integration with your CRM for travel agencies and automatically populate them as your customers fill them in.
Once you've got a workable amount of feedback, pull out filtered reports cross-referencing demographics with what they're happy with or looking for, and shape your marketing campaigns around these.
Not only will you target a great amount of your budget to trends you know will work, but you will also save a lot of stress for your creative teams. Rather than giving a vague brief, you can pinpoint your target's pain points so your team can shape their efforts around actionable data.
The time will come when you need to provide one-to-one assistance with your sales. For example, toward the end of your sales pipeline, you've often got to clear up any questions and transmit confidence to your clients to secure a deal. This is a potential make-or-break situation, where professionalism and a friendly attitude will play an important role.
Of course, a CRM system for travel agents is really on your side here. With full details logged on all previous customer communications, you can refer back to earlier conversations to make your customer feel truly valued. They don't need to know you've just done a quick search for their name and pulled up their records!
Looking forward, a year is a long time to go without contact, and it's not unlikely that your customers will forget about you and head back to Google when booking their next trip to search for travel companies. However, by making customer satisfaction a key tenet of your business, you can provide an excellent experience in the short term and follow up throughout the year to create long-lasting customer relations and new sales opportunities.
Many companies use a CRM for travel agents to create a loyalty club, with special offers or a points system to incentivize future sales. The double effect of a loyalty club is that you earn repeat business from your current clients while creating a sense of FOMO among future leads. Take to social media to create hype in the off-season and secure some early bird deals from your most loyal customers.
Customer service is a crucial aspect of travel businesses, and failure to organize yourself properly will lead to much more than unhappy customers. If your travelers feel abandoned, you can kiss goodbye to any repeat business and say hello to some terrible online reviews.
Your customer service starts before the sale. When it comes to a discussion about customer management and what your client wants, pull up all their past reservations and interactions to get an idea of the ballpark you're playing in. Then, make sure to deliver crystal clear information and a user-friendly itinerary so they know the what, where, and when of their journey.
However, it's during the trip when a travel CRM for travel agents really comes in handy. Set up your communications channels so customers can reach you whenever and wherever they are. Ideally, you need a 24-hour contact center available in multiple languages to take care of any difficulties in the most convenient way possible. To provide top-notch customer service, you have to minimize customer response time.
Update your contact management patterns to make it easier for your team. You can screen calls and instant messages, redirecting to the right agent to deal with them. This lowers the burden on your travel agents and helps your customers get right to the point without repeating their story and being transferred from department to department.
With all of your client's details on the cloud, whoever deals with their query or complaint can provide a personalized experience that can salvage the situation — and your reputation. If you want to have a successful travel agency, this is a must.
Any company that knows how to leverage analytics already has a distinct advantage over their competitors. By casting a data-driven eye over your customer journey, you can use analytics in CRM software for travel companies to identify where you excel and which stages you need to refine.
Financial management analytics help you make confident, informed decisions on how to improve everything from your advertising click-through rate and customer churn to your lead conversion and return on investment. All of these minor adjustments add up to all-round excellence that works wonders for your reputation.
For best results, consider what you want to measure before you set up your analytics. This way, you can gather consistent data over the longest possible period of time. Any professional standard CRMs will come with predictable metrics, such as time to deal and the percentage of sales completed.
However, with the best CRM software for travel agents, you can create custom dashboards to suit the specific benefits you want for your team. For example, track travel add-ons that your agents have been able to upsell. You can also filter by travel agent and assess each individual on their deals completed, time spent on each task, where they lose most leads, and much more.
As a result, rather than relying on your instinct for how to improve performance and manage customers better, you can download a report at the click of a button and offer praise and extra training where necessary. Compare performance month on month, quarter on quarter, and year on year, and see your teams progress.
We're sure our seven advantages of using a travel CRM have given you much food for thought. But where can you find a platform that takes care of your customer database, accounting software, communication channels, sales pipelines, and analytics all in one place?
Easy. Bitrix24 gives you all you need to get all these moving parts in one place. Available on desktop and mobile, it's an incredibly versatile tool for a travel business that will leave you wondering how you ever survived without it.
If that sounds like something your travel agency needs, sign up for Bitrix24 for free and see what we mean.
The best CRM for travel agencies needs to include everything from a customizable, searchable database and advanced communication features to internal task management and performance analytics. Bitrix24 covers all of this and more, making it the ideal platform for travel agencies.
CRM software is especially important in the travel industry because it allows you to:
Better understand your clients.
Segment clients and answer any customer query uniquely.
Sync data internationally on the cloud.
Offer immediate, informed customer service.
Build long-lasting relationships with clients.