Industry Interview
Money, money, money - manage your service fees
What about the service fees? Not only does Amadeus offer the perfect solutions for cost control but, with Service Fee Manager, we can even help you increase your revenue.
We tracked down Johanna Lunden, Product Manager, Agency Revenues, and made her stop what she was doing to talk to us and explain to our readers why the Service Fee Manager is such a wonderful tool.
Q: Johanna, what makes Service Fee Manager such a great tool for single-site travel agents?
A: Single Site Travel agents apply very simple fee schemes that do not allow them to adapt fee prices to their own cost structure and compensate for the loss of commissions.
Service Fee Manager is simple and flexible. One person can manage it. When you deal with your price scheme, you will be able to do this smoothly and without hassle. You can link it to one customer or apply it by default to all the agency's customers. Fees can be set according to customer profiles, airline seats, channel of distribution... and once it's done, the agent can immediately show prices inclusive of service fee and pick up the best offer - for the customer and the agency's bottom line.
Service Fee Manager relieves the single-site travel agency of complicated administration and additional overheads, especially since it can be seamlessly integrated into the Amadeus Interface Record.
As a result, we noticed that travel agents using Service Fee Manager end up making more money than before with commissions. That's quite interesting, isn't it?
Q: Doesn't it take a lot of time to implement such a powerful solution?
A: Not really... no. Just a couple of days are enough to get access to the solution and have it set up, and the local Amadeus Commercial Organisation will assist with implementation and possible training.
Q: Talking about training, do you offer something specific to single-site travel agencies?
A: Well, we are about to bring out an e-learning module that will enable agents to train right at their desks! Can you think of a better way to save time?
Q: Johanna, let's get to the crux of the matter - can a single agency afford such a solution?
A: Of course they can. It's really very affordable, and we even offer different models to meet every agency's need. What's more, the cost of the solution can also be included into the fees charged to the customers. So it has no impact on the agency overheads.
There you are - it does sound tempting, doesn't it? Increasing your revenue, isn't that what it's all about? Now is always as good as any other moment: why don't you have a look at the Amadeus Service Fee Manager demo before you read on!
Without airline commissions, and with the pressure from businesses to reduce travel budgets, a critical need for travel agencies is to improve revenues through the application of a service fee to all type of customers.
Communicate the service fee immediately during the sale and improve your customers' buying experience
When you have all the relevant information at your fingertips, you can explain to your customers each one of the service-fee components, while full automation prevents mistakes and shortens the transaction time through quicker booking and invoicing processes. Customers like transparency, efficiency and error-free service.
Pass on the real service cost and charge a cost-based service fee (activity-based costing & pricing). Eliminate unproductive sales processes.
Improve agent productivity - Service-Fee Manager calculates the service fee automatically and integrates it into the PNR.
Improve headquarter productivity with the use of a user-friendly, web-based GUI for the update and maintenance of fee schemes. Statistics and reporting lead to improved workflow processes resulting in effective streamlining.