Hot tips from the experts
No online agency can compete with this!
The Internet and the mobile communication industry have changed business dynamics drastically. Your customers are now able to make informed choices.
So, how can you capture this newly empowered and informed group of potential customers? How can you, judo-like, take this power and use it to your advantage? By being different, by offering your customers a unique buying experience, by finding out what their needs are and satisfying them..
How can Amadeus contribute?
We’ve come to the conclusion that our best ally remains technology. With technology you can optimise most of your processes and become incredibly efficient. This in turn gives you the freedom to initiate change in your organisation and anticipate your customers’ needs, thus empowering yourselves to deliver the ultimate travel experience to your customers while driving down costs, and at the same time controlling (and increasing) your revenues, in other words: your profits.
We’ve talked to the expert, Kristel Lataste, Strategy Manager in Amadeus, hoping she could give us the insiders’ information on the technology that revolutionises business.
Q: Kristel, could you please give us a glimpse of the way we can capture and retain customers in today’s increasingly difficult business playground?
A: Let’s start by looking at who’s out there today. I believe that there are two generations of travellers. One is the generation of traditional travellers, very set in their ways, who go to a travel agent to book single flights and have little knowledge of modern technology; the other is the new generation: they know what they want and how much they want to pay for it and therefore shop around. This generation is setting the pace in the travel industry.
If you look at the structure of a travel experience, there are five stages: planning, shopping around, buying, the actual trip and post trip. Travel agencies used to be automatically involved in the first two stages, but now most travellers are shopping around online before even contacting an agency. And so, with ever increasing opportunities to buy online, travel agencies are beginning to suffer and have to actively involve themselves in the planning and even the trip stages of the booking process in order to compete.
Q: With this huge potential in mind, what's your advice to independent travel agents, how can they market themselves better?
A: Let's start with my suspicion that many small and independent travel agencies are scared of the online competition. However, I also believe that they can do better than pure online travel agencies. What the online agencies can't deliver is the personal touch, the face, the smile, that extra mile. Yes, people can deal with them for 24 hours, all days of the week, but that's that.
All an independent agency needs in order to start playing in the same league (and even better!) is an online presence, a clever website. Not only does a website allow existing and potential customers to find them at any time, but they can do all the research they want and then finish the deal face-to-face. In this way the punters get the best of both worlds - the relevant information at their fingertips at all times of the day or night and then confirming it all with a 'real person' with whom they can forge an easy business relationship of trust and benefit from those 'little extras' born from personal contact and from each agency's service offer.
Q: How can smaller, independent travel agencies go about this and how will they benefit?
A: Amadeus’ advanced search content is the real hero here. With advanced search, independent travel agencies can access any information given to them by customers. Advanced search is your ‘secret weapon’ for finding out as much as possible about your customers’ requirements. Once you know your customers’ preferences, you can cross and upsell while gaining time to concentrate on enhancing their travel experience. It lets you focus on the earlier stages of your customers’ trips and give them vital travel information; for example offering them insurance, advising them on health hazards and how to protect themselves... in other words, the travel agency becomes the manager of the experience and the consultant on about everything connected with the trip. No online agency can compete with this.
And then there is the post-trip feedback. The good bits as well as the bad bits. This enables you to adapt your services, shows you listen to your customers and allows you to make sure the good experience is repeated and the bad one will never happen again.
Q: And what is the message to the traveller?
A: Benefits, benefits, benefits. One emerging bit of technology is ‘Mobile Travel Service’ where travellers can be updated about everything connected to their trip via the mobile phone. This becomes particularly useful for travellers who haven’t quite decided yet exactly what they want to do on their holidays. The travel agency can deliver offers on an ‘as-and-when’ basis.
And if the travellers find their way to an independent travel agency only after they’ve done their shopping around, the agency can then ‘sneak’ in its special services, transform the trip and move it one step up, changing it into a positive travel experience, with all the details being taken care of so that the travellers can concentrate on enjoying themselves. They’ll never forget this (and who made it happen!)
Q: So what’s the next thing an agency has to do?
A: Buy into the technology that makes all this possible.
Kristel, thank you very much for your time. We are looking forward to hearing about the next developments.