If you’re a tour operator, then you can’t afford to select business software the same way that most traditional businesses would. You aren’t selling simple products and services: you’re selling dreams and experiences. Many customers for tour businesses and activity companies plan their activities and rentals months, or even years, in advance. From the moment they look at your online booking system to make a reservation to the end of their trip, you need to provide the best possible customer service for a convenient online booking process and flexible pickup options that ensure an unforgettable trip for all the right reasons.
These points are especially true when you consider all the challenges with traveling in the past year and the new travel trends that have been emerging this year. Here are some of the main things you should be looking out for as you select your tour operator software to schedule both day trips and longer tours.
Managed Online Booking
Having a frustrating booking process is one of the easiest ways to send potential customers away from your site. You need a reservation management system that accepts online bookings 24/7, so you never have to worry about missing a customer outside of normal business hours. With Resmark’s tour booking software, you can accept bookings at all times, receive alerts when new bookings become available, and even free your staff up to focus more on the customer experience. Resmark can even manage your tour availability themselves, so you won’t have to worry about complex situations where using equipment on one tour may affect the availability of another.
Convenient Payments
Another great advantage of the right reservation system is flexible and convenient payment settings. Resmark will help you set up your booking website so that customers can pay in advance or schedule payments when they arrive for their tour. Even better, they’ll help you set up whatever you need to in order to accept credit card payments. If you don’t have a merchant account yet, they can help you create it. If you do have one, they support over 300 platforms, so odds are good that you can simply connect your existing account.
You’ll also be able to customize your tour pricing any way you want, such as setting prices based on customer age ranges, tour dates, and much more. Resmark even helps you create and optimize your own website, so you can save money that you’d otherwise spend on commissions for online travel agencies.
Customer Relationship Management
Potential customers will be visiting your website looking for bookings and accommodations all the time, but how many will leave without actually signing up for anything? You can reduce this number of missed customers, thanks to the CRM capabilities built into the Resmark solution. You can create custom lead forms that collect visitor information, such as email addresses, so you can make these visitors special offers through email marketing. Speaking of email campaigns, you’ll be able to automate them, so your staff members are freed up to focus on your existing customers.
You can also use these email tools to encourage customer reviews, so you can collect more 5-star reviews for providing excellent experiences. Any valuable feedback you gather from these reviews can also help you optimize your experiences even further, so you can consistently offer dream vacations to your customers.
Of course, this is just scratching the surface of everything you can do with a great reservation software solution. You’ll also be able to transfer all your paperwork to digital form, making waivers much easier to process, and powerful analytics will help you improve your website and your business operations even further.
