How to increase the number of clients and sales in your travel agency?

Dear Colleagues!

We invite you to an open discussion of the most exciting topics for travel agency employees. The first question we propose to discuss today is how to increase the number of clients in your office.

Is it really necessary for your travel agency to increase its client base?

Every leader must answer this question for himself. After all, sales volume has the most influence on net profit. Every travel agency has fixed costs: office rent, phone, internet, fixed part wages employees, communications, taxes, accounting and banking costs, etc. - all this determines your break-even point.

It turns out that every ruble earned in excess of this break-even point goes to net profit, and from all sales up to the break-even point we get nothing (and sometimes we also have to give our funds to support the agency)!

As we can see, the desire to increase sales for most travel agencies is caused not so much by the ambitiousness of the leaders, but by severe necessity. Even profitable agencies should strive to increase sales, and even more so for those that work at zero or at a loss.

The only reason why the agency does not need an increase in clients is the overload of managers and the lack of free resources for client service. But we will talk about this problem and how to solve it in the following topics.

So, having decided that increasing sales is vital for your agency, we must choose which of the two main sources of clients (new from advertising or regular clients) to use. Here the main selection criterion is the cost of attracting (retaining) a client.

Everyone is well aware that retaining a REGULAR customer is several times cheaper than attracting a new one. In addition, regular customers book more expensive tours. But in order for them to come back and bring their friends and relatives, your agency must have a whole system for working with a client. How to organize the work of your agency managers so that regular customers not only return, but also bring their acquaintances - this is a big separate topic, which we will discuss in the following topics of open discussion.

Not all agencies have enough repeat customers to get their sales above the breakeven point. In such cases, ADVERTISING and attracting NEW CUSTOMERS is indispensable.

1. Your message to customers
(Criteria: your message should be catchy and memorable, your agency should stand out from the competition).

2. Channels of communication (advertising)
(Internet advertising, outdoor advertising, newspapers and magazines, radio advertising, television advertising, affiliate network, mailing lists, etc. - from all advertising channels we choose the most effective in terms of the cost of attracting 1 client. We recommend that your ad spend should not exceed 30% of that ad's revenue, i.e. from each invested ruble you should receive 3 rubles additional income, excluding subsequent possible purchases by these customers).

So, after an effective advertising message is composed and communication channels are selected, it is necessary to calculate how much money is best to invest in advertising. For example, your current level of commission income per month is 500 thousand rubles per month, and you need to increase your income to 700 thousand rubles per month. Then, for an additional 200 thousand commission income, it would be advisable to spend on advertising within 30%, or about 60 thousand rubles a month.
At the same time, it is important to constantly monitor the return on each selected advertising channel and spend more where the return is higher.

Let's sum up the RESULTS of the discussion "How to increase the number of customers":
* High level sales is essential for the successful development of your agency.
* It is most profitable to increase the customer base through regular customers, but this requires a whole system of working with regular customers.
* To attract new customers, you need to invest in advertising every month about 30% of the desired increase in income, but at the same time use the most effective advertising channels and an effective advertising message.

The following topics for discussion:

How to create an effective selling ad and convince customers to buy from you.
- What advertising channels are most effective in tourism.
- How to organize customer service so that they bring their friends to you.
- How to increase the productivity of managers.
- How to build work with tour operators, optimize document flow and book with an increased commission.
- What should a leader do for the successful development of a travel agency.
- How to organize the sale of tours and hotels online.

We are waiting for your suggestions on topics that you would also like to discuss.

Marina Shevchuk, Head of the marketing agency of sanatoriums "Vivat Health",

www.vivat-zdorovie.ru

www.a-resort.ru

Are you a resort manager? Then I have a question for you - how many times a day do you think that your medical services are selling undeservedly poorly?

Don't count. If you are a good leader, then many times. Every day, the manager of the resort thinks about it, reading the previous day's sales summary, going back to estimates and expenses for the purchase of medical equipment, making rounds of the medical base, signing payrolls for salaries and medical bills. Consumables. And you think: “After all, I had so many plans when I bought and did all this!”. And the plans are really grandiose, and the ideas are useful for vacationers and patients. Why don't they buy them? Where's the money?

I want to note that the result should be the following indicator: sales volume additional services should be in the amount of 25-30% of the volume of sales for vouchers.

So, first things first.

Practice has shown that on the way to increasing the volume of implementation of additional medical services several "rakes" have been laid out, which everyone sequentially steps on. Let's take a look at each of them. For science-likeness, we will call the “rake” “reasons”.

Reason #1. Lack of motivation system

For some reason, in sanatoriums, there are often such reinforced concrete barriers before stimulating the desire of workers to earn money, which is amazing. After all, it is quite obvious that clients who come to the sanatorium will buy additional medical services if they are recommended by the attending physician. Without his recommendation, the probability of buying is rapidly approaching zero. Even if for some reason the client has an ardent desire to receive any medical procedure, the specialists of the sanatorium will not be able to provide it without an appointment from the attending physician. It is much easier for a doctor to fulfill his medical tasks than to convince a client that he needs to part with money, because it is much more energy-consuming and psychologically more difficult.

What need to do: Approve the bonus system for doctors, which will include monthly premium in the amount of 2-5% of the services assigned to them. Of course, this includes paid and rendered services.

Reason number 2. Unpresentable and non-selling price of services

This reason is so banal that it is even embarrassing to write about it. But we have to. Often, the price lists for medical services in a sanatorium are so many-sided and hidden somewhere far from doctors and clients that a person, even if he wants very much to receive an additional medical service, will not be able to find exactly how and at what price he can do it.

Many times I observed the situation in sanatoriums that different services have different price lists for additionally paid services. This is especially true if new services are gradually introduced by separate price lists. It can be even more difficult to find where these price lists are located. Especially for a person who first came to a sanatorium and is poorly oriented where which office is. Yes, and it’s wrong when the client is forced to look in the sanatorium for what and how much it costs. On the contrary, the sanatorium should think over how unobtrusively, but repeatedly tell a person who has come on a ticket about their excellent medical possibilities, suggest to him that it makes sense to take a course of such procedures in order to maximum benefit use the time spent in the sanatorium and return home cheerful, healthy and beautiful.

What need to do:

1. Make sure that all newly introduced price lists are drawn up by order of the director and are an annex to the unified price list of the sanatorium.
2. Ensure availability latest version price list at the accommodation counter, in the medical planning service.
3. Develop a version of the price list that can be used for promotional and informational purposes for clients visiting the resort. It should contain information on the most interesting and important procedures and programs for clients on one or two pages. Of course, services should be placed in the order of their demand, that is, starting with the TOP one.
4. Ensure the distribution of the current promotional version of the price list (see paragraph 3) in the rooms and halls of the sanatorium.

Reason number 3. Difficulties in planning medical services

This shortcoming brings great difficulties to both the staff of the sanatorium and clients, and is a vivid manifestation of the "scoop", when the client, in order to receive the procedures prescribed by the doctor, needs to go over all the rooms so that he is indicated in the sanatorium book when to come.

But even if the sanatorium went further and started planning in EXCELe, or even in a specialized program for accounting for medical services, then you should pay close attention to the quality of planning. If this program is too primitive and is not connected with the block of the program for booking and accommodation, then it is most often not possible to achieve the required level of service and reporting.

And very often in sanatoriums he is engaged in planning nurse, who sits in her office, not particularly accessible to clients, and simultaneously performs other equally important functions. And if a client has a question about transferring, replacing procedures, then it can be very difficult to solve it.

What need to do:

• Establish a health care planning service that is easy for customers and staff to call or visit. It is here that all issues of planning the loading of offices and the provision of services should be resolved.
• Automate the medical services planning service with a program that has the necessary functionality and is associated with the booking and settlement block.

Reason number 4. Unwillingness of staff to take on additional workload

Often employees who provide procedures, especially diagnostic ones, resist the increased burden of servicing commercial clients. You can understand their logic. And there is only one way out.

What need to do:

• Introduce the calculation of the bonus part of the wages of employees providing services in the form of piecework payment for the procedures performed. At the same time, not only commercial procedures should be taken into account, but also those that are included in the ticket. And preferably at a fixed cost, and not the one indicated in the price list. Then, in the calculation of the monthly salary, there will be no dependence on discounts and price increases. An employee should not care what client he serves, everyone should receive standardized services.
• Receive from the medical planning service a daily summary of the workload of the rooms and, if there are not enough specialists, promptly respond to this.

Reason number 5. Lack of a deposit-advance payment system in the sanatorium medical services

Many accountants in sanatoriums actively oppose the introduction of the so-called deposit system, that is, prepayment by clients, from which the amounts for medical services rendered are then written off, and the balance is returned when the client leaves, or is kept by him until his next visit to the sanatorium.

The fact is that without such a system of payments, the sanatorium is forced to send the client to the cashier before receiving each additionally paid service. This quickly bothers the client, because he came to rest, and not run along long corridors. And all the inconveniences lead to a significant reduction in the volume of sales of services.

The resistance of accounting, in my opinion, in this case is more than strange. After all, the terrible word "deposit" is nothing more than a stable expression in the hospitality industry. In accounting terminology, this is an “advance”, or what each sanatorium receives daily when customers make an advance payment for tours. Advances are not subject to any taxes and are not subject to separate accounting.

So the task here is not in the field of accounting, but accounting for settlements with guests. And this is again directly related to the automation system, see reason #3.

What need to do:

• Introduce a system of advance payments to the client for additional services.
• To provide the client with the opportunity to check his account at the reception desk at any time and receive a refund of the funds remaining on the account when leaving the sanatorium. This requires the appropriate software.

Reason #6. No one convinces the client that the procedures offered to him for an additional fee are really very useful

It is very rare to see a clearly described medical service in sanatoriums. Either the description is taken from medical records, and a normal person who does not have a medical education will never understand this information. Or even a complete information vacuum.

What need to do:

• Describe all your procedures in normal human language, based on information from doctors who are well versed in this medical technology.
• Post this information on the website advertising campaigns, in information brochures for clients, in the rooms and halls of the sanatorium.
• Involve doctors who are good at talking about procedures and communicating with clients to conduct educational lectures and classes during visits to the sanatorium.

These are the simple steps that need to be taken in order to increase the volume of implementation of additional medical services at times. And most importantly, these measures will help improve the quality of customer service and increase their loyalty and interest in treatment. For the sanatorium, this is the only way to stimulate the development of its medical base and improve services. And as a result - increasing the load of the sanatorium and improving it financial condition.

product description, domestic demand confirmation, foreign markets, possibility of import substitution

Unique geographical and climatic conditions, gentle, warm sea, sandy beaches and surprisingly clean air allow not only to have a good rest, but also to improve your health. The sun shines here 280 days a year, the average air temperature in summer is 28-33 degrees Celsius. The shallow sea is very convenient for children and families. The average water temperature reaches 28 degrees Celsius. The swimming season lasts more than five months.

Justification of the market niche of products and the medium-term concept of its expansion. The nature of demand

Demand for these types of services will fluctuate throughout the year, depending on autumn-winter period the number of vacationers in the complex will be lower compared to the spring-summer period.

General marketing strategy of the enterprise. The most effective mechanisms for promoting products (works, services) to target markets

The market price will be set based on the current prices for these types of services.

Later, on the basis marketing research it is planned to carry out a policy of weighted average pricing at a level below average market prices and their possible increase based on determining the elasticity of demand for services.

Characteristics of enterprise pricing

Planned sales promotion activities. The cost of its advertising and promotion in the market

After-sales Service and Quality Assurance Policy

The policy in the field of quality will be the desire to achieve 100% absence of complaints and claims from vacationers.

Quality strategy

The priorities in the field of quality are the quality of services and the quality of service.

Even the highest quality service, accompanied by insufficient attention to you as a client, will not bring you satisfaction. On the other hand, no matter how high the quality of service is, if you get insufficiently high-quality results, you will be disappointed. The knowledge and experience accumulated over the years of work allow us to find the optimal balance between these two key elements.

The basis of the service quality assurance system are:

Standardization of processes and procedures. The enterprise will develop, implement and constantly improve a quality assurance and control system based on the standardization and formalization of all order processing processes and work performance procedures based on an internal quality standard. Such standardization allows you to clearly plan all work and avoid surprises and mistakes - each employee clearly knows what and how he should do, and performs his work at a high professional level.

The professionalism of the staff. The professional level, qualifications and experience of employees will be at the forefront. No matter how thoughtful and standardized all processes and procedures are, no matter how perfect the system for processing and fulfilling orders, and no matter how perfected and fine-tuned all methods of quality control and assurance, in any case, our employees are the main source of quality. An important role is played by optimal system division of labor - which allows each employee to concentrate on their work and ensure the high quality of services provided and customer service.

It is difficult for a travel agency to attract clients, because for them to give away quite a lot of money at a time is a lot of stress. You need to gain the trust of users, to convince them that the company will not let them down. A well-planned email strategy will remove the fears of customers and increase sales. At the end of the article, we will tell you how we put our tips into practice for Oktogo, an online hotel booking service.

Big data, or how effective email marketing begins

If you work in the tourism industry, you know how important it is to make a relevant offer to a potential client in time. Each of the many popular destinations has its own "hot" season. In turn, people, when making a decision to purchase a tour, are guided by their individual preferences, time frames and other personal circumstances. Blind mass mailing is not profitable, even if you offer really interesting and popular content. If you segment the list according to the data in the client profile, you will minimize the cost of mailing, because you will offer people what they are really interested in, and accordingly, your chances of selling the tour will increase.

So, an effective email campaign starts with data – the big data that is being talked about so much in digital marketing these days. And the collection of this data begins on your site - preferably, from the first minutes of the client's presence on it. Post a pop-up or express signup form so people can sign up for your updates right away. Make it attractive and try to somehow motivate visitors to fill it out - after all, you are asking to leave you their personal data.

Once the client has provided basic information (name, gender, e-mail address, city, possibly birthday) and completed the subscription confirmation procedure, prompt him to fill in additional profile fields in personal account. Find out which tour operators the subscriber has used, which countries or cities he has already visited, which destinations he is most interested in, etc. Having this information in hand, you will be able (if you have the necessary tools for mailing) to provide the subscriber with relevant information, thereby increasing the reputation of the brand in their eyes and increasing your chances of a deal (maybe more than one).

And remember: lead generation should be systemic (as well as other elements of the campaign). Make sure that the registration forms are not only on your website, but also in social networks, in partner mailing lists (if possible). Develop landing pages where the user can subscribe to your updates. But do not forget that brand promotion in the context of the newsletter should not be intrusive. Your registration form must be relevant. Therefore, it is important to consider on which (if not on your) site you are collecting leads, what the user is doing on this site at the time a pop-up appears with an offer to subscribe to your content, etc.

What parameters to consider first of all

If you have physical representation in all regions of the country or work only via the Internet, but also cover the whole country (through intermediaries - tour operators and agencies), it is very important for you to understand where the potential client is located. The cost of booking a hotel does not depend on the location of a person, but transportation costs, as well as the time spent on the road, can vary significantly, therefore, you simply need to take into account the geography of users if you really want to offer people only relevant and beneficial information for each specific case.

You can also track a customer's travel history, whether they were through you or another carrier. In this case, you will not bombard a person who has just returned from a tour of Norway with calls to "see the mysterious fjords and the magical northern lights." Instead, you can ask him about the trip and, based on the information received, either make him an effective cross-sale offer (“Did you like the harsh Norwegian nature? Especially for you - Christmas in Lapland!”), Or, if the client speaks unflattering about the vacation, tell about other directions in the content mailing.

Your goal is to collect maximum amount subscriber information. To offer people what they want to buy, you need to know what they have already bought, what they are interested in (what tours they viewed on the site) and - ideally - anticipate their desires.

So: first of all, you are interested in the geographical factor, user behavior on your site and the history of his orders.

Stay in constant contact with the client

No matter how high-class service your company is famous for, no matter how successful the experience of interacting with you is for the client, you need to constantly remind people of yourself. For this purpose, without a doubt, there is no more effective remedy, how Email. From the moment a user registers on the site, you must methodically send him letters. Try different frequency, vary the content and time of mailing seasonally, depending on user behavior or according to the information specified in the mailing control center / personal account.

Purchases without discounts as the main indicator of loyalty

A loyal client is, first of all, a client who is ready to buy services at their initial cost. You can attract a person with some promotion, but in the future your task is to keep him and motivate him to buy without discounts. After all, the bulk of the proposals - even in such a field as tourism, where the phrase “Hot offer!” - is exactly a non-promotional product, and your goal is to sell it at the declared value.

A natural question arises: how to keep a subscriber and motivate him to such purchases? Answer: via email.

A well-designed email campaign involves integration with social networks, in some cases with mailing list, with a call center (if you have one) and CRM systems. With the help of technologies such as retargeting, you can constantly monitor the behavior of the subscriber and make every appeal to him (it doesn’t matter if it’s a content mailing or Commercial offer) directed and relevant.

Follow your base

Having a professional mailing tool in your arsenal, you will be able to constantly monitor the list of subscribers. It is necessary to monitor the activity of clients, clean up the list in case of hard-bounce, adjust the frequency and subject of mailings, and make sure that emails do not fall into spam. Each time creating a personalized appeal to the client, it is important to know that this letter is sent to the active base and the funds spent on it are not wasted.

If you got rid of non-existent addresses, this does not mean that you can forget about the list. Subscribers are active at the stage of the welcome chain, on the eve of the purchase and at first after it, and then interest in the mailing list may cool down. People stop opening emails, delete them without reading them. Constantly monitor the base for address activity, allocate inactive subscribers to separate segments, spare no time and money to develop special reactivation campaigns for these segments. If dormant addresses still don't respond, let them go.

By the way, this is also very important point. In no case should you complicate the process of unsubscribing: by doing this, you are pushing the user to the last resort - marking your email as spam.

Self-written software or an expert solution for professional email marketing?

To create a campaign that is segmented and targeted to the preferences of each individual user, you need a professional mailing platform. What will she give you?

Firstly, you can easily carry out all the operations described in the previous paragraph with the list. Secondly, you will be able to automate part of the processes: set up transactional and trigger messages (tied to various events: a completed or incomplete purchase, a user's birthday, etc.).

Depending on the platform you choose, you'll have a range of options at your fingertips: run split tests, choose the best subject lines for emails, try different combinations of message blocks, and so on — because each of these details matters in the end.

Oktogo case

An excellent example of the transition from spontaneous mailings to systematic email marketing programs is the experience of Oktogo, a Russian online hotel booking service, which turned to a professional email marketing agency for the services.

At the start of the campaign, Oktogo's email list had about 1,000 subscribers. It was decided to start optimizing campaigns with the subscription procedure. On the company’s website, users were immediately told what to expect from the newsletter: general information about the service, the ability to choose the topic and frequency of interest. Only after that the user left his data. Thus, each registered subscriber voluntarily and knowingly agreed to the mailing list. Here is the Oktogo registration form:

At the same time, it was possible to subscribe to oktogo.ru content through letters from partners. Moreover, Oktogo advertising has always been thoughtful and logically fit into the content of third-party emails. For example, in the emails of davno.ru, a site for vintage Soviet postcards, subscribers were told about a wonderful hotel booking service in the context of congratulations and surprises for loved ones.

The indicators could not but rejoice: 24% open rate and CTR up to 38%.

Registration took place in two steps, and all new subscribers immediately received a bonus in the form of a discount or special offer.

In addition to other cross-marketing interactions with partner networks, a “Bring a Friend” promotion was held, during which subscribers were given bonuses in exchange for the contact details of their friends (who also received a discount from Oktogo).

The overall result of the campaign for 1.5 years (including regular, content, transactional and other letters) was an increase in the list from 1000 to 41000 active subscribers!

Impressive, isn't it?

It is worth saying that Oktogo did not stop there. Since the introduction new strategy and to this day, constant testing and optimization of mailings continue. Letters from the travel portal are always very creative, bright, with interesting and useful content. Judging by the high open rates and CTR, subscribers are more than satisfied.

The considered case is another confirmation that competent investments always pay off, and serious business requires serious, carefully thought-out strategies.

Communicate, make friends and listen to your customers, and they will come to you again and again.

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