In order to be successful as a travel agent, establishing and nurturing relationships is a must. These relationships extend to your clients, as well as the suppliers you deal with. As with any good relationships, communication is mandatory to keep clients apprised of changes in the travel industry, special deals and just staying in touch.
You can’t just sit back and wait for clients to reach out to you. If you’ve helped them in the past, they might contact you if they are planning a trip. But you need to stay top-of-mind so that you are their go-to for all their travel needs. If you have regular contact with your clients, they may realize that there are other options they were not aware of. For example, they may consider an alternate destination if you have informed them of special perks that are included in the package.
For both current and new clients, marketing yourself and the services you provide can make a huge difference. Travelers have many travel agents to choose from; you have to put yourself out there to convince them that you are the one they should rely on for the best service and results for all their travel needs.
You have several resources to help you better market yourself and stay in contact with customers. Here are a few to consider:
- Suppliers. Many suppliers you deal with offer tools and recommendations that assist agents in staying in touch with travelers. Reach out to your supplier contacts for helpful suggestions to market your services. Check out their websites, social media, and blogs to get updates and suggestions on how to be more successful and ways to keep your clients engaged. You will be amazed at what wonderful resources they have available.
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Social Media. If you are not using social media platforms to keep in contact with clients, you are missing out on a huge audience. Apps like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others can be great platforms to stay in touch. But remember to post to these accounts on a regular basis and solicit followers to your page if you want to get the most out of your accounts.
Branch Up (https://branchup.com/) provides a free, professional Facebook Marketing program for travel professionals that engages your customers and generates leads. They will create regular Facebook posts to post to your business page. And it’s free to sign up.
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CRM Database. Hopefully, you are maintaining a list of your clients with all relevant information on them. Contact information, like phone number and email address, are mandatory to stay in touch. Each contact instance should also include data on their travel history, likes and dislikes, preferences on hotels, airlines, destinations, etc.
You can retain customer information with a homemade database using an Excel or Google spreadsheet, but if you want to streamline the process, a formal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can be a great asset. There are dozens of CRMs available for this purpose. Those that are specific to travel agents include Tutterfly, Dolphin Dynamics, Kapture, Less Annoying CRM and Capsule. The cost for each varies; some have a free trial version.
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Email Blasts. Sending regular emails to your customers is a perfect way to update them on special deals, travel news and other relevant information. There are tools that are available to automate the process. You can send emails with the software to multiple addressees with a few minor tweaks.
A couple applications to check out for this purpose are Constant Contact and Mailchimp. Each can be designed to use your CRM to extract email addresses and other information to create emails that are sent to clients at specific dates and times.
I cannot stress enough that staying in contact and communicating with clients and suppliers is critical to your success. If you’re not doing that, you’re missing a great opportunity to increase your business. The most successful agents use whatever tools and methods they have at their disposal to keep in touch. I strongly recommend that you take advantage of them as well.
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