INNOVATION REPORT 2015 ROUND-TABLE DEBATE
the phone we find that our conversion and margins are much greater,” he said. “If you look at our website you’d think we’re not a very tech
company, but not if you walked into our call centre and we took you though the CRM we have built in-house. “It keeps lead generation within the company. From the
moment someone comes off a Google ad we are generating data from that lead. A phone call converts about three times better than a web lead.” Hastings said although there are some notable success
stories in the UK travel industry of firms that have focused on online bookings, there are many less-talked-about failures. He cited DialAFlight, Flight Centre and Trailfinders as examples of companies that have seen huge success in offline conversion. “There are huge success stories among British companies
and tour operators who book packages using call centres and in actually speaking to people. Travel companies in the UK should not be scared of call centres if they can get that customer service right,” said Hastings. Chinery added: “The best example of [the value of
telephone] is probably cruise. How many people can sell cruise online? Hardly anybody, because it’s a more intimate booking and there are so many options. Cruise agents are highly successful but only on the phone.” Giles Parnwell, commercial director at Distribute Travel,
said: “Price comparison sites are very online conversion- focused, which is quite frustrating because there’s only a certain number of players that do really well on those sites. “There’s not a publisher out there that has a dual offering for somebody that looks online and wants to call.”
GILES PARNWELL
A TELEVISION RENAISSANCE? Trivago and Kayak were cited as two companies that have poured money into TV very successfully. But can TV be a measurable acquisition channel in the same way as search? Roche said: “I adore TV and I do think it’s one of the great
ways to reach customers. “But as great as it is, that landscape is also going through
fundamental change with the digital channel fragmentation. “I speak to my cousins who are 18 and 19 and they don’t
watch TV in the sense that I watch it. It’s all on demand half the time, without adverts, and they engage an incredible amount with the YouTube stars who have TV shows.” Hastings said: “At the end of last year we made the decision
to invest in television but not to do a ‘cut and shut’ ad just to get the phones ringing. “We chose to invest instead in the production and the
quality and we are using that to reach out to tourist board and even hoteliers to get a better deal because we are doing something that’s really showcasing the destination. “We are not saying we’ve got a three-week run and that’s
going to pay for it; it’s about what are we going to do with social, with YouTube, how are we going to incorporate it with our PPC, how can we put it out everywhere. “The thing is it’s immeasurable, so if you are looking to
replace Google it’s a finger in the air.” Gajria said: “Your TV strategy needs to be very well
integrated with your brand and the experience people have on your social channel. The brand experience in the ad itself, the production values, should be one experience – it shouldn’t feel disjointed. You can’t just have a TV strategy which says we hope people will come to our site for free. “You have businesses out there that don’t touch TV with a
barge poll because they don’t have a strategy to create a strong brand; their strategy is to be absolutely watertight on customer acquisition, efficiencies of that acquisition,
40 — FEBRUARY 2015 —
TRAVOLUTION.CO.UK
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