in association with
eavily at the Abta event. Lee Hayhurst reports for Travel Weekly sister title Travolution
Jones: Tech must not get in way of personal service
Technology deployed in high street retail stores has a role to play but must not get in the way, the UK boss of luxury operator Kuoni told The Travel Convention. Derek Jones said: “If technology
is going to drive convenience it’s going to have a place. But in the travel sector we have to remind ourselves why our people are in that [retail] environment. “They have taken the decision
to leave their homes, leave their internet and go to an environment that is all about passion, knowledge and enthusiasm. “There is tech to help with the
in-store retail experience. But it’s easy to get carried away with shiny things. It’s about responding to what consumers want.” Richard Downs, founder and
chief executive of online cruise and ski specialist Iglu, said: “Many businesses have fallen in love with technology and lost sight of the consumer. It needs to come back to understanding the customer experience. What are they looking for? If that can be done by automation and it’s their choice, the onus is on us to deliver that.” Downs added that human help to
assist a customer to find the right choice could be more efficient and that interacting with a person with passion and purpose could be a “much better experience”.
Vertical eyes growth with mobile CRM dashboard
Vertical Systems is targeting international growth as it introduces a mobile-compatible customer relationship management (CRM) agency dashboard.
The firm has rolled out its new
CRM to its in-house brands in Ireland, including Best4Travel, and Vertical’s UK brands will get their official release in the first quarter of next year. The Essex-based firm is also to
start targeting the UK inbound sector, which it sees as a route to attracting international clients. Vertical Systems’ new CRM is designed to work on all devices, giving agents the ability to operate on mobile for the first time. A pilot is currently being run with a client in Scotland, which is
“You have to build a business on solid foundations and Tarsc is one of those; it is the unglamorous bit at the back end”
using the technology to enable a meet-and-greet scheme in its stores. The CRM is fully integrated with
Vertical’s existing Tarsc back-office system, which is widely used in the UK travel sector, and makes that system a ‘silent partner’. Vertical Group owner Peter
Healey said: “I’m using our own businesses as guinea pigs trying to
get to the point where Tarsc is just there. You use it to pay the bills and get your accounts, but otherwise it’s invisible. “You have to build a business on
solid foundations and Tarsc is one of those foundations. That is the unglamorous bit at the back end, the CRM is the glamorous bit.” Rob Barker, managing director
of Vertical Systems, said: “We have spent a lot of time and money refining it [the CRM]. “The challenge is getting to a
point where an agent would rather use it than not. That’s been a difficult journey, but I think we are pretty much there. “The dashboard is the final piece
of the jigsaw, it pulls together the last two years of hard work into a single place.”
Intuitive shifts If Only site to Facebook tech
Travel technology developer Intuitive will launch a first consumer website for one of its clients having switched to using the open source React technology built by Facebook. Scotland-based luxury
operator If Only will be the first of Intuitive’s websites to use the technology when it goes live this Christmas. From now on, all of Intuitive’s
front-end sites will be built on React. Andy Keeley, Intuitive’s commercial director said: “This is a total reworking of how we do websites. They will be faster and more responsive. “The underlying technology will
JONES: ‘Tech is there to help’
be very fast and load speed will be better and more responsive.”
KEELEY: ‘The websites we build will be faster and more responsive’
Keeley said sites built on React
will gives its customers more control. Staff with administrator rights will be able to carry out in-page editing. He said Intuitive recognised a
need to keep pace with the latest developments in web design, and had “recaptured its zest for innovation” having brought founder Paul Nixon back to work on product. Nixon, a technology expert and developer, had been diverted into more-corporate activities following the private equity-backed management buyout in 2012. “It’s refreshing to have his
involvement back on the product side,” Keeley said. “We have gone back to our roots to an extent and that’s really working well.”
20 October 2016
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