THE PANDEMIC HAS INCREASED DEMAND FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE TOOLS
have to eat the whole elephant at once with a tech system. Using a third-party platform will be more cost-effective and enable you to spend more of your budget on attracting customers rather than managing a technology team. Manuel: Don’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of state-of-the-art technology is currently available in the market, often in a SaaS (software as a service) model, and can therefore be used without a lot of investment. Developing things in-house is often much more expensive than adopting what’s already available. Simon: Look at how the tech can take the strain. Create a single customer view, aggregate data from your customer touchpoints and use it to automate the repetitive tasks that tie up your valuable people so they can focus on delivering that personal experience to help differentiate your brand. Jon: There’s no doubt that we have seen many travel companies reducing their internal tech headcount as a result
“WE’VE SEEN MANY TRAVEL COMPANIES REDUCING THEIR INTERNAL TECH HEADCOUNT”
of the pandemic. This means that to innovate, these companies are going to have to make sure they work with travel tech companies who offer a customer- fiUVW SDUWQHUVKLS PRGHO 0\ WRS WLS LV WR get the right technology partner. Do your homework and speak to the technology partner’s existing customers. George: Schedule a monthly innovation round-table with all the staff and brainstorm and reward the best ideas. See how you can reduce
low-priority tasks of your staff in order WR DOORZ GDLO\ UHflHFWLRQ WLPH IRU innovation challenges. Innovation is a social process and your staff know your strengths and what customers would more likely adopt. Andy: 7UDYHO fiUPV FDQ EHQHfiW IURP selecting an external tech partner that’s aligned to their business or requirement and that has a communal or SaaS-based technology. That way WKH\ EHQHfiW IURP WKH VKDUHG LQQRYDWLRQ and product roadmap without having to drive, and pay for, those improvements.
HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC CHANGED THE NATURE OF THE PARTNERSHIPS THAT YOUR COMPANY HAS WITH YOUR TRAVEL CLIENTS? Andy: It’s strengthened the bond, relationship and trust as we’ve gone through a rather painful shared experience and had opportunities to help each other out and have
10 — SEPTEMBER 2021 —
TRAVOLUTION.CO.UK
PICTURES: SHUTTERSTOCK/ TANYABOSYK, TIPPAPAT
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