How Tour Operators can use Digital Communications to Improve Customer Experience

Zaui Software provides a host of tools to make providing your customers with an exceptional experience a whole lot easier.

These can be broken down into three areas:

1. Enhanced Automated Emails

From the moment a customer provides their email address, by booking a tour, or making an inquiry until after their tour is over, you have an opportunity to communicate with them. A huge benefit of online forms of communication is their ability to be automated.

Each email touchpoint can have its own objective, for example:

• Confirmation/Itinerary email(s) – verify that the booking was successful; provide important tour information and cancellation policies; generate excitement; reduce no-shows; a first opportunity to cross sell or promote other tours; encourage social sharing.

• Cancellation or modification notifications – Automatically send notifications when a reservation is modified or cancelled.

• Inventory status notifications – Get notified when any tour, activity or product is close to capacity. 

• Reminder email(s) – generate excitement about impending tour; reduce no-shows or people showing up at the wrong date or time; thank customers for booking or mention you’re looking forward to having them join your tour; reminder of what to bring or expect; include a map or directions, link to waiver

• Follow up email(s) – best sent when the experience is still fresh in your customer’s mind. Encourage social sharing; invite customers to provide feedback via TripAdvisor, or by completing a quick survey, using an incentive to encourage higher response rate; run a refer-a-friend promotion.

Use the built-in scheduler to set when your customers receive your reminder and follow-up emails.

2. SMS Notifications

The mobile phone is the #1 item brought on holiday. However, a lot of the time your customers will not have access to the internet via their phone, or they may be out and about. An SMS message sent directly to their phone may be the best form of communication. These can be sent in place of, or in addition to your email communications.

Examples include: Sending a quick a reminder the day of, or just before your tour starts, cancellation notifications or notification of pick up or delay for transportation or shuttle operators.

Zaui Software has partnered with Twillio to provide the ability to send global SMS messages. Learn more about Twillio on Wikipedia.

3. Webhooks

A webhook is a way for an app (such as Zaui) to provide other applications with information. A webhook delivers (pushes) data to other applications as it happens, meaning you get data in real-time. To learn more about webhooks, check out the Wikipedia article.

The possibilities are endless when using webhooks. Here are just a few ways tour and activity operators can use them:

• When you receive a new reservation => send customer data to your CRM system

• Deliver live financial information of your choice to your Accounting software

• When you create a new employee => send employee information to your Human Resources Management system

Note: Some of these tools can also be used to automate and speed up your operational tasks, leaving you free to concentrate on delivering an exceptional experience to your customers.