What is a CRM in the travel industry?
Today, a computer with Internet access and a telephone are not enough to work in the tourism service sector. With such a set of "funds" the company risks going bankrupt. Therefore, CRM for travel agencies has now become a necessity. The program will increase sales of tours and maintain the quality of service at a high level.
By the way, no matter what industry you work in, you may find the following CRMs useful:
- Zoho - the best CRM for small businesses
- Salesforce - the best enterprise CRM system
- Pipedrive - the CRM system focused on successful sales
- Capsule - best for sales teams wanting a simple and affordable solution
- monday sales crm - easy to use CRM platform
For successful automation, CRM must take into account the specifics of this business, including:
- Base of strategic partners: The software must process the information received from the client in such a way that the manager can quickly select and form a profitable offer for him;
- Features of the tourism sector: To increase the level of sales of tours, you need to lay the marketing component and think over competent promotions;
- Advertising: You need to notify customers about "burning" tours using IP telephony, sms or email.
If you are a travel business owner, these 5 CRMs will come in handy:
- Freshsales
- Creatio
- EngageBay
- Kapture
- Moonstride
What Does a Travel CRM Software do?
The main component of the tourism business is its seasonality. This means that tour prices are constantly changing. The CRM system will help the travel agency respond quickly to changes in the cost of tours and notify customers about their "real" price.
Main tasks of CRM for travel agency:
- automate the work of your managers;
- store all information about purchased tours for each of your clients;
- promptly register new applications;
- automate the system of discounts for certain tours;
- quickly draw up documentation for tours;
- record expenses with operators and customers;
- integrate the program with the hotel and ticket booking system.
The Advantages of Using a Travel CRM Software
Information technologies can significantly improve the quality of interaction between a travel company and a client, affect the management functions and establish relationships between them. The tourism niche is highly competitive, so the right sales funnel, implementation of a loyalty program, advertising and tools for working with potential customers are important. The tourism CRM system includes the necessary set of tools for working with managers, partners, customers, and accounting.
Advantages of implementing a travel agency management system:
Sales control
A CRM system for tourism allows you to monitor sales, track conversion, and determine the best destinations. The system tracks employee performance, provides customer data, forms a target audience, compares sales over different periods, and performs many other tasks that help improve sales.
Management of the company
The owner receives a convenient tool for controlling business processes, many of which are easy to automate. Changing the status of customers, implementing individual loyalty programs, processing applications, automatic mailing to customers and reminders simplify company management.
Reports
CRM for a travel agency has extensive analytical capabilities and collects detailed reports. It can be accounting of all finances, sales analytics for specific countries, tools for creating a sales funnel, tracking the company's growth dynamics. There is also data about customers, the reasons for their refusals, the need for services and other reports. Everything is collected in a convenient interface and allows for detailed analytics.
Marketing
With detailed reports and a large number of marketing tools, you can easily scale your business and expand your company's capabilities. Marketing tools include sending messages and special offers, loyalty programs, branding, mobile applications for customers, integration with various systems, etc.
Document management
A CRM system for a travel agency includes a complete package of documents with the possibility of autofill. It's easy to upload your contracts, reservation letters, tourist attractions, annexes to contracts and other documents necessary for the company's work.
[Related Article: What are the functional & technical features of CRM software?]
How to Choose the Perfect CRM for Travel Agents
In this article, we will consider the most popular CRM for tours and travels. Before making a decision to choose a particular software, consider the following points:
- how the system is implemented;
- technical features;
- number of valid users;
- how convenient the interface is;
- what is your budget;
- security of stored data.
Pay special attention to the possibilities of integration. If the CRM system can "find contact" with other applications, then importing data will not need to be done manually. If the process is automated, it saves time. This is especially important for travel agencies, because integration with the site, online payment, connection with the hotel - all this plays an important role. Spend more time choosing a CRM system to be aware of the current processes of your business.
[Related Article: How to Choose a CRM System]
The 5 Best CRM Software for Travel Agencies
Below we will consider the TOP-5 best CRM for travel industry.
Freshsales
Freshsales is a simple CRM system. It is a one-in-all system for travel agencies like yours, seamlessly integrating with your business environment and assisting you in staying ahead of the competition. A full-fledged CRM system for communications, management and collaboration. The platform is universal. Here you can save projects, files, messages, tasks, contacts.
Information about each client is always at hand: correspondence, ordered tours, notes and wishes of the client. With such possibilities, you can select tours for the client, anticipating wishes.
Pros
With Freshsales, there are no large and complex setup operations, many integrations work, and all operations are performed and stored in the cloud. Users have a number of additional features, including automatic dialing, call recording, call forwarding, and affiliate program management.
Cons
Integrations for productivity applications are limited. Importing data is tough for users.
Pricing
With Freshsales, you get what you paid for and nothing more.
- Free Version: Support for unlimited users
- Growth: $15 per user, per month
- Pro: $39 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $69 per user, per month
- Free Trial: 21 days
Creatio
Tools include everything you need: calendar contacts, document management, tasks and more. Creatios mobile version is available for a smartphone or tablet. This CRM for tourist industry makes it possible to keep all company documents and quickly find any contract, account, or visa application.
The system will assist you in responding quickly to any tourist request and staying in touch with him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The most important information about trip preparation will be sent to the tourist automatically via SMS.
Pros
A ready-made product for automating and accelerating the full sales cycle: from lead to repeat orders. In addition, there are configurations for managing marketing, service and business processes.
Cons
Reports and Printables might be difficult to use and appear to have lost quality compared to other areas of the product.
Pricing
- Free trial – yes
- Starts at $25 per month
EngageBay
With its low pricing, EngageBay's all-in-one travel agency software is the best choice for small and medium-sized travel companies, agencies, and startups. Customers can contact you through EngageBay CRM via live chat, SMS, social media, phone, and webforms.
You will have a traditional customer support ticketing system as well as marketing automation, web chat, helpdesk, canned responders, and customer service groups with the Service Bay, so your customer support is always exceptional. EngageBay also provides powerful integrations, such as Stripe, Zapier, JustCall, Gmail, Shopify, and many others.
The best thing about EngageBay is its low cost and powerful tools. For less than $1 per day, you can get features that will help your travel business grow.
Pros
- Free connection
- Universal Automation Platform
- Great drag and drop builder
Cons
- Limited template settings
- Missing SMS integration
Pricing
- Free - 0 $
- Basic - 11.99 $
- Growth - 39.99 $
- Pro - 79.99$ $
Kapture
Kapture's all-in-one Customer Support platform provides your teams with all of the tools they need to provide a better and more intelligent customer experience.
You can integrate all of your inquiry sources into a single platform using the travel management system. The dashboard also displays the source of these inquiries separately.
You can also use the cloud-based travel management system to automate key tasks such as responding to customer inquiries by creating automated email sequences. The sales process can be automated as well.
Pros
Advanced CRM capabilities from Kapture CRM include automatic data collection, lead and opportunity management, customizable sales processes, configurable reports and dashboards, case and account management, and task management.
Cons
According to users, sometimes attendance may not be recorded due to a minor error. But, it can be fixed.
Pricing
- Essential - 35 $
- Professional - 50 $
- Enterprise - 90 $
Moonstride
Moonstride makes it easier to organize and manage your business because everything is in one place. Moonstride was created for travel companies of all sizes. Developers can tailor the cloud-based solution to your specific needs using three different packages. You can also connect to any third-party APIs you require.
The dashboard displays an overview of all active enquiries, quotations, and bookings. Reminders and notifications keep you in the loop so you can make informed decisions faster, optimize, and grow.
Pros
Everything your travel business needs, all in one platform. Enhanced data security, simplified task management, and convenient contact management features.
Cons
There are not enough opportunities for larger businesses. The base package does not support API Integration and Sales and Purchase Ledger.
Pricing
Conclusion
These are not all the possibilities and advantages of CRM for a travel agency. With a customized system, it's easy to create your own powerful tools that allow you to improve your company's profits, scale it, and automate work processes. Contact us, and our specialists will provide a detailed consultation and help you decide on a choice. A CRM system for a travel agency is a powerful tool that must be implemented if you want to scale and develop your business.