CRMs have become an essential tool for any business selling online. These will help you devote the right resources to sales, marketing and customer service, while also making your life easier through automation
Customer Relationship Management systems, much better known as CRMs, are an essential tool for any company working online, including tour and experience operators. They are used to make sales, marketing and customer service much easier by recording many of the contacts you have with each customer. Like most tools, there is a lot to consider, they can be complicated, and the more work you put in, the more useful they will be.
A CRM is a large database that keeps track of each touchpoint you have with your customers. Usually, this is recorded automatically, such as with marketing emails, but at times the data needs to be entered manually, such as with sales or customer service calls. With all of this data, you can see how well your marketing is performing and pinpoint any problems you may be having, while also having a complete record of every communication with a customer.
In theory, this reduces paperwork, increases efficiency and you can automate many processes. However, you need to choose the right CRM for your needs and manage it well. Some systems are very complicated and require specialist knowledge. And, just like any other tool, it will quickly become a confusing mess if it’s not kept organised.
Do tour operators need a specialised CRM?
Most tour and experience operators will not require a highly specialised CRM, although larger companies might. Products such as TourCMS will provide many of the features of a CRM while plugging into your reservation system and online marketplaces. However, it won’t have other aspects which HubSpot or HootSuite would give you, such as social sharing. Social media specific-products such as Buffer or Sprout Social are relatively cheap and may be used for Instagram sharing.
A tour operator needs to consider exactly what they want from a CRM. Because you will have a reservation system, you will already have much of your sales, booking and revenue tracking in one location. This may also be able to handle waivers and perform customer service functions, such as pre- and post-trip communications.
“The top level is efficiency and automation,” Jessica Gregory, VP of Marketing at Palisis says. “It’s about being able to use the analytics to provide business data that you would either struggle to mine out of a spreadsheet or would take a lot of time and effort to set up those workflows.
“On the other side, it’s about how much you’re paying internally for people to do these tasks manually or if you allocate time and resources to building these things yourself.”
A CRM will be able to give you information on your distribution channels, such as OTAs, agents and your website. A tours and experience-specific product, such as TourCMS, will also be able to gather information from handheld or installed devices and be able to cope with walkups. It will then show you how each of these channels is performing so that you can devote your resources to the right channels to maximise your income.
It will also give you information for your marketing, such as booking windows, repeat business, customer segmentation and abandonment emails. Knowing what your booking windows are will inform you when you should start your marketing for a specific product or time of year, and segmentation will make sure the best message to nudge each customer along the sales path reaches them. “You can also work out which customers you shouldn’t be marketing to at all and could eventually cause you harm,” Gregory says.
Because many CRMs will plug into your website, and can often help you manage content on it, they can track customer journeys. Being able to implement a system where you capture customer information before they make a purchase will help you rescue abandoned carts. These are where a potential customer has made it to the checkout with a product in mind, but never made a purchase. If you have captured this customer’s information in a CRM, you will be able to send an email the next day with a reminder or remarket to them on social media.
By capturing this information, a CRM will also be able to connect repeat customers and help you to send them specific offers. All of the information required, such as names, emails, and phone numbers, will automatically be collected through online channels. For in-person sales, it will need to be entered into the point-of-sale device.
With all this customer information collected, you can send offers and newsletters by email. Email marketing may be scored by the CRM to ensure that you’re not marketing to people who don’t want it. This will make sure your emails stay off blacklists and make it through spam filters. It will also help you find the right customers with your marketing. Some will create lists of people you shouldn’t be marketing to at all.
Another aspect of the email functions of a CRM is the ability to send automated pre- and post-trip communications. All the information required can be uploaded for each product to be sent to the customer at certain times before their trip. Gregory says: “After the journey, you would be able to send them additional communications, such as gathering reviews or sending on personal photos of them on their journey, and then you can nurture them for refer-a-friend promotions or repeat business.”
Customer information collected by CRMs is incredibly valuable — not just to you, but also to online scammers. Make sure you choose one that has good security protocols in place. It is also likely that there will be different laws you have to follow when handling the information. Depending on the jurisdiction, small- and medium-sized businesses will have fewer regulations to follow than large enterprises. However, only responsible and trusted members of staff should be able to access the CRM.