E-commerce is becoming one of the most critical channels for every industry as its value can be determined to capture the real-time behavior of the users thereby relaying insights into the frame-of-mind of the consumers. We are witnessing a paradigm shift in the market today where the journey of an offline consumer is shifting to digital. The business of digital requires more insights especially during the holiday season to make the vacation more delightful. Imagine a consumer logs in during the peak web traffic only to face the complexities of not being able to book tickets, not being able to transfer funds and there are times when the consumers have to face the situation when the cash from their account has deducted but they haven’t yet received their tickets.
Imagine the embarrassment faced by travelling agency during these situations. Is the tourism industry ready to fight for that specific day during the peak hours of traffic? Evidently, every agency needs to tackle up for the holiday booking and evaluate their inclination. These agencies should ask themselves the following questions:
- Can we offer seamless service in every channel to connect with the customer?
- With accessibility to all the digital channels, is our channel responsive and quick enough to sustain the heavy online web traffic?
- Do I establish trust and faith in my customers?
- Do I inculcate a sense of security?
In order to truly enhance the holiday experience all of the above must be integrated to provide comprehensive services.
The perspective behind holidays
Holidays are usually prearranged and customers take into consideration many factors before planning a vacation i.e. their work schedule, weather, budget, time included in traveling and various other similar factors. Spontaneous trips too are part of the ongoing trend. Someday it so happens that the individual wakes up to find himself/herself in the mood for a holiday and then the vacation is decided instantaneously. Where do the consumers drive this immense confidence in arranging their travel? It’s because there are numerous companies that provide services to clients where their entire itinerary is planned beforehand i.e. from ticket booking to hotel booking and sight-seeing, all of these provisions are planned for the clients on behalf of these tours and travels agencies.
Currently, the market has many establishments that provide services that are oriented towards tours and travel. Every aspect related to is covered on behalf of their clients. These establishments need the assistance of call centers. From the very first thought of vacationing strikes in the mind of the customers they begin to seek options with the assistance of these firms. Many a times the option that was sought by the client earlier can be dropped for the very obvious reason that there are thousands of options to choose from. So it is not always possible for organizations to handle this overflow of calls and that is when they seek assistance from outsourcing firms. Including the digital space, from billing transactions to booking tickets, the tourism industry seeks assistance from an outsourcing call center firms that can provide them a mandate for their own department.
The inflexibility of the marketplace
Stiff competition is on the rise and it’s a part of almost every industry. Slight profit margins however can shift the table of your organization. The travel agencies have to work hard to earn their money. In circumstances like these prevailing customers are vital ingredients for the prosperity of the organization. Apart from the current base of customers the agencies need to appeal for new customers to remain in the forefront. That is another reason why many traveling agencies are affiliating with call center services to expand their scope for sales and penetrate into new marketing networks and channels.
Advantages to the travel agencies by seeking assistance from call centers
- Relentless support – Like all the other industries that seek assistance from call centers to fix their problems. Consumers do not have the patience for solutions and if a call goes un-requited the loyalty for the brand quivers and that is one of the most important reasons for seeking assistance from call centers. The customer service representatives have viable solutions to all the problems.
- Holiday Seasons – These seasons are dreadful for many travelling agencies. Every seat in the flight, train, bus gets booked. It’s tough to find room in hotels. Hill stations become overcrowded. The employees in the travelling industry hardly get time to breathe and they can hardly manage time to take requests from customers. Not many customers pre-plan their trip. With the assistance of a call center agent they can manage taking calls from all the customers and complete the processing of orders. This would technically mean that the traveling agency will be receiving more sales at the last moment.
- Special Offers – During the dry period the traveling agencies sometimes announce lucrative offers for a limited time. During these phases there is a large rush from the customers end to place orders and the in-house employees may not be capable enough to handle the orders. Again the traveling agencies can confide themselves with the call center services.
- Building rapport with customers – A professional customer service representative is aware of the technicalities in dealing with customers. The know-how of conversing in the right language and tone. She/he is familiar with the art of solving the problems faced by the customers at a faster rate than an in-house staff. This will boost consumer satisfaction and retention figures.
- Provisions for round-the-clock support – The queries from customer can come at any time of the day but the in-house staffs will have their time limitations but which is not the case with the call center agents. They are there at your support throughout 24*7. Which means none of the calls will go unanswered.
From the conjectures mentioned above, it is clearly evident that call centers can considerably improve your sales, consumer satisfaction and consumer retention rates and at the same time provide insights which would help the traveling agencies move ahead this competitive state of affairs.