Keen to retain more revenue within your business? Are you weary of having to pay the Online Travel Agencies up to a 1/3 of your revenue to get bookings? Well you don’t have to look any further, we have 3 top tips showing you how you can save on paying exorbitant fees to third party agents and get more dollars through your door from your own website!
Chat2 Concierge’s Top 3 Tips
As you are aware the first place people go when considering holidays, vacations and travel activities is to one of those large third-party booking agents like Trip Advisor, Booking.com, Expedia etc. But what you might not realise is that many consumers start their research there, but then seek out the business website of the place they are considering staying, or the activity that looks appealing. They are landing on your website and social media pages, so it is essential you are able to keep them there, for as long as possible to attract the direct booking. You want to stop them from going back to the third-party website to book! But how you may ask? It’s pretty tough competing against the Online Travel Agency (OTA) giants, particularly as their booking engine may be very slick, their site is easy to navigate and now many even have real people there to answer any questions!
Well, a system has been created for anyone that can do all that and more. A service that captures your guest’s attention in the moment they arrive on your website or social media page! It provides a personal customer service experience, that will “wow” your online guests for a fraction of the cost of the hefty fees charged by the OTA’s, so they will want to stay on your site longer and will come back after booking for any further information they need saving you time.
The Chat2 Concierge service is regularly responding to comments,
“hey, I’ve just been on Agoda and they are offering this ……” or
“I’ve just been to booking.com and they are charging this….”
We are providing the opportunity to tourism and hospitality businesses to be able to respond to these comments and attract the direct booking by promoting their best offers in the moment they have their guest’s attention. Our Tourism Recovery Package ends soon…don’t miss out on 2 months free and 50% off set-up.
Chat2 Tip 1 – Make your website more attractive
Technology has changed the way consumers behave online. They are no longer patient to wade through pages of a website looking for an answer. They are far more demanding than they have ever been before. 53% will exit your website if they cannot find the answers they are looking for quickly.
Did you know that even if you ask a question outside of normal business hours or on the weekend, online consumers still expect the business to respond in the same amount of time as if it was during normal business hours? It’s a tough and challenging expectation to meet, though our Chat2 Concierge service is meeting this expectation and enabling tourism businesses of all sizes to compete against the OTA’s.
The Chat2 Concierge service enables tourism businesses to be available to their guests 24/7, providing answers quickly to questions they may have. Our service is manned by real people who are there in the moment your online visitor arrives, obtaining trust and most commonly in this environment, providing reassurance around any health and cancellation concerns.
Chat2 Tip 1 – make your website attractive so your visitor wants to stay and spend some time finding out a bit more about what you offer. And don’t forget our Chat2 Concierge service enables you to do this 24/7 by answering questions in the moment they are being asked and when your guest is motivated to book.
Chat2 Tip 2 – Encourage your customers to book direct
You should make it simple for guests to navigate and book directly on your website. As soon as your customer arrives on your site, make sure you have an eye-catching direct booking button to take their attention.
The Chat2 Concierge service assists tourism and hospitality businesses to obtain the direct booking, by guiding the guests through to the booking button. Frequently, guests just need some reassurance that they are in the right place and be shown where to select dates, guest numbers and room/activity types. Then they may have some questions around the types of rooms and activities, which the Concierge team are well placed to answer and continue to encourage the guest towards a direct booking. We have several different techniques we utilise to obtain the conversion in the moment the guest is looking to book.
Chat 2 Tip 2 – Make it easy for the guest to navigate and book online, with an enhanced customer experience utilising a service like Chat2 Concierge.
Chat2 Tip 3 – Consistency and Reliability
Guests ask questions in such a variety of ways online, it is certainly very tricky for any chatbot to answer based on a limited range of pre-programmed questions and answers. It doesn’t matter what way the questions are asked, our Concierge service is set up so that our team are heavily assisted with artificial intelligence built into the Chat2 software to ensure your guests will always receive a warm, friendly, human response that is adaptable to request, consistent and is on brand and on message.
It’s important for potential guests to always receive knowledgeable and consistent answers, in line with the branding of the business. You will discover if you trial a service like Chat2 Concierge to enhance the online customer experience, your guests will return to your website again and again (boosting Search Engine Optimisation SEO as a side benefit).
When guests re-visit your website and notice you are still available to them 24/7, answering questions quickly and effectively, you will be gaining a higher degree of trust, hence an increase in the probability of obtaining the direct booking. Did you know that according to Forbes and Forrester Research 2021, that 66% of adults feel that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do for them?
Chat2 Tip 3 – Ensure the online customer experience you provide to your online visitors is consistent and reliable and you will attain a competitive edge over your competitors and attract the direct booking.
We know the service works!
Tourism Case Study
One of our tourism operators who has been utilising the chat2 Concierge service for the last 5 years, has seen their online enquiries grow from year to year, despite having to cease operations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This operator was heavily reliant on the international back packer industry and after seeing significant growth in enquiries from 2017 – 2019, they had to cease their diving and cruise activities for a short time while the country went into lock down.
The Chat2 Concierge service was not impacted by the COVID-19 event and operations continued normally, the service kept this tourism operator open with an online presence. When visitors arrived on the website, they were reassured that the operator would restart activities once the restrictions were eased. Visitors were invited to keep coming back by the Chat2 Concierge team and there were even some future bookings that were obtained for the following year.
Eventually this Cruise Operator resumed operations late in 2020, with only the domestic market. Though despite losing their international clientele, they are now receiving more online enquiries than ever before. May 2021 has seen a 27.5% increase in the number of enquiries compared to May 2019, even without international guests. This is quite impressive growth, just by being there online consistently.
The Chat2 Concierge service empowered this tourism businesses to enhance their online customer experience to their online visitors 24/7, with a team of real people, who are providing visitors with fast and knowledgeable answers to their questions, but most importantly educating them on the benefits of booking direct, promoting the business, sharing the booking link and ultimately encouraging them to book direct in the moment.
What’s in it for my business?
If you are keen to:
- Attract more direct bookings at a much lower cost
- Save money
- Be available to guests 24/7
- Increase online enquiries and conversions and
- Improve Online Customer Experience for your guests
We recommend you enhance the online Customer Experience on your website and social media pages to make it more;
Attractive to your guests – timely, knowledgeable answers to questions in the moment
Encouraging to your guests – so they book in the moment they are motivated to buy and
Consistent and Reliable – your visitors know what to expect
Don’t Miss Out!
We invite you to trial NOW as currently there is a 2 month free offer* until the end of June for Tourism and Hospitality businesses. You can start immediately by finding out more here chat2.com/tourism/
Or
Alternatively, to find out more we have an information session for Tourism and Hospitality on Friday, 25th June at 10am. Just go to this link to book a spot.
*There is a one-off setup fee of $99, currently offered at 1/2 price.
Book an online demo here to find out more today or register to join us for our upcoming information sessions.
Businesses need to act quickly to cash in on this unprecedented online consumer behaviour!
