Archives : 2011 : April
Booking Trend Shows Strong Growth
April 25th, 2011If bookings are any indication, things are definitely looking up. This graph shows year-over-year bookings for the U.S. Note that this doesn’t represent the entire client base of NAVIS, but rather just those who have been on long enough to include in this dataset.
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
Outbound Drives Inbound Vacation Rental Revenue
April 22nd, 2011I always love it when I go onsite with a new client and right out of the gate they experience the benefit of outbound follow-up. In this case the client took advantage of NAVIS outbound email templates in order to secure a booking in one of their nicer homes.
Here’s the story. It had been over a week since the prospective guest originally called in. The reservation agent had called and left 2 voicemails since—good proactive outbound work, right? We decided we wanted to try another method of communication – email.
It worked beautifully! About 60 seconds after we sent the message a call came in from that same prospect, ready to book. The moral of this story…life’s busy, something fun like planning a vacation can get put on the back burner, so try multiple methods of outbound communication and keep up the follow-up.
Here’s the simple, personal email template we used with this aged lead. I hope it serves you well.
Hi [First Name],
I just wanted to check back and see how you are doing with your vacation planning. Have you made a reservation? If not, I would love to help you. Please give me a call today because we have been taking quite a few reservation calls and I want to make sure we get your property secured.
You can reach me at [PHONE]. If I’m not available please feel free to speak with anyone on my team as I have included notes in our system about your preferences.
Looking forward to seeing you in beautiful [LOCATION].
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
To Hold or Not To Hold A Leisure Reservation
April 14th, 2011I recently had a conversation about 24/48-hour reservation holds with Pat Conlon, a fellow Client Advocate here at NAVIS. It may be kind of pathetic but, yes, the NAVIS Client Advocates live, sleep and breath increasing leisure sales. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Pat and I spent a relaxing evening discussing the intriguing world of holds.
Here’s our thinking: If you’re going to allow your reservation team to offer 24 or 48-hour holds, why not just get the credit card, charge the reservation and offer a 24-hour cancelation policy instead? Make sense? Clichés about birds in bushes aside, why wouldn’t you want the money now? You’re still providing your guest with a fair deal, and fundamentally the same benefit. Only this way, it’s the guests’ responsibility to cancel, instead of your responsibility to play cat and mouse and secure the booking.
By the way, we have noticed conversion increases when a NAVIS client offers the cancelation policy instead of holding. We feel that if a prospect has committed to you by providing their credit card, they are less likely to keep shopping.
Recently, one reservation agent we observed switched from offering holds
to securing the credit card and offering a guarantee and
experienced a 10% increase in conversion.
We think it’s an idea worth considering. Let us know what you think or if this already works for you!
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
Am I Interrupting You?
April 6th, 2011As we all know, first impressions can immediately and permanently decide your prospects willingness to do business with you. That being the case, I must say, I’m amazed at how little focus is placed on “utilizing the proper greeting” within most reservation departments. At the very, very, very least a reservations agent should be introducing themselves, the company and asking for the caller’s name.
The typical greeting I hear “This is John…”, what? Did I just interrupt you from something important? Are you so busy that my call is bothering you? It’s scary really that a business owner would be willing to put someone on the front lines who is not trained, coached and motivated to provide a phenomenal experience. A couple quick steps I would recommend to ensure that the face of your company delivers a powerful experience to each and every prospect:
- Record and monitor your inbound calls. If you don’t it’s going to be difficult to provide any kind of useful feedback or coaching for your agents.
- Coach each reservation agent twice a month. The most successful sales people receive coaching so that they can grow and improve. By the way, your agents should be considered sales people. They decide if someone stays with you or not, right?
- Use behavioral incentives initially. Following basic human psychology, behaviors that get rewarded get repeated. Therefore, start by rewarding the behavior (using the proper greeting, in this case), once the behavior is established you can transition to rewarding the result: bookings. Beware; auditing the behavior should always exist as a qualifier, even as you offer other incentives.
Let me know how it works, or what you find? Here’s to the face of your company.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
Working For The Weekend
April 5th, 2011Maybe more people are reading email, posting on Facebook and taking a call on their cell at their cubicle during the week. Maybe. But one thing is for sure – a greater percentage of callers are reaching out to resort lodging properties during the weekend.
During the last six years, the percentage of callers dialing for vacation accommodation information or a booking on the weekend has increased from 15.25% in 2005 to 18.65% in 2010, a 22% increase. Who is answering your phone on the weekend?
Mike Ficher
Senior Business Analyst
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