The corona virus has done to the travel and hospitality industry what fires, earthquakes and storms have not been able to achieve over the years. The industry has simply flatlined.
An early April 2020 Statista report estimates that global travel industry revenue will drop from $ 711 billion to 568 billion. At that time they did not foresee the extended lockdown, border closing by countries and tight restrictions on travel besides shutting down of establishments. Some airlines have simply gone out of business. Six months later there is a glimmer of hope. The travel industry is painfully crawling towards resumption of services. If you operate in this sector you will know just how vital it is to get customers. This is where you will find the use of predictive dialer software indispensable for your travel, tour and hospitality operations.
Call and let the world know
There are people who wish to travel, for fun or simply because of business exigencies. The situation is that people do not know if travel operators are working and are available and whether they should find a new one. You have to target existing customers and grab new ones too. Paucity of staff means dialing everyone will be a time-consuming laborious job. Instead, switch to predictive dialer software and tie it to IVR and CRM. Get new lists of telephone numbers to call and feed the lists to your CRM, segregating numbers by region. Let your predictive dialer swing into action.
Schedule calls and assign lists to employees. However, if you make use of intelligent predictive dialer then it will call targets but instead of assigning calls from list to particular agent, it will rotate calls to whoever is available. You can conduct campaigns to create awareness that you are back in business and you are offering a set of travel services.
You may simply wish to let people know about your operations. In this case, record a voice message, pick lists from CRM and tie them to the IVR. Schedule a time for voice messages to go out. Keep an employee on standby to respond should a target prefer to talk with you. This type of campaign is suitable:
- To let people know about your services
- To inform people about changes in travel restrictions or easing of restrictions, availability of flights and resorts and so on
- To get people to sign up for your special packages
- To get travelers to buy air tickets or book other modes of transport
- To conduct surveys to know business possibilities and how much revenue you can generate based on client interest
You could do it manually…
Yes, you can do it manually and put through a hundred or so calls per day but it will take days or weeks to get through to maximum number of people. Predictive dialer cuts short the time and saves you the effort of dialing. You can automate it through the IVR and let an agent talk with a person who shows interest. You can gauge market sentiment in a short time since the dialer assures speedy throughput. Dialer software for call center achieves this purpose and leads to productivity gains. However, in your current state, you may be thinking of getting through your message or service offers to maximum number of people. You achieve this goal with the help of predictive dialer software. You get new leads and you get data.
Get to customers before your competitors do
Speed is of the essence, especially when it is about showing availability of services and offers in travel sector. Predictive dialer software automates the process and gets you customers before competition can get to them. That alone makes it a worthwhile investment.
One good thing about integrating predictive dialer software into your CRM and communication set up is that you have precise information about each call and each customer. The system can be set to remind you to follow up leads received via the IVR.
Customers who have booked services can be kept updated with latest developments using the IVR-predictive dialer combination. You can focus on grabbing more customers.
Since it is there you might as well use it for mundane things like sending a voice mail thank you message to customers for booking through you. It helps build relationships as customers appreciate your thoughtfulness.
Traditional analytics has gone out of the window in these changed circumstances. Top tourist destinations open and then shut down again as corona cases rise. On the other hand, numbers reduce as regulations are tightened to contain spread of infection such as the Machu Pichu region that permits only individual tourists, throwing cold water over hopes of group travel packs. You can keep track of all such developments and feed them to your customer base. Who knows? Something positive will result. One must grab at whatever straws are available. The predictive dialer helps you do more with less effort and in less time. Get one from the best provider and get back into business.
