Travel Organisation Destinology Digitalise Their Service with Chat for Website
Travel agents have been digitalising their services due to closures of their high street premises, the BBC reported that closures had risen by 45% between 2013 and 2014[1]. By the end of December 2016 Thomas Cook ceased their presence in 28 shops across the UK[2].
High street shops didn’t have much competition as the majority of UK holidaymakers shopped locally due to the range of holiday destinations and providers that the agents supplied, until the Internet opened up the marketplace.
Today consumers have a minefield of agents to select from across the Internet and are exposed to many forms of advertising, TV, radio and magazines etc.
Travel agents need to ensure that their online presence reflects the experience of the physical shop. The information needs to be easy to access and the company as contactable as a shop advisor.
Travel Agents Use Chat for Website to Advise Online
Destinology are a travel agency established in 2004. Service and quality play a significant role in what they do. Destinology are winners of awards including the British Travel Awards, TTG Awards and Coolbrands.
Destinology previously selected a US live chat provider, upon reviewing the support available; the Travel Agent bought their chat back to the UK by implementing Click4Assistance instead.
“Good Value and Excellent Functionality.
“My dealings with Click4Assistance have made a refreshing change from our current chat solution provider and were a contributory factor in our decision to switch. In particular our account manager has been particularly helpful, running demonstrations for various business stakeholders and getting our questions answered quickly and concisely.
“We are now in the process of developing our new connection and are finding the process relatively simple and stress-free.”
-Project Manager / Business Analyst at Destinology
The Click4Assistance solution is 100% customisable, which allowed the flexibility of Destinology’s current designs to be uploaded into the Click4Assistance software and continue to be used across the website.
The Travel Agent has chosen to use a multitude of buttons to increase awareness and accessibility to their chat system. By keeping these in the same place and of the same design, means the customer experience was not affected by the switch over.
The buttons have been placed in areas that customers would expect to see the facility; when searching the header for a phone number a chat button has been positioned next to it, giving the visitor the chance to chat instead of call the company.
The contact us page is the most obvious place a visitor will search to find contact details; a chat button has been placed in Destionology’s panel to expand the options available to the visitor.
There is a sticky button that follows the visitor around as they scroll offering help. Upon clicking this button there are 3 options available to contact Destinology including their chat button.
A shop advisor would be instantly accessible within the travel agents, by placing these buttons in various areas; they are digitally available to the visitor throughout their browsing journey.
Why Live Chat Works for Travel Agents
There are many packages, destinations and other logistic information available on the website. Your company can place the digital equivalent of a travel advisor within your website asking if they need any help in the form of a proactive invitation. The Proactive invites the visitor into chat where they have the option to accept or decline, as they would in a traditional high street shop.
Your organisation can use the proactive invitation alongside the reactive chat buttons, where in the pre-chat form; a department selector can be included for the visitor to be routed to the holiday specialist, they may advise on certain destinations or for holidays suitable for families etc.
Once in chat either though the reactive button or proactive invitation, there are features including File Transfer and Auto Navigate that can help place the information in front of the visitor.
Travel agents have brochures, leaflets and other useful documentation that they will want to send to customers where the usual approach would be through email. Within chat the advisor will be able to send the documents to the visitor, this is quicker than email and the representative can confirm the visitor has received them.
Alternatively if the advisor knows there is a page on the website that would help the visitor, they can use the auto-navigate feature within Click4Assistance, this opens up a separate browser window with the specific page that was sent through.
Conclusion
Whether your organisation is looking to come away from an existing live chat provider, or you are researching into live chat for the first time, live chat is a very useful website tool that your visitors will love! It gives them the closest experience to a high street shop that is digitally possible, allowing your advisors to assist as they would have done traditionally.
For more information or to book your free personalised demo, call our team on 01268 524628 or email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk
[1] BBC (2014) High street travel agent closures rise by 45%
[2] Travel Weekly (2016) Thomas Cook to close 28 high street shops
Author: Rae Boyling
Rae is the Marketing Assistant for UK live chat software provider, Click4Assistance. Rae produces content for articles appearing on the Click4Assistance website and email campaigns.
Author: Gemma Baker
Gemma is the Marketing Executive for UK live chat software provider, Click4Assistance, with a range of digital knowledge within PPC advertising, SEO practices, email campaigns and social media.
