There’s no better feeling than stepping off a plane and the warm holiday air hitting your face. You immediately relax and forget about all your problems. We all love a summer (or winter) holiday, and behind every good holiday is a travel agent facilitating your break. Travel agencies play a vital role in stimulating local economies. The global travel and tourism industry is worth a staggering $4.67 trillion* in March 2022. With so many people spending their disposable income on an exciting getaway, travel agents build up a large database of customers who return year on year. Therefore, it is essential to have robust customer relationship management (CRM) software to ensure you provide excellent customer service to your avid travelers.
Top 5 CRM for travel agents
- Freshsales – best for artificial intelligence
- Moonstride – best for streamlining your business
- Sugati Travel – best for a seamless customer experience
- Kapture – best for providing omnichannel support to customers
- Tutterfly CRM – best for scaling your business
1. Freshsales – best for artificial intelligence
Pricing: starting from $15 per month. Free option available
Freshsales is a comprehensive software designed for businesses with large amounts of customer data to manage. The software gives you a complete view of your customer’s history with your company which can allow you to create personalized experiences for them. Freshsales has an artificial intelligence named “Freddy” with paid packages that allows your customers to speak with a virtual Chatbot in real-time. Freddy can then provide suggestions of what your customers are looking for and how to improve your service.
Key features:
- View all your customers and their interactions in one place
- Discover how much traffic is going to your website
- An artificial intelligence called “Freddy” provides suggestions on customer service
- Upload email contacts automatically into the system
- Group customers into lists for targeted campaigns
Reasons to buy:
- Get a consolidated view of who your customers are and their preferences
- Improve your customer loyalty and offerings through the AI suggestions
- Easy to use and navigate around the software
- Affordable pricing
- Free 21-day trial available
Reasons to avoid:
- The free version does not have the AI capabilities, only the paid versions
- AI Chatbot sessions are limited each month
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2. Moonstride – best for streamlining your business
Pricing: starting from $33 per month with a £$260 set=up fee
Moonstride combines a CRM system with reporting, workflow, and scheduling tools to help you have a streamlined, one-stop shop for managing your travel agency. There is onboarding support to help you setup and use the software so that you can get to grips with all the tools available. The idea behind Moonstride is that you can manage all aspects your business within one software and can purchase add-ons, so that it is fully customized to your needs.
Key features:
- Customer profiling to get a 360 view of who your customers are
- Dashboard and reporting for insights about your performance
- Inquiry tracking for new and existing customers
- Itinerary builder to make professional schedules for your customers
- Task management to keep your team on track for deadlines
Reasons to buy:
- Has a variety of business management features
- You can buy add on features such as website building, invoicing, and mobile app
- Onboarding support from a professional
- API and WordPress integrations are available
Reasons to avoid
- For the Pro package, the one-time setup cost increases to $1,950
- Purchasing add-ons for the Core package may be more expensive than the Pro package
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3. Sugati Travel – best for a seamless customer experience
Pricing: not provided on the website
Sugati is a CRM software for the travel industry built on Salesforce. It is designed to make the experience for your customers seamless from initial inquiry through to post-holiday. You can manage your list of clients depending on where they are in the customer journey. For example, you can set up specific campaigns for customers still considering your service and a different campaign for customers who have already bought a holiday with you.
Key features:
- All customer information is managed in a single place
- Quote with dynamic pricing taking into consideration exchange rates and promotions
- Manage bookings and accept payments with integrated software
- Send automated reminders of charges and departure times
- Engage with customers post-holiday with questionnaires
Reasons to buy:
- Lots of opportunities to maximize revenues with targeted marketing campaigns
- Understand what your customers like and dislike
- Upsell and cross-sell after booking with automatic emails about excursions
- Improve performance with reporting analytics
Reasons to avoid
- There is no price available on the website or on the internet
- Lots of time will be needed to make the most of all the features
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4. Kapture – best for providing omnichannel support to customers
Pricing: starting from $35 per month. 30-day free trial offer
Kapture specializes in bringing together all your customer contact points into one system. Kapture is integrated with all the platforms, so you can get a full view of where your customers are coming from, whether your customer has interacted with your travel agency through email, phone call, website, or various social media accounts. The software helps to ensure that you never miss an opportunity to talk with a new prospect.
Key features:
- Quickly manage new and existing customer inquiries
- Automatically assigns inquiries to specific teams
- Track each customer through a digital sales funnel
- View every customer interaction with your business
- Integration with other third-party software available
Reasons to buy:
- Never miss a customer question as all enquires are pulled together in one place
- Save time from looking through countless platforms
- Learn about each of your customer’s needs
- Keep track of where each customer is within the buying journey
- Create targeted sales emails to promote purchase
Reasons to avoid:
- The software was reviewed as “hard to use for first-timers”
- It will take time to get the CRM set up and running
- No onboarding support included in any packages
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5. Tutterfly CRM – best for scaling your business
Pricing: starting from $14 per month. Free 14-day trial available
Tutterfly is ideal for travel agencies that are looking to grow their business. The software is centered around offering tools for travel agents who need a process to manage many clients and are experiencing an increase in engagement. The software can be customized as your business continues to grow so that you can keep delivering high-quality work to your clients without compromising on your software.
Key features:
- Manage all your customer accounts within one place
- Quickly follow up on leads and new opportunities to interact with customers
- Integrate with social media and your website
- Build custom reports
- Build holiday itineraries for your customers
- It can be used on mobile, tablet, and desktop
Reasons to buy:
- Affordable pricing
- View and manage an extensive database of customers
- Upgrade your software as the business grows to include features such as mass emails, customized templates, and invoice management
- Customize the software to help you maximize performance
- Reporting to analyze how you can improve your business
Reason to avoid:
- It may not be needed for new businesses with only a few clients
- 14-days for a free trial might not be enough time to understand the software before committing
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How does a CRM help a travel agent grow their business?
A well-managed CRM can help travel agents connect better with their customers through engaging with new leads, nurturing existing customers, and upselling services through targeted marketing campaigns. As your travel agency grows, you will learn more about your customers so you can entice them with offers that you think will appeal to them. Software also allows you to spend less time manually searching for customers and more time speaking with them, which over time can increase your conversion rate and revenues.
How secure is a CRM?
A CRM system is built to contain lots of personal information about your customers. Most CRM programs today have the data secured through multi-level encryption for protection. You can check with your sales representative before purchasing a CRM and ask what their level of security is.
What are the benefits of using CRM software?
Firstly, it improves your relationship with your customers as you can engage with them directly across multiple channels. You can build an extensive database of your customers’ preferences and learn more about who you customers are and what they need from your service. It will enable you to create targeted marketing and send different campaigns to different customers depending on what they will like. Finally, it will increase the productivity of your staff members as a CRM brings together vast amounts of data into easily categorized lists so that you can spend less time on administrative tasks.
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*Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/962/global-tourism/#topicHeader__wrapper