The Best CRM’s for Travel and Tourism
Do you often find yourself spending hours each week looking for client emails, making sure people have paid their invoices, and struggling to craft marketing content? We know we did. This post is a designated space to show you the best travel and tourism CRM softwares.
We have been working in the travel and tourism industry for over 15 years. From raft guiding to guiding hikes through Western Newfoundland and to Katie acting as Program Manager at Wild Women Expeditions. (She helped them build out the early systems and processes for the business they have today). There is one thing that we learned from all of these experiences it’s – whether you are an inbound tour operator, outbound tour operator, domestic, or ground-tour operator having the right customer relationship management system (CRM) makes all the difference.
Why a CRM is SO Valuable for a Travel Business
The travel industry is an extremely high-touch sales experience and without proper travel CRM software, you may find yourself constantly scrolling through email threads to find clients’ details.
From the time a customer begins thinking about a trip to when they actually leave, there are countless opportunities for travel companies to provide value, deliver exceptional customer service and separate themselves from their competition. Unfortunately, this means there are equally as many opportunities for your team to lose the customer and turn them off of your services.
With such high customer contact rates comes the need for efficient CRM tools. In essence, the more times a consumer has to follow up with you in order to have their queries or concerns addressed, the less satisfied they will be and the more likely they are to turn away from your company.
Common questions and mistakes to avoid
Do your clients ask you the same questions before all your trips?
- Do I need a Visa?
- What types of clothing should I pack?
- How much money should I bring?
- What will the weather be like?
You are likely to become frustrated having to re-write the same emails over and over. Your traveller may also become flustered as they have to contact you for every little thing. This takes away from the customer’s travel experience and creates an additional burden on them to not forget anything before they go.
If you fail to ask crucial questions that fundamentally determine if a person is mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to go on the trip you will not only have an unsatisfied customer but you may have a person who actively deters people from acquiring your services. Preemptively answering these questions will instill confidence in your ability to make your customer’s travel experience as relaxing as possible.
Which CRM’s are the Best?
A Powerful (& Affordable) CRM
Go High Level is an all-in-one CRM that helps travel companies automate lead nurturing, booking confirmations, multi-channel communication (SMS, email, calls), and easy sales pipeline management from inquiry to booking.
A Comprehensive CRM
HubSpot is a versatile CRM that helps travel companies manage customer relationships, automate marketing, and streamline sales processes. With tools for lead tracking, email campaigns, and personalized customer service, it enables businesses to enhance client engagement and grow efficiently.
A Simple & Streamlined CRM
Pipedrive is a simple yet powerful CRM designed for travel companies to manage leads, track bookings, and optimize sales. Its visual pipeline and automation tools help streamline operations, improve customer interactions, and drive business growth.
A Robust CRM & Workspace
Zoho CRM, within Zoho Workspace, offers travel companies a complete solution for managing customer relationships, automating sales, and improving engagement, all while streamlining operations through Zoho’s collaborative tools.
→ TRY ZOHO
All of the above CRM software provides features that are perfect for streamlining all aspects of a traveller’s lifecycle with your business. We use automation to provide trip details automatically, collect traveller information via hosted forms, follow up on overdue payments, create tasks at critical times, and much more. This data is then compiled into a customer profile so that you don’t have to scroll through multiple email threads to find the details.
How can a CRM Benefit you?
CRM’s solves FIVE large pain points all travel businesses face when dealing with customer workflows and marketing;
- Tracking client information for the long term allows you to send birthday wishes and passport expiry reminders or pre-populate forms with existing client data, so they simply have to update their details.
- Managing tags and segments of contacts for targeted email marketing or trip specific campaigns for those who have booked.
- Team collaboration to ensure top-notch customer service with notes, email and text history and email integrations.
- Payment tools like quotes, invoicing, recurring payments and automated payment reminders.
- Modern online tools like appointment scheduling, text message marketing, a business line (for calls and SMS), and a sales pipeline.
Client Information Management Over the Long Term
One of the main benefits of a CRM is that it can store all customer information in ONE place. This includes contact details, trip or purchase history, interactions such as calls and emails as well as the marketing emails they receive. You may be thinking this sounds like most CRM software, but with our selections above, you can also create custom fields to capture whatever information you want.
Why are custom fields so important?
From the outset, custom fields sound like more functional google forms but they are far more powerful than that. Custom fields can be used to;
Trigger a variety of different reminders and automation such as the last date travelled automation. This automated notification is a fantastic way to get your customers excited about another trip. You can trigger this automation to start for all customers for which it’s been a year since they last travelled. In this automation, you can ask them questions like. Have they travelled since their previous trip with you? Asking questions to previous travellers sparks the desire to travel again and let them know you are there to assist them along the way.
Create forms that can collect a plethora of information from your traveller. Information from fitness level, trip goals, gear sizing requirements, flight arrival times, insurance details, medical information and much more. You can flag information if certain answers require extra attention. This is what allows you to thoroughly vet your potential clients before sending them on a trip they are not yet prepared for.
This is why a good CRM is a game-changer for the travel industry. How many times have you gone back to check if someone has completed their trip information or signed their paperwork only to find out you have had no response? CRM’s cut through all of these tedious chores through the use of automation.
Payments System
Another pain point for travel agents and tour operators is tracking and processing payments. CRM’s make this process much easier by automating the invoicing process and providing tools to help you collect payments. You can set up automatic payment reminders to help customers pay on time. This helps reduce the amount of time you spend chasing payments and allows you to focus on your business.
Team Collaboration to Ensure Top-notch Customer Service
A CRM is a team-based system that can help your team in many different areas. One of its best features is the ability to 2-way sync with Gmail or Outlook. With this integration, emails sent from the CRM OR Gmail show up on the contact’s profile. It offers centralized data, which makes it easier for team members to see what has been sent or received when they view the contact’s profile. This helps team communication and collaboration, as team members can easily see who is working on what.
CRM Integrations
This allows you to better track and process all sorts of data within your business. It integrates with Zapier, a web application that allows your CRM to integrate with over 4000 different apps. This means its functionality is endless! You can use Zapier to connect with your various different software such as YouLi, Google Sheets, Click Funnel, DocuSign and much more. This allows you to better track and process all sorts of data within your business.
To Conclude
Whether you are a small business just starting out or a larger 7-8 figure business looking to streamline your client care processes, a CRM will streamline many aspects of your business. It will ensure you don’t ask the same question twice, give you an organized and secure database of all client information, and you never miss a payment reminder again. Make your customers’ service exceptional and their trip preparations painless.
Join the Conversation
We would love for you to join our Business of Adventure Facebook group. This is a collaborative space for business owners or freelancers in the adventure travel and tourism space. The focus here is to share best practices and tips about online presence and digital marketing (front end) and online systems (back end) so you can establish a rock-solid foundation for your adventure business. If this is something you could benefit from, please join!