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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — When agents need to find just the right supplier — say, to provide transfers in Rome — where do they turn?
At Cruise Planners, until recently, the answer was an Excel spreadsheet of suppliers compiled by the home office.
“There were so many vendors, so many destinations,” said Vicky Garcia, COO of the Coral Springs, Fla.-based franchiser. “It was horrendous, because it had become so big.”
So this year, Cruise Planners scrapped the spreadsheet and created a true database with a much more refined search capability.
The Vacation Wizard recommendation engine was just one of the technology upgrades highlighted by Cruise Planners executives at their annual conference for franchisees here last week.
Garcia and Cruise Planners CEO Michelle Fee detailed the most significant of 753 tech updates made to the franchise system in 2019.
To sharpen their focus on sources of revenue, agents got a module called Top 20 Client List, which enables them to quickly home in on their top clients, based either on total sales or on total number of trips.
Agents also got Cruise Planner’s version of the Uplift vacation financing program, and in early 2020 they will see a new loyalty program called Cruise Planners Rewards through which clients can earn points redeemable for luxury merchandise based on how much they spend with a Cruise Planners agent.
Other agent networks also have loyalty programs, but with different structures. CruiseOne/Dream Vacations, for example, rolled out a loyalty plan in 2017 that enables clients who book a cruise through CruiseOne within 30 days of returning from a cruise to earn credit toward a shore excursion, a resort-for-a-day experience, an onboard credit or a free hotel stay.
CruiseOne also offers Uplift financing. Several cruise lines, including Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Cruise Line, have their own deals with Uplift, and Garcia said it is important for agents to have their own version, so that clients interested in an installment plan don’t take their business directly to suppliers.
Cruise Planners also created more tools for its agents to gain favor with suppliers, such as a marketing plan creator that enables advisors to send proposals for co-op funding to suppliers.
“If a travel advisor meets with their [business development manager] and has a solid plan, they’re likely to get what they need,” Garcia said.
An enhanced Franchise Snapshot tool captures key metrics that enable Cruise Planners coaches to quickly develop advice for franchisees.
Fee touted the time and labor savings of a new tool called Client Lead Forms, which enables advisors to digitally capture prospect information at travel shows rather than spend time uploading contact data.
Live Planner, another tool that is set to debut next year, enables an advisor and a client to plan together using a collaborative platform similar to Google Docs. Garcia suggested it as a tool for prospective clients who might not use an agent because they don’t want to feel out of the loop.
“There are those people who really want to be part of the planning,” she said.
Cruise Planners also rolled out some tools and features for booking groups, including group proposal forms and the ability to send an email to everyone in a group or prospective group with a single click.
The franchise’s mobile app also received improved functionality, including integration with Yelp.
Finally, franchisees will soon get access to Where2Next, which offers the means to collect a list of affordable destinations that clients want to visit in the next one to three years. The list can be used in marketing campaigns or as a starting point for sales discussions.
“We think the agents are really going to love it,” Fee said.
Source: travelweekly.com