Technology/Internet :: Travel Manager

August 9, 2010 – 9:01 am

We’ve been pretty quiet on the blog the last few weeks because there’s some major updates under development. Apart from some minor bug fixes the developers have been busy working on a total redesign of how a Private Hire / Charter Quote or Booking is entered into TravelManager.

Key feature requests such as the support of mutliple days, movements and vehicles is now included. So the software will have the flexibility to enter any type of scenario e.g.

1) An over the road booking where there’s multiple days and detailed day by day itinerary.

2) Large shuttle service for a conference with multiple vehicles

3) Unusual services such as a full day service following by an evening with a different driver and/or vehicle

4) And more.

*Here’s a few screenshots to give you an idea of what will be live in a couple of weeks.

New Quote Entry Details Section Major Update – New Quote / Booking Entry Design (Coming Soon)

New Details Section

Locations Tab in the New Movements Section

Comments tab in the new Movements Section

Fees tab in the new Movements Section

Regards,

Eamonn

June 4, 2010 – 3:59 pm

As the number of TravelManager customers is growing on a daily basis we’ve decided it’s time to start upscaling our level of Customer Support. To start this process we’re moving all our customer support and training material online to a great tool we’ve been evaluating the last few weeks called Zendesk.

TravelManager Help Desk Solutions

It’s a web based customer support that will allow all TravelManager customers to manage their support issues as well as stay informed on the latest updates and search for frequently asked questions and more. We’re hoping to build a community of TravelManager users to share ideas and tips combined with official support material from the TravelManager team.

TravelManager Help Desk Ticket History

For our regular blog readers you can see the Beta verison live on here: (http://travelmanager.zendesk.com) before our official launch in 2 weeks with our new website on Friday 16th July.

Exciting times… I might even change my profile photo for the new site

Regards,
Eamonn

Eamonn

**Content is being adding every day to the help desk so keep checking back for the latest help and support.

May 28, 2010 – 3:26 pm

This is the first of several blog posts we’ll be making about the new Email Template section of TravelManger. After several weeks of development and planning we rolled out the new email template feature of TravelManager in last weeks rollout.

All emails sent via TravelManager either automated / user driven are now customizable. So everything from the quotation widget acknowledgement email sent to a customer that submits an online quote to the customer feedback email are editable.

Email Template Navigation

In this 1^st post I’ll explain quickly how to find and edit the email templates. Navigate to MyAccount -> Admin -> Email Templates. From here you will be able to see some default templates we’ve created to based on customer feedback.

Here’s a quick video explaining how to edit your email templates:

**Tip: Expand the video to full screen by clicking on the Monitor icon at the bottom right of the video

More posts to follow tomorrow and over the next few days.

Regards,

Eamonn

May 27, 2010 – 12:22 pm

Some of the development team are attending DevDays today in Dublin. It’s an annual event help in Belfast and Dublin for developers working with mobile technologies. We met a lot of interesting developers last year so looking forward to more of the same today.

DevDays Dublin

**Expect a video from the event later today.

Regards,

Eamonn

May 9, 2010 – 9:00 am

In the latest rollout we’ve added an upload facility to attach files to Charter / Private Hire Quotes / Booking. This facility allows for TravelManager users to attach documents that a client or subcontractor may have provided.

File Upload Facility in TravelManager Quotations

File Upload Facility in TravelManager (part 2)

The email templates section has also been updated with the addition of some new Merge Fields such as “Customer Company/Group Name” and “System Generated Reference”. The layout of the fields have also been improved by grouping them into Customer, Quote and User/Company details. We hope this makes it easier to create your dynamic email templates.

New Layout for Email Templates in TravelManager

Finally, the HTML email template has now been moved ahead of the plain text template. The HTML email template is the default template and the plain text template is only displayed if the customer opts to view plain text rather than HTML.

Regards,

Eamonn

May 1, 2010 – 5:11 pm

As promised in last weeks blog post we’ve rolled out Email Templates this week so you can now create a range of emails to handle regular scenarios during the charter process. You have the full flexibility to have different templates for every step of the process from sending a quote, to confirmations and payment acknowledgement emails and more…

You’ll find the setup under MyAccount -> Admin -> Email Templates and to send this emails just click on the new button in Quotes.

TravelManager New Email Button

Some of the advance features include:

Send both plain text and HTML emails
Send HTML and Plain Text Emails from TravelManager
Automatically have attachments to your email templates
Automatically Attach Documents to Email Templates
Preview your emails before sending
Preview with Image and Attachment

Emails are stored in Notes

TravelManager Emails are copied to Notes

We’ve more updates to follow next week to automatically trigger Status changes based on the email templates you use but more to follow on that early next week

*I’m running Webinars this week for any TravelManager user that wishes to get some training on this new feature. Email info@gotravelmanager.com for more information.

Regards,

Eamonn

**To keep up to date with the latest news and feature updates you should subscribe to our RSS feed and follow our going effort to make TravelManager the best software solution for the Bus, Motorcoach & Chauffeur industry.

April 28, 2010 – 9:00 am

Thought I’d share a nice article from Phil Tonks of Bus Users UK www.bususers.org about his experience of using the Dublin Coach iPhone app powered by TravelManager Developers.

Phil Tonks from Bus Users UK was really impressed with the robustness and quality of the Real-Time Passenger Information provided via the iPhone App:

“I tried to find holes in the system; I’ve used technology before in several different guises and if often let me down…. But TravelManager proved faultless as I nearly flattened the battery on the phone trying to see if us bus users could actually depend on this technology…” – Phil Tonks

Bus Users UK Article – Dublin Coach

He goes on to say that with this technology takes away the unpredictability of a bus service and one of greatess arguments for not using a bus.

**This is something we find time and time again with our customers once the passengers are informed they can make decisions that reduce their waiting time at stops and this encourages an uptake in usage of bus services.

Regards,

Eamonn

April 26, 2010 – 9:00 am

Knowing your customer segments is an obvious one for Business Intelligence and every business has slightly different customers and segmentations depending on your location and operation size. So in this latest update to TravelManager we’ve add the facility to customize your list of customer types.

Segment your Customers with TravelManager

(You can find this new feature in Account Information under MyAccount).

Understanding your segments will help with online marketing as well to identify opportunities for targeted marketing in new media like Social Media and niche websites. We see some really nice reporting to follow this update later in year to help extract even more information basis on segment buying patterns, travel patterns and more..

Why focus on the mass market when niches can provide more loyal and profitable customers? Do you really know your customers?

If your answer is No or not really….. then you should be using TravelManager

Regards,

Eamonn

April 16, 2010 – 9:00 am

Every Bus and Tour Operator knows the value of getting your website listed highly on the search engines and this has driven the demand for companies to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services.

So when developing the latest version of Tours for TravelManager we wanted to insure that your tours would get indexed quickly by the likes of Google and Bing. To do this we create static HTML pages dynamically, which basically means that rather than having the pages created via a database when the customer makes a request, the tour pages are performed. (This is a big deal for search engines in helping them read the pages and for creating nice search engine friendly URL’s).

For example:

1) Traditional Solutions usually create a URL like this:

www.mytourcompany.com/search?&232-REF0013a.php (No SEO value)

2) while Travelmanager creates URL’s like this:

www.mytourcompany.com/tours/city-sightseeing-tour-of-copenhagen.html (Clearly shows it’s a City Sightseeing tour in Copenhagen)

**This also helps search engines categorize your web pages and along with some other proven techniques for tags and image labels we’re seeing our customers website shoot up the search engines.

TravelManager Tours Automated Search Engine Optimization

Blog Post Update:

Here’s something nice that I thought I should update to this blog post regarding the channels used by Travel buyers…

Travel Buyer Channels

Source - “Consumer Response to Travel Site Performance” – PhoCusWright, Market Research

April 11, 2010 – 8:00 am

We’ve rolled out a major new update to the Customers section of TravelManager based on all the great feedback we’ve been getting from the US in the last 6 weeks. Customers now supports both individuals and companies so quotes from different people can be grouped together under one company.

Customers: Companies and Contacts

It’s recommended you attend one of our FREE weekly Webinars hosted every Tuesday and Thursday to get training & support on the latest updates. To express an interest in attending one of the sessions email info@gotravelmanager.com

Regards,

Eamonn

**This feature will help group multiple buyers (Contacts) under one Customer (a Company).

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