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March 6, 2009 – 12:16 pm

I read a great article in Fortune Magazine yesterday that really captured the conflict that nearly every business finds itself today regarding pricing for 2009. By using a Pricing Power Matrix smart companies are using this tool to analyze their customers perception of their product or service.

Getting your customer to pay more

Getting your customer to pay more

It works by identifying two things are your services a Commodity or Unique and are they Discretionary or Necessary?

With a lot of uncertainty for 2009 it’s so important that the Motorcoach Industry resist the pressure on pricing. Short-term pain of falling revenue is leading Motorcoach Operators to discounting, which can impact long-term effects on customer perceptions.
So what do you do to increase your pricing when everyone else is dropping them? You need to looking becoming more:
1.    Unique: Make your Service as unique as possible with lots of value add that your competitors are not willing or capable of doing
2.    Necessary: Focus on the customers or sectors that need your service more than ever
As TravelManager focuses on Customer Facing side of your business we can help you do both by marketing more effectively, increasing the understanding of your customers needs, identifying new opportunities for your business and more..

So are up for the challenge? By updating the software every week we can make you more UNIQUE :-) not to mention with all the rising costs of Travel (environmental and financial) the Motorcoach can become very NECESSARY!

February 7, 2009 – 8:45 am

This morning we rolled out the following functionality:

[1] IMG / GPN Member Profiles. This can be found under the MyAccount -> Profile Builder section.

[2] Customisable vehicle types for the quotation widget. You can now add your own vehicle types under the “Charter Settings” screen and these vehicles show up in your quotations widget as options for users to choose.

[3] Documents created as PDF files now have a more obvious naming convention . The file name is the quote or invoice number. eg. Quote 324 will create a PDF file Q000324.pdf etc.

Regards

Dean

January 24, 2009 – 8:40 am

We have rolled out a number of improvements to the platform this morning – as requested by users.  They are:-

[1] Ability to change the default terms on quotations

[2] Amendments to the “All Quotes Status” report. We have added the referrer site to quotes so you can see exactly where the quote came in from online

[3] Improved the viewing of emails sent to customers

[4] Improvements to the mileage calculations within North American locations.

[5] Amended the wording and order of certain fields  on the North American version of the quotations form.

[6] Improvements to the main dashboard screen from a cosmetic and performance perspective.

[7] Improved navigation of searching for quotes from the quotes listing screen

[8] Improved the performance of 2 reports – brought the run tme down from 8s to less than 1s

As per the previous posting we are also working on improvements to the “Additional Fields” section of the quotation process as well as a number of new reports to help you plan your marketing strategy and gather intelligence on your ROI etc.

We have now clsoed 89 feedback items since December 1st 2008 and have 9 outstanding feedback requests which look as though they will all be completed within the next 2 weeks amongst other items. So keep your feedback coming :-)

Regards

Dean

January 10, 2009 – 9:35 am

This morning we rolled out some new functionality / improvements.

They include:

[1] Included company contact details on all quote correspondance from the system

[2] Multiple users in multiple offices to be able to share / distribute quotes

[3] Quotes status report – showing all incoming quotes and their current status (responded, booked, declined etc.)

[4] Users can now have personalised signatures with their own contact details

[5] Ability to have a “canned” message for all quote correspondance. The message can be updated in real-time and templates can be added on a per company basis.

[6] New report showing where quotes are coming from (your website or 3rd party website)

[7] Customer contact information is now displayed at the top of each quote page

[8] Ability to duplicate a quote so you can create multiple bookings from the one query

We will be posting next weeks development schedule each monday morning and posting a post-rollout article each weekend to keep you abreast of the new additions / improvements to the TravelManager platform.  So if you are interested in whats new and whats coming up please subscribe to our RSS feed on the right of this screen – or add the Blog widget to your dashboard in TravelManager.

Regards

Dean

December 3, 2008 – 4:11 am

In 2009 we will be introducing a number of FREE roadshows in our Gloucester, Sheffield & Dublin offices. We believe in putting something back into the community.

These will be 4 hour sessions where we will share our knowledge and expertise in Internet related technologies to all attendees for FREE. Its also a great opportunity to meet other business owners in the same position and swap “war stories” etc..

We will have basic and advanced sessions available – so simply turn up at the event that you like the sound of the most.

We will cover the following in the basic workshops:-

  • What “exactly” is the Internet and how can it help me grow my business.
  • What are the trends over the next 2-3 years
  • How can I make sure my website is “visible” in the search engines and drive traffic to my site
  • How can I market to my customer base quickly, easily and cheaply
  • How to save money on fuel, parts & financing your business

In the advanced workshops we will focus on:-

  • How to use Google Analytics to measure my website traffic and return on investment
  • How to use RSS effectively
  • How to save £££££’s on marketing your services nationally and internationally
  • How to take on more work without having to increase your costs

Remember, these are FREE and are NOT TravelManager related – they are generic workshops to help operators (who are typically not technically advanced) to get to the next step.

If your interested in attending one of these workshops – drop me a line on info@gotravelmanager.com

Regards

Dean

November 12, 2008 – 11:35 am

Nothing! Nada. Nil.

We can’t come up with on area where the web cant be of some value.  Be it to educate yourself, to research, to buy, to compare, to review, to participate, to be entertained etc..

What with Wikipedia competing with the old established brands for information, and YouTube / Hulu competing with Television especially now that High Definition (HD) video is now available online – you can pretty much do anything.

Barrack Obama used the Internet to great affect to help him become the next president of the United States.

So, the real question is – are you using the Internet or just watching it pass you and your business by?

Regards

Dean

November 10, 2008 – 10:11 am

Times are tough.  Everyone is talking the market down and the man on the street is feeling the pinch.

But what about you?  Are you having issues? Do you need help?

If you do – let us know what help you need and we’ll see if we can help.

We at TravelManager aim is to help you lower costs and drive revenue – so let us know where you need help and we will try and assist as much as possible.

Regards

Mike

November 1, 2008 – 4:55 am

We have now put the first batch of videos online here.

We will be creating more videos over the coming weeks and improving on these once we work out what all the buttons on the video recorder software does ;-)

Regards

Dean

October 30, 2008 – 1:48 pm

Yesterday I downloaded Google Earth to my iPhone – and first impressions are WOW!

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

Think about the possibilities in an industry like ours?

[1] Driver Router learning – so your new recruit can learn the route not with a boring sat nav or paper print out but with proper video footage of the route as its being driven.

[2] Selling tours – describe your tour in detail and allow the customers to “preview” the route taken and see whats in install for them.

[3] Never get lost again – We have all heard about the HGV dirver following his sat nav religously and getting stuck down a country road – maybe this becomes a thing of the past – where the driver can “see” around the corner.

Then there are the generic GPS services

[4] Tracking your driver / vehicle in real time and being able to visualise exactly where they are.

[5] Pushing context sensitive information to your driver – such as nearest ATM, nearest petrol station etc..

The realms of possibility are truly amazing – it just needs some imagination :-)

So here at TravelManager – we’ll start imagining for you – but if you have any ideas that you think we should look into further, let us know.

Regards

Dean

October 27, 2008 – 4:43 pm

Today, Ray Ozzie (the guy who has taken Bill Gates job at Microsoft – now that the worlds richest man has retired) stated that:-

“The web has become a key demand generation mechanism”. A company’s web presence has become criticical to a company’s overall business”.

So true, yet so many businesses fail to understand this.  Whenever (and I mean every time) I want to purchase a product or service I turn to the Internet for research. If I’m going to book anything (a hotel, a holiday, a coach) – I always look online to see (a) if their website is any good and (b) what others are saying about them.

Why do I care if they have a decent website? Because if they don’t look after what is their most visible storefront (a billion people have the opportunity to pass that storefront every day) then what are they doing with the little things like service or cleanliness etc..

Why do I care about what others say – even if I don’t know them? Because I have to take someones view into account and the businesses view of their products / services is invariably biased :-)   So I try and get an independent view at all times.

People buy from people, but a good quality website at least gets the conversation going :-)

Regards

Dean