Travel Manager
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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 21, 2009 – 8:55 am

This morning we rolled out a number of improvements to the software. These include:

Phase 1 of the customer centre, so quotes from email addresses already known to the software platform are all associated with the same customer.

eg.

If julie@abc-company.com creates a quote on the 1st of February and she creates another quote anytime in the future using the same email address then both of these quotes will be attributed to the same customer in TravelManager.

This will allow you to generate additional reporting on your customer base. For example. How much is Julie worth to me over the past X months / years or how many times has Julie booked with me this year and what was the average $ value of each booking?

In the near future you will be able to choose if you want to give Julie log in access to a specific customer centre so she can create quotes, accept prices, print off invoices etc… without having to contact you. Again – this is an optional feature and you get to choose if you want to provide any or all of your customers this feature.

We have also made some cosmetic improvements to the North American quotation widget with feedback from users.

We also closed down 17  feedback requests from the community this week – we have 27 open feedback items which we plan to lock down within the next 2 weeks – so keep the feedback coming ;-)

Regards

Dean

February 14, 2009 – 7:16 am

We rolled out the following functionality this morning:-

[1] Log a call button on the main quote details screen ( this is the 1st phase in a full click to call process )

[2] Added “Location Name” to quotation widget (eg. Empire State Building)

[3] Changed passenger number on online quotation widget to accept a range of passengers (eg. 11-13)

[4] Implemented first iPhone API for iPhone applications which are currently in development

Regards

Dean

February 10, 2009 – 7:25 am

Tomorrow sees the start of the first annual International TravelManager (iTM 2009) developer conference in Sheffield, UK.

itm 20092 150x150 First International TravelManager Developer Conference (iTM 2009)

We will see developers from many different countries (UK, Ireland, Netherlands, India, China, & North America) come together (both physically and via video uplinks) to discuss some of the exciting technical developments occuring right now and how they may be best implemented into the TravelManager platform for the benefit of our customers.

High on the agenda of iTM 2009 is API extensions using Open Standards, iPhone / Android development, next generation video platforms & GPS systems.

More information to follow soon…. ;-)

Regards

Dean

February 9, 2009 – 9:56 pm

Today, we have purchased a whole suite of Apple Mac equipment for the office and signed up to Apples iPhone Developer program in anticipation of getting our first iPhone native application for TravelManager out of the door within the next couple of months.

iphone image 150x150 iPhone development starts this week

Let us know what features and functionality you are looking for.  We are currently thinking along the lines of;-

  • New Quotes & Quick Respond
  • Customer Feedback & Quick Respond
  • Website click through analysis
  • Industry RSS Newsfeeder
  • Profile updater
  • Garage Defect Sheet / Vehicle Check Sheet
  • What else?

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 21, 2009 – 8:48 am

then take a look at these facts and figures published this morning on the inauguration of President Obama.

  • 600,000 status updates were posted through CNN.com during the broadcast
  • Facebook averaged 4,000 status updates per second
  • 8,500 status updates were updated in the first minute of his speech
  • Millions of people logged onto Facebook during the broadcast to “listen” to the feedback
  • 1.5m status updates on facebook as of this morning

The Internet actually “slowed down” here. My 24MB DSL connection at home was crawling along at one stage by the sheer weight of traffic being sent across the network.

When people find something that they can “engage” with then then join the conversation and those conversations can be very very powerful.

The secret is to identify what your customers want to engage in with you. Why do they buy from you? What keeps them coming back? How do you get them to tell everyone else and join in a conversation about you?

Regards

Dean

December 3, 2008 – 8:22 pm

We are currently documenting our next product which will be aimed specifically for the community transport sector. If you are involved in this sector then please get in contact with us to add your requirements to our list.  We will share our documentation in the next couple of weeks prior to starting the development.

We anticipate having the service available within the first 6 weeks of January.

Regards

Mike

October 16, 2008 – 7:22 am

We have rolled out some minor improvements this morning based on user feedback.

[1] PDF version of outstanding invoices is now available so you can print off and chase

[2] Replace time created with “Date of Travel” on the private hire / charter listings screens

[3] Improvements to the tours widget so you can install the widget on your website and have it show all tours inline and as part of your site

[4] Improvements to the customer survey process with some slight cosmetic changes for the customer view

Regards

Mike

October 9, 2008 – 8:12 am

TravelManager has a number of functions to ensure that you never loose track of important dates. Daily Summary emails are sent out each morning with information pertaining whats happening today and tomorrow.

We have now introduced a new piece of functionality called My Alerts which enables you to set up your own alerts on your own timescales.

eg. If you have numerous vehicles with MOT required each year and you want to be alerted to them 21 days in advance of them due or you have insurance due on the 3rd August each year and you want to be reminded 29 days in advance then you can now set this up.

Emails are sent out 6am each morning if you have an alert scheduled on that particular day.

The functionality can be found under MyAccount -> MyAlerts

MyAlerts

MyAlerts

Regards

Mike