Show Your Customers

By Joanie Ogg, CTC, MCC
President, NACTA

How many people do you know who went on a cruise or took a leisure land vacation and decided NEVER to do it again. It’s likely that not too many of us know anyone who fits this description. Thank goodness, since we are in the business of selling leisure travel, vacations, celebrations, reunions, and basically fulfilling the customers’ need to continue to enjoy traveling.
The great thing about our business is that it is such an easy sale. Moreover, once people go and enjoy what you have planned for them they generally come back for more. How many of us can eat just one cookie or one potato chip? Well, how many people only want to travel once?
We are in a perfect position to continually build our businesses simply by doing a great job and keeping our customers satisfied with their travel experiences (and doing the best we can to control those experiences). In addition, I think we need to do much, much more. We need to create a Customer Care Strategy and do more than customers can ever expect to keep them happy and loyal for life.
Following are a few Customer Care ideas for your agency. Perhaps there will be a few you hadn’t thought of trying. Just remember how great you feel when you know that your business is valuable to the vendor you are buying from. Your clients will get the same feeling when you show that you really do care.

Customer Care Strategies
Survey Your Customers. Every quarter, send out either an E-mail survey or a simple one-page easy-to-do survey to all your clients. This serves a number of purposes. It allows them to share their thoughts and gives you the chance to improve your business (unless you are getting all A+’s). It also will keep you in the mind’s-eye of your clients. It is a reminder that you are there and want to do the best that you can for them.
Thank You #1. Send out a letter or card no less than 48 hours after clients have purchased from you, thanking them for the business. A simple thank you card will suffice and perhaps a note about when you will be back in touch if there is any follow-up needed on the reservation.
Thank You #2. After the trip is completed be sure to follow up within one week of a client’s return, gaining the necessary feedback you need to constantly improve your service. If you want to take it a step further, you can always include a brief survey asking for their thoughts. Be sure to make it easy to complete and include a postage paid envelope. You can also include a coupon for a discount or some sort of bonus when they come back and buy from you again.
Greeting Cards and Personal Notes. We all like to be remembered on special days, be it an anniversary, weddings, graduation, promotions, etc. Many large retailers from Victoria’s Secret to Nordstrom’s send customers cards on special occasions. (All of you get them, too — right? Hmmm. Perhaps I spend too much money at these places and I am really special!) Sending personal greetings is a great way to endear yourself to your customers.
Luckily for those in this great business of ours, there are many programs and sources of database marketing. They are inexpensive and worth their weight in gold because they can make the process of fulfilling these Customer Care strategies seem like a walk in the park. Remember to personalize as much as you are able to. A handwritten card or note means so much more to me than one that is obviously automated. I suspect it does to you, as well.
The benefits of Customer Care are many. You will endear yourself and your service to your clients and will strengthen client retention and loyalty. You will turn your customer into the best sales force you could ever have!