Travel review sites

When you mention to travel businesses, sites such as Trip Advisor, most small businesses haven't give too much thought about the review site - or if they have they have a negative perception.

One of the best things that any travel business can do is encourage feedback.

However if you intend to do nothing with the feedback then don't bother.

The reasons to seek feedback are:

• Find out what things are working well
• What things are not working well
• Identify possible new services you could provide
• Give you a good basis to assess how your are meeting your business expectations for service and quality.

What to do with feedback:

• Collate it into a database
• Look for the good points and bad points
• If you have contact details for the feedback thank the guest for the feedback.
• If the guest provides negative feedback acknowledge this, thank them for the information and that you intend to fix the issue. 
• If you promise to fix the issue make sure you do!

Should you encourage feedback on online forums:

YES

Simply put you want to encourage feedback on the various online forums as the more feedback the better. Ideally you want to encourage guests to comment to you directly on any negative issues and to put their general feedback on line. If you do get negative criticism on a website, review the comments and if you are able feel free to add a comment. Just don't be defensive, rather be open and if there is a real issue acknowledge and state what you are doing to fix it.

If you want assistance on managing review sites why not contact us as we can assist you with a full audit of your web presence and give you some simple tools on how to manage your wider web presence.

How to annoy a potential customer

Just over two years ago I opened an account with Regfly.com to enable a transfer of a domain name to our business.

Once the transfer was completed I moved the domain name to our registry.

After this transfer I received no further emails from Regfly.com then this last two months I received two emails from them saying how they appreciated my business.

Thinking I might have left a domain on their service by mistake I checked but found none. I thought I should close the account so that I didn't get any further emails.

However this proved impossible and I was told by their tech support that this couldn't be done.

So what lessons does this hold for how you treat your customers:

• If you haven't had contact with customers (or previous customers) on your database don't assume they will want to hear from you.
• Ensure you provide a means to opt out of your system and if they ask to be removed from your system simply do it. 
• In every email communication offer a simple means to be removed from your system. It should be a one click system ideally
• The longer the gap in communication the more likely the person won't remember dealing with you.
• Of course this rule applies not only to emails but phone, fax and postal communications.

Have you any experiences like this to share? Feel free to comment below.

Google Webmaster Tools

If you have a website or a blog then you should sign up for Google Webmaster tools.

This service is provided free of charge by google and will show you how details about your website, google indexing of it, keywords been used to find your website on google and more - it also shows a lot more information and can help you tidy up descriptions and titles.

Google also runs a blog - Google Webmaster Central Blog - this gives you information on new products.

Of course if you don't have time that is when you can employ an SEO expert to do this for you.

Ideally if you do employ an SEO company for you they will set google webmaster tools and analytics for you plust much more.

Don't Panic - SNAFU - Emails

The words "Don't Panic" are printed in large friendly letters on the cover of the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

From Wikipedia:

Arthur C. Clarke said Douglas Adams' use of "don't panic" was perhaps the best advice that could be given to humanity.

So what does this have to do with SNAFU - "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up" and what does this have to do with Emails.

Emails are a great bit tool but sometimes they can cause a lot of communication problems and result in a SNAFU.

When tensions increase in the email STOP sending emails. Ideally give the person a call or if you are in the same office go and talk to them face to face!

Some recent examples of emails which have caused problems:

Example one: SNAFU = Loss of business referral.

A request for a small credit. 

The response was that the amount was so small that they wouldn't credit. The writer then went on to explain in great detail why the charge should stand. This resulted in a further exchange of emails between ourselves and the other company. In the end we stopped emailing them as it was clear they missed the concerns we had and the amount of time wasted on the emails over 10+ was not worth our effort.

End result - we removed our weblinks and recommendations for this company.

How we could have achieved a better outcome - phone them and discuss the issue when it became clear they had misunderstood our concerns. How they could have handled it better. Not insulted us with our request is a waste of time response as their first comment then spent the rest of the time actively defensively.

Example two: Almost a SNAFU

A tourist requested a booking which was confirmed. They then emailed about other dates. We confirmed all options and then after the dates were finalised confirmed back to them what was booked. 

End result  - SNAFU avoided as potentially with so many dates the customer could have ended up thinking we had booked different dates.

However we could have done it better. We should have called the client earlier to confirm what they actually wanted and what options they were looking for - i.e. if we had been a bit more proactive we could have gathered all the information in one phone call rather than 10+ emails.

Google Chrome - check your website stats

While you may be happy using Internet Explorer the launch of Google Chrome is a good time as any to check out how your website looks with a different browser.

You can be sure now that with the growth of Firefox and now the launch of Google Chrome that more and more visitors to your website will be using something other than Internet Explorer.

It is important to check as sometimes different browsers will result in code displaying differently. For example on Rainbow Tourism there is a minor difference on how Internet Explorer displays our site versus Google Chrome and even a difference between Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 3.0

You can always find out how your visitors check your web statistic reports. Our own statistics show that 68% of our visitors currently use internet explorer, 22% firefox, 8% safari, 1% opera and we have  other browsers listed.

I suspect in a month or two that google chrome will have gained a small share at the expense of both firefox and internet explorer but it will also mean people will be more willing to switch browsers.

So why do I need to have more browsers on my desktop - the key reason is to check that your website functions as you expect it to - if it isn't get your webdesigner to fix and make your website code friendly to all browsers.

Social Media - What is it?

The following presentation explains very simply what social media is and how you can use it to market your business and why you can't ignore it.

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Email Newsletters - Permission Based Marketing

Email newsletters are a great way to connect with your clients.

Below are some tips we follow at Rainbow Tourism with our email newsletter to ensure we always obtain permission to send the email.

Subscriptions from our website
On our website we have a link on every page to our newsletter page. From this page we offer the visitor the chance to view our newsletters from our archives. We also offer three ways to sign up to our newsletter from this page.

1. Via our constant contact email program we use.
2. Via RSS using feedburner to subscribe to our newsletter blog.
   
3. Via Feedburners email subscription option for updates on our newsletter blog.

This way the user is in full control of how and when they read our newsletter.

Subscriptions from our blog
Just like our newsletter page our main blog has subscription options to sign up to our blog and to our email newsletter.

Subscriptions from bookings
Every time someone makes a reservation on our website we ask them if they want to subscribe to our newsletter. Again we only add those that give us permission.

Offline subscriptions
At gay and lesbian fairs and other events we have sign up forms which seek permission to go on our newsletter list.

These are some of the potential ways you can increase your email distribution list.

One of the important things to remember is to go for quality NOT quantity. You want an active readership not one which just deletes your email.

Finally there is a lot of email delivery options from free to paid. We have found Constant Contact to be one of the better ones for ease of delivery. If you are interested in giving it a free 60 day trial and also want a $30 credit let us know as can refer you and both of us receive a $30 credit.

If you have any ideas for email newsletters or want some assistance in writing and managing your email newsletter contact us.