Forum Moderators: phranque
I hope I can get some opinions..... I don't know where else to ask and think this might be the best place as most here are developers, but more importantly, also users!
I run a travel agency specializing in inbound-tours to my country. We have about 70 different packages that we market on the internet. Each package is explained in a lot of detail and is broken up in days.... e.g on a 10-day tour, I give you the breakdown of each of those day - what accommodation, what activities, travel time, sights etc etc etc
The user will browse through the website, click on the package he/she is interested in, complete the "web form" (name, email address etc etc) and submit it. Our claim to fame (and according to me the reason for our success) is the speed with which we answer all requests - in other words that very first "human contact" after visiting the site.
Up until now, we never published the prices on the web, so most requests would be "what is the price". We recently started publishing all the prices and as we expected, the amount of requests we receive daily has dropped dramatically......... for obvious reasons...... the user does not need to send a request saying "what is the price". He now has all the info he needs, so these days he only makes contact with us when he is REALLY interested and basically wants to book the trip. So, theoretically the requests we now receive is more "valuable" than in the past.....
This may sound obvious and good, but I have a couple concerns
Because the prices are now published, we receive less requests (emails from clients) and thus have less opportunity to "show off" how good and fast we reply.
Because we receive less requests/emails and therefore don't send out as many emails, the client has nothing "lying in his inbox". He now surfs the web, makes a mental note of the price and surfs to the next website (our competition). If he requested to find out what the price was, we would have replied almost immediately (point 1) and our email would be lying in his inbox where he could later refer back to it.
Our bookings have definitely not fallen, so there is no problem there, but I am just worried that we might receive even more business by NOT publishing the prices and thus make more contact with the client in order to "show off" what/who we are.
I am sure this is totally open to personal opinion, but I would like to hear what others think. Is there not maybe a "rule of thumb" regarding this...... rather more info than less, or something like that.
Thanks for your time.
Do you offer an email newsletter? If not you might want to look into doing this and offer some sort of competition to help increase sign ups.
You are right.... sales are up, so it might seem like publishing prices is the way to go. There are however other factors...... We almost doubled our marketing budget, so one would expect sales to go up. The question is: What would have happened if we doubled our marketing budget with the prices NOT published? Would we have received even more bookings? Obviously no one can answer that question.
You make a very valid point however and that is that our work (answering emails) has also decreased.
Like I said - I am just worried that we have lost a bit of that "personal touch" / "first contact" / "show off" because now we are basically the same as any other agent out there. The client can now only judge us on our website,products and pricing and not, like in the past, on our service, friendliness, efficiency etc etc.
I do a lot of looking on iternational travel sites, and I do purchase international travel/ packages online. For the sites that do not post prices, or require me to sign in/open an account to view prices, I leave and shop elsewhere. I do not make my selection by price alone.
>Each package is explained in a lot of detail and is broken up in days.... e.g on a 10-day tour, I give you the breakdown of each of those day - what accommodation, what activities, travel time, sights etc etc etc
This is excellent! The more information you supply, the more likely I'll purchase from your site. Especially if I am considering a vacation where I have never visited.
Ditto if I have to make a phone call or email to actually order. I want to be able to order online.
I'm particularly reluctant if email or some online form is the only means of contact. While I'm *understanding* if I'm dealing with, say, a small eBay seller, and I'm buying some $5 cell-phone cable. Understanding - but still don't like it. Anybody purporting to run a real business that only takes emails or online forms, I head the other way.
I want somebody to respond quickly to questions, but I don't want to be forced to talk to some nitwit in a call center if I don't have to.
When I am shopping online I engage in price comparison.
I get discouraged when someone doesn't list their price and move on to the ones that do. I am not going to spend time on the phone when I can click through to the next site which doesn't require a call. I decide based on what I see who do deal with.
I always get the feeling that if someone doesn't post the price it is because they are ashamed of it... because it is high.
I understand the other side though of getting someone on the phone to make a sale that would have maybe not got made if they didn't call in.... but in my case this will never happen unless all the online vendors don't show prices for what I am looking for. And I haven't seen that happen yet.
You are trying to mix online shopping with physical shopping. I understand travel booking is slightly different but don't forget there are many sites now that you can book vacations on without ever talking to anyone on the phone. That is what people shopping online want. They want all the info laid out for them. They want to be doing it at 4:00am sometimes... are you taking calls then?
[edited by: Demaestro at 7:58 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2007]
Once again, thank you very much.
