Blog homeI have been musing (to myself mainly!) as to why other travel technology providers selling similar systems to TourCMS are not blogging, not tweeting and not making much use of social media.
After all, these travel technology and travel web design agencies are seen as thought leaders to their own customer bases. They are the experts. So why not expose this expertise to a wider, public, audience (and capture more business as a result). Taken from another perspective, use social media to have conversations with people and find out what they think about your products and services.
Perhaps in my business we have gone to extremes that wouldn’t be appropriate in more commercially sensitive areas. I understand that. But there are plenty of less extreme ways to get involved (for example by coming and commenting on existing blogs – if you don’t want to start your own).
The TourCMS way
The one week old feedback wall is an example. So far we have attracted 8 positive comments and 8 negative. We have found out that some areas of our system that people love – and areas for improvement that our existing feedback channels haven’t highlighted. All round it has been a success (although only a small proportion of the userbase has used it yet).
We also have a busy forum (powered by Ning). Having a forum is a bit passé but it is still key to our support process.
What is the alternative?
You have probably taken a look at the feedback wall and decided that exposing 8 negative comments is terrible (we hope they are balanced by the positive ones). But actually the negative ones are positive in a way – they are written in the hope that we will address those concerns (we will). Potential customers can see that we care about feedback.
The alternative is much worse. If you decide not to engage with social media and your customers in an open way – they will engage with each other without you. Chaos. No control.
Doing nothing is not an option anymore.
Don’t believe me? – then take a look at what is going on in Facebook and other forums with 2 known UK system providers.
Facebook – Bring back TravelCat group – 114 members [See group]
Please help restore my sanity and bring back my old system
Looks like TUI are moving some of their former First Choice agents onto a new system that is used by Thomson (called Rapid). Not sure the move has gone down too well, if the number of Facebook group members truely reflects overall feeling.
CabinCrew.com – web forum - [See forum posting]
Discussion about the merits of TravelCat vs Rapid. Looks like TravelCat has some enthusiastic supporters and Rapid has, er, less than positive support.
Comments from one person include
- Rapid is long winded – ticking all the pax and unticking them for other segments
- TravelCat is more advanced (more for the future)
- TravelCat is so safe – even down to discounts it all went through head office. On Rapid you can give a discount to anyone
- Rapid crashes and loses data
They are not just practical stuff – but highly emotive words are being used:
I hate rapid’s view data as well. I loved the way we were allowed to print out on travel cat however on rapid you’re not allowed to print anything out
My favourite comment…. (yes it really was written this way – once would have been a mistake – but twice – the feature really must be in TravelCat)
Travel cat dairy is miles better than Rapid’s. As you can leave dairy notes for other members of staff and it’s more professional.
Cats milk? Someone did ask to use TourCMS to run a kennel once – I hadn’t realised Comtec had actually gone into that market 
Conclusion
If I were Rapid I would be listening very carefully to all the feedback that is out there. They should probably take steps to neutralise it by addressing the concerns raised. This may mean system development to fix the problems highlighted, this may mean creating a place where people can write comments in an environment they can monitor – all sorts of strategies can be applied. What they can’t do is let this situation fester or the chorus will grow. Social media has a tendency to do that – if you see some comments going unchallenged it gives confidence to others to add their own comments etc. Addressing negative comments early (and conclusively) is the best strategy.
If I were Comtec (owners of TravelCat) I would be delighted that their product had created such passionate and supportive users. Sometimes people don’t realise quite how good something is until you lose it. Comtec need to have used this passionate user base to convince the higher ups at their client that moving platform wasn’t such a great idea. Bit late now but a lesson for next time.
Disclosure – you know I run TourCMS – a reservation system for tour operators – but I mention it here again. Better to over disclose than under disclose.
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The answer is simple (in my mind anyway). These other companies don’t take part in social media or community driven development because they don’t get it and when they don’t understand something, they fear it, and when they fear it, they avoid it. In my experience, supporting social media and a transparent support philosophy has to be part of the corporate culture. For us (as it is with you), we try to keep as much in the open as possible, using every on-line conversation with a member or potential member as an opportunity to engage. Yesterday, as an example, I was able to turn a complaint about email issues that came up because of our switch to Amazon’s EC2 platform into a sale because we took the time to be proactive and engage with our members and take responsibility for issues instead of “hoping no one notices”.
Bit of a rant, but I think you see my point. Great article as always! Watch for the retweets on this one.
Cheers,
Stephen
A couple of (somewhat unrelated) thoughts:
-Companies that target small tour operators might not see a great ROI from embracing social media because the tour operators themselves are rarely using social media. How many tour operators are effectively using twitter? I think before the tech companies can see a great ROI their customers will need to be using social media more.
-Big companies suck at social media. Not all but many. I had dinner the other day with a brand manager at one of Colorado’s biggest corporations. She noted that in order to make comments on blogs she would need to get approval from the legal department. This is a company that is being trashed in some blogs and nobody from the company is even joining the conversation.
-All this stuff will change with the next generation of marketers. Be glad that your competition isn’t joining the conversation – when they finally get around to it you’ll be light years ahead!
Tyson
Tyson, thanks for your comment. My competition is joining the conversation. In fact my competition commented just before you did! But that is what makes it fun.
Hello Stephen!
I don’t avoid social media because I fear it as I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it and there is no-one to explain it – the real basics, I mean. I have read an article or two (one from CNN, if I recall) about the social media “bubble” and how there are so many so-called “social media consultants” who are getting on a band waggon. Most of the these applications go from being a new phenomena to being “strictly for techy types only” in about 14 nanoseconds. As one knows about the whole interent, it will answer your question BUT are you asking the right question and are you getting the answer from the right source? So, for me, with a lot of the social media, it’s a question of sign on and then get to an immediate “Now what?” stage. Some of these social media pundits can be a bit up their own somethings, frankly, who get into it ‘cos they are really geeky and then pour scorn on anyone who “doesn’t get it”. Sorry, but we are not all 20 or 30 something techo-adept wizz kids. I am sure there is something in it, if someone could write about the basics – a getting started guide, it may not go amiss for many. Perhaps that may be a reason why some companies are not so involved as they could be… And yes, I cannot see who you can put figures on any ROI, but that’s a bit by-the-by – you cannot tell if a car is fast if you do not know how to turn on the engine…
It does make bloggers baitable in the same way that, for example, a travel editor with a space to fill and a deadline to meet is also baitable. I have been in that position, half past three on a Friday afternoon, an advert has been dropped, I have a space to fill and Paul Dacre breathing down my neck
If you gave me any sort of reasonable-sounding waffle about your new family friendly resort in France, I would have bitten off your hand.
Anyway, Alex, I agree, creating real and lasting benefit from social media is hard work. For companies like Thomson Holidays, it should be seen as a proper job, filled by somebody who knows how to make connections, dig up good stories, create engaging content – wait a minute that also sounds like a journalist – and is given the resources to do it.
I have been a bit sidetracked by other things recently but you just reminded me to push thetravelblog idea again.
Rose.
Social media is soooo much harder for big companies. For a start most of them ban twitter and facebook in their own offices. Secondly they have a culture of very controlled public interactions – it is an absolute no-no for an employee to represent the brand publicly without approval. Barring a wholesale change of culture in these companies (which aint gonna happen fast) the only way I can see it working is if they take a pool of their best customer service agents, give them some training and guidelines – and then free them to go out and “engage”. Even then, the training needs to come from people who get social media – not the usual PR training.
As for twitter. It took me a while to get it – but perseverance is worthwhile. I follow a couple of small tour operators on twitter (http://twitter.com/islaybirding & http://twitter.com/MTB_Keith – and wow – is it a good marketing channel for them IMHO. I’m constantly reading tweets about how they’re out skiing with guests today, or how the geese are out in force on the Isle of Mull today. It is a constant tease for me, stuck in front of a computer, that I want to be out there in the wild. For a typical customer these constant reminders / teases will only make them book more often?
Thanks for your comments everyone.
I was more interested about travel technology companies and social media (in this post) rather than product companies. Travel technology companies are technology experts – so are looked upon to give guidance about web issues (including social media). For this reason I question whether they ought to be more involved.
Murray – I am writing a book that is about travel technology. It covers the basics (but no advanced topics) and is written from the perspective of small tour operators getting started up (who may be new to travel, new to technology and new to running their own business). This blog however, as you point out, does assume some knowledge already. Very difficult to pitch it as anything else. Also, this year, will really kick off SmallFishBigOcean which will cover from the basics up – leaving this blog covering thoughts and opinions – and SmallFishBigOcean being more practical.
@Alex – Noted, thanks. Put me down for a copy of aforementioned book which (that??) you are writing, please! I wonder about travel technology, given that the mainstay of the travel industry (from my perspective, which is from the travel trenches, so to speak) is the GDS (Gal, Sabre, and the heavens awful Amadeus which I have to use) – these being, basically, some 1980’s technology that has yet to be improved on and that travel agents had to be (and still are being) dragged, kicking and screaming, away from viewdata….. This may be one of the reasons the sharp end of the travel business is having some bother getting it’s collective head around, say, social media.