Sales techniques in tourism and psychological methods of influencing potential customers (tourists). Sanatorium business

How to increase the number of clients and sales in your travel agency?

Dear Colleagues!

We invite you to an open discussion of the most exciting topics for travel agency employees. The first question we propose to discuss today is how to increase the number of clients in your office.

Is it really necessary for your travel agency to increase its client base?

Every leader must answer this question for himself. After all, sales volume has the most impact on net profit. Every travel agency has fixed costs: office rent, telephone, internet, a fixed part of the salary of employees, communications, taxes, accounting and banking costs, etc. - all this determines your break-even point.

It turns out that every ruble earned in excess of this break-even point goes to net profit, and from all sales up to the break-even point we get nothing (and sometimes we also have to give our funds to support the agency)!

As we can see, the desire to increase sales for most travel agencies is caused not so much by the ambitiousness of the leaders, but by severe necessity. Even profitable agencies should strive to increase sales, and even more so for those that work at zero or at a loss.

The only reason why the agency does not need an increase in clients is the overload of managers and the lack of free resources for client service. But we will talk about this problem and how to solve it in the following topics.

So, having decided that increasing sales is vital for your agency, we must choose which of the two main sources of clients (new from advertising or regular clients) to use. Here the main selection criterion is the cost of attracting (retaining) a client.

Everyone is well aware that retaining a REGULAR customer is several times cheaper than attracting a new one. In addition, regular customers book more expensive tours. But in order for them to come back and bring their friends and relatives, your agency must have a whole system for working with a client. How to organize the work of your agency managers so that regular customers not only return, but also bring their acquaintances - this is a big separate topic, which we will discuss in the following topics of open discussion.

Not all agencies have enough repeat customers to get their sales above the breakeven point. In such cases, ADVERTISING and attracting NEW CUSTOMERS is indispensable.

1. Your message to customers
(Criteria: your message should be catchy and memorable, your agency should stand out from the competition).

2. Channels of communication (advertising)
(Internet advertising, outdoor advertising, newspapers and magazines, radio advertising, television advertising, affiliate network, mailing lists, etc. - from all advertising channels, we choose the most effective one in terms of cost of attracting 1 client. We recommend that your expenses for advertising did not exceed 30% of the income from this advertisement, i.e. for each ruble invested, you should receive 3 rubles of additional income, excluding subsequent possible purchases by these customers).

So, after an effective advertising message is composed and communication channels are selected, it is necessary to calculate how much money is best to invest in advertising. For example, your current level of commission income per month is 500 thousand rubles per month, and you need to increase your income to 700 thousand rubles per month. Then, for an additional 200 thousand commission income, it would be advisable to spend on advertising within 30%, or about 60 thousand rubles a month.
At the same time, it is important to constantly monitor the return on each selected advertising channel and spend more where the return is higher.

Let's sum up the RESULTS of the discussion "How to increase the number of customers":
* A high level of sales is essential for the successful development of your agency.
* It is most profitable to increase the customer base through regular customers, but this requires a whole system of working with regular customers.
* To attract new customers, you need to invest in advertising every month about 30% of the desired increase in income, but at the same time use the most effective advertising channels and an effective advertising message.

The following topics for discussion:

How to create an effective selling ad and convince customers to buy from you.
- What advertising channels are most effective in tourism.
- How to organize customer service so that they bring their friends to you.
- How to increase the productivity of managers.
- How to build work with tour operators, optimize document flow and book with an increased commission.
- What should a leader do for the successful development of a travel agency.
- How to organize the sale of tours and hotels online.

We are waiting for your suggestions on topics that you would also like to discuss.

Earlier, we already told you about the components of effective ROI marketing:,. It's time to share the results. Today I will tell you about how, using an integrated approach, in a highly competitive tourism industry, in just six months, we increased the Client's sales by 4 times, having received an ROI of 868%.

• Service:
• Industry: tourism (sale of vouchers in the sanatorium of Belokurikha)
• Internet marketing budget: 85,000 - 167,000 rubles / month. (including the cost of LeadMachine services)
• Work period: 6 months.

The client turned to LeadMachine for an increase in sales.

The situation in the industry at the time of the start of the project was unstable: consumers
travel agencies were treated with great distrust, preferring to book tours to health resorts directly. In addition, sanatoriums often offered tourists vouchers with a discount of up to 5%. Our Client could not afford this.

Our task was to dispel the fears of tourists. Offer them something more than just a ticket to a sanatorium. It was necessary to find something that would attract customers regardless of the cost.

1 month. Website Analytics

We start work on each project with a complete site and immersion
to the client's business. This helps us to find not only Internet marketing growth points, but also holes in the sales funnel - blunders due to which the Client loses profit.

Site analytics will help you find weaknesses in the sales funnel and growth points.

The conducted analytics showed the following key errors:

• the competitive advantages of the company are not highlighted;
• feedback forms are too complicated and contain captcha fields;
• there were no blocks inspiring confidence of potential Clients;
• the site attracted inappropriate traffic from Google AdWords: there was only one advertising campaign, it was set up incorrectly - starting
  from strategy to irrelevant keywords and a list of negative keywords consisting of three queries;
• it is difficult for users to navigate the site and understand the conditions for purchasing a ticket;
• the work of the sales department specialists raised questions: they did not call back on missed calls, they did not always communicate politely and convincingly
  with clients.

Client: “It seems that obvious things are described in the analytics - why didn’t I notice them myself before? We urgently need to fix the mistakes!”

The conversion to an application from the site was minimal - only 1.1%. It was necessary to develop the project in all directions: make changes to the site, attract paid traffic, connect mailing lists, control the work of the sales department. I decided to start with site improvements: it makes no sense to buy traffic to an unprepared site.
We got to work.

The Client spent more than 25,000 rubles on such traffic from Google Adwords. monthly.

2 month. Improvements on the site, collection of semantics

At the very beginning of the journey, it was critically important to fix the errors that destroy the conversion of the site: we removed unnecessary mandatory fields from the feedback forms
and captcha. Highlighted the key advantages of the company and placed them on the banner
on the first screen. They described in detail the advantages of the company, posted photos of employees. The “How to buy a ticket” page has been redesigned — it describes the mechanics of buying a ticket through an agency as clearly as possible.

We made a number of changes that increase the usability of the site and the credibility of the company:

• improved site navigation - changed the order and names of subsections
  in cards of sanatoriums (“Prices”, “Meals” and others);
• set anchors for subsections (previously, when switching to subsections, the page url did not change. We would not be able to link to these sections
  in ads in contextual advertising);
• price lists on the site began to be placed in a more convenient PDF format;
• removed distracting elements from the site header, placed information in it
  that the 8-800 line is free;
• set up the display of the latest reviews about the company on key pages.

Changed main page of the site.

After the site was improved, we started collecting the semantic core for launching contextual advertising. The old semantic core included only 200 queries, about 80% of which were non-targeted, so the collection started from scratch.

Optimize existing sources of traffic before launching new ones: this will save your advertising budget and reduce the cost per lead.

After analyzing competitors in context, I found that all ads focused on the 5% discount provided. No advertiser
did not indicate other benefits, none indicated the cost of the tour. We have a chance to stand out from the competition.

We set up 42 advertising campaigns for 14 regions of interest. We created 1202 advertisements, each of which described the advantages of the company (the availability of vouchers, transfers) and indicated the actual cost of a voucher in a sanatorium.

3 month. Launch of Yandex.Direct, advertising optimization, implementation of Roistat — ROI 282%

The third month was devoted to setting up and launching advertising campaigns in Yandex.Direct, their subsequent optimization and campaigns in Google AdWords.

Increasing net profit is impossible without optimizing costs - so I began to delve into all the paid tools and services of the Client. First,
what my eyes fell on were huge telephony bills from one of the federal cellular operators. We needed to cut communication costs.

It is not enough to simply increase sales. It is also important to optimize costs.

The most optimal solution was to use ip-telephony with the number 8 (800) for incoming calls and (495) for outgoing calls. We could not connect the existing free line number to sip: the technical capabilities of the operator did not allow. Therefore, at first, 2 free lines worked at once. A month later, we turned off the old number - and from that moment we really began to feel the savings.

In Google Analytics, I saw the number of applications for each customer acquisition channel, but did not understand which one brings the most profit. A tool was needed that would make the Client's Internet marketing transparent. We started implementing Roistat.

As an experiment, a Roistat widget was placed on the site - “Lead Catcher”. I wanted to see if it could replace the paid CallBackHunter. It turned out that the conversion to a lead through the Lead Catcher was superior to the conversion of CallBackHunter.

Conversion to the application through the "Lead Catcher" Roistat.

The results of the work performed pleased both us and the Client: the conversion to a lead increased to 2.82%, the return on investment in Internet marketing was 282%.
But we wanted more.

4 month. Experiments, CRM and experiments with CRM - ROI 264%

Internet marketing is effective without experimentation. I started experimenting with feedback forms - I needed to see if the replacement of the tour order form would affect the conversion. The conversion of the old form was too low. The implementation of the new form took about a week. Our expectations regarding the increase in conversion were justified: it increased by 3 times.

The increase in the conversion of the tour order form after its optimization

A new online consultant has been introduced to the site. I talked about this experiment in detail in. The widget from JivoSite gave us 8 times more leads than the old online consultant without an active invitation form.

In parallel with the experiments, we wanted to improve the quality of the sales department. This required CRM. We opted for one of the popular CRM systems, purchased one license to evaluate the convenience of work. By the end of the month, data began to be correctly transferred from CRM to Roistat.

While I was happy about the emergence of transparent Internet marketing, the Client was sad
due to the increased volume of work: it was necessary to process applications in one program, issue documents in another, and control payment in a third. It was inconvenient.

Client: “We wanted to simplify the application process, but instead it became more complicated. Of course, it was annoying. Losses of 8,000 rubles, but this is experience "

We decided before it's too late to replace CRM with one in which a full-fledged workflow would be possible. The search for a suitable CRM was planned for the next month.

Look for services that will suit you 100%. From uncomfortable sooner or later you still refuse.

And a new problem awaited us: it turned out that incoming calls from managers from the number (495) alarmed the Clients. They thought that resellers called them from Moscow, and they did not always pick up the phone. It was necessary to purchase a number with a local area code for outgoing calls - Novosibirsk or Barnaul.

Website conversion due to the use of new tools increased to 3.76%,
ROI has slightly decreased compared to the previous month - up to 264%.

5 month. Sold all vouchers in the resort - ROI 738%

As a new CRM, we chose Bitrix24 - a complete document flow was possible in it. Debugging the integration of Bitrix24 with Roistat took several days.

As a result of a long search for a company that provides outgoing ip-telephony, I chose Callobok. There we were offered the most favorable rates and the ability to display our 8-800 number on the Clients' mobile devices. When Clients called managers back, the call was free for them.

So that sales managers do not spend a lot of time processing an incoming call and filling in information about a potential Client, they connected a virtual PBX OnlinePBX.

And as soon as we had to start enjoying the convenient CRM and the new PBX, a terrible thing happened: we had nothing to sell. There are no vacancies left in the sanatoriums for the next two months. We spent money on attracting visitors for whom we had nothing to offer.

Client: “Customers are coming, calls are coming, orders are coming, and I have nothing to sell. I didn't think this would ever happen."

We could not stop advertising campaigns: this would lead to the cancellation of applications
for later trips (Clients in the search engines never indicated the date of arrival), and sales would have dipped. Therefore, we simply reduced the rates for advertisements and began to hope that the Client would be able to agree on additional places in the sanatorium.

Luck was on our side: the client was allocated additional seats. We immediately sent out a mailing list to the database of Clients who could not get to the desired sanatorium due to lack of places. The mailing costs were minimal, but the effect is obvious: we were able to return some of the Clients in this way.

Despite the difficulties, the dynamics of the project's development was positive: conversion to an application from the site increased to 4.15%, ROI in Internet marketing increased to 738%.

6 month. Website improvements, advertising optimization - ROI 868%

In the sixth month, we returned to the site again: we replaced the remaining feedback forms, updated the price lists (added links to go to the tour booking form), turned off insufficiently effective ads in contextual advertising.

The client was concerned about the increased cost of website promotion services from its contractors. I decided to check if the monthly investment in seo is justified. We carried out a full-fledged seo- and tech. site audit. We found out that for more than 2.5 years, the Client's contractors only imitated SEO work, sending the same reports every month. The site was promoted by such low-frequency requests that the amount of traffic received was only 36 clicks per month. Starting next month, we decided to stop using website promotion services.

This is how our Client's sales and ROI increased.

By the seventh month, the conversion to an application from the site was 5.65%, ROI - 868%. A satisfied Client left a review about our work - we share it with you :)

An analysis of the development of world tourism shows that its effectiveness largely depends on the formation of a highly profitable and prestigious entertainment industry. Recently, the effective holding of mass events has become increasingly important for the development of this sphere, i.e. those involving a large number of people. Purposefully organized public events attract many international and domestic tourists. Such events create a steady demand for all types of tourist services: for their advertising, booking, transport services for tourists, their accommodation, food, cultural, entertainment, information, insurance, sports, health and excursion support, etc. . Currently, there is no generally accepted classification of mass tourist events.

The issues of the effectiveness of mass events in tourism are paid attention to by such domestic scientists as Baylik S.I., Kovalevsky G.V., Kontar R.O., Sokirka O.M. and etc.

The aim of the study is to establish the main problems of tourism development in Ukraine at the present stage and to determine the most effective ways to solve them, in particular, the development of the entertainment sector.

Summarizing international experience, we can recommend the following classification of mass tourism events: holidays (state, religious and local); sports competitions (including the Olympic Games); carnivals (for example, the Brazilian Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the Cologne Carnival in Germany, the Venice Carnival in Italy); festivals (contemporary music, folklore, cinematography); theatrical performances (historical events, famous operas, operettas); parades and processions (for example, parades of military bands, the annual London City parade, etc.); local traditional folk games (Cossack games in Ukraine, log throwing in Scotland, etc.); corporate and professional mass events (holidays and anniversaries of firms, professions, etc.); gambling (in casinos, slot machine centers, etc.); animation games and shows (carried out by professional animators); fairs, expositions and presentations of goods, food, flowers, technology, scientific achievements, etc.; exhibitions of paintings, sculptures and other works of art, culture; mass discos and dances; fireworks and fireworks.

Important indicators of the effectiveness of entertainment in the tourism business should be the amount of total net profit received in an internationally recognized currency (in US dollars or euros), as well as the number of additional tourists attracted through the development of this sector. An analysis of the development of the entertainment sector in tourism in Ukraine shows its insufficient efficiency. Incomes from international tourism and gambling are not significant sources of income for the state budget of Ukraine, the budgets of regions and cities, as well as for improving the quality of life and increasing the incomes of the population of our country. Meanwhile, in a number of countries, these incomes constitute a significant part of all incomes of the state, its regions, cities and local residents (Switzerland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, USA, etc.).

According to the authors, there are three main problems, the solution of which depends on the effectiveness of the development of the entertainment sector in tourism in Ukraine. Firstly, this is the lack of proper advertising of Ukraine's tourism opportunities. Many travel companies "save money" on advertising, not taking into account the fact that it is advertising that provides additional tourist flows, and, consequently, additional income.

Secondly, modern entertainment infrastructure has not been formed in Ukraine. Such high technologies as the systematic use of Internet resources, online booking and sale of tourist services, the use of electronic machines in places of residence to save electricity, water and heat, digital surveillance cameras, car rental, the latest tourist equipment, etc. are slowly being introduced. The almost complete absence of modern roads and proper living conditions for international tourists makes many mass entertainment events inaccessible and inefficient.

Thirdly, the low level of professionalism in the field of tourism. The analysis showed that all existing problems in tourism can be effectively solved only by professionals who are armed with special knowledge and skills. In the field of entertainment, these are animators, gambling business managers, international tourism marketers, etc.

To correctly determine the effectiveness of mass events in tourism, it is necessary to draw up forecasted and actual balances of expenses and income from these events. The analysis showed that there are no such balances in many programs and business plans for the development of tourism in the regions, cities and tourism companies of our country.

Thus, the main problems of the effective development of mass events in tourism include: the lack of effective advertising of the tourism potential of Ukraine; poor development of tourism infrastructure; discrepancy between the level of service and modern requirements due to the low professionalism of many employees in the tourism sector, which requires the implementation of educational programs.

Literature Bailik S.I. Introduction to hospitality animation / S.I. Bailik. - Kharkov: Prapor, 2006. - 160 p. Kovalevsky G.V. Ideas, searches, solutions / G.V. Kovalevsky. - Kharkov: Kharkov. nat. acad. mountains household, 2005. - 179 p. Kovalevsky G.V. New urban economics and international urban tourism / G.V. Kovalevsky // Communal services of cities. - 2002. - No. 37.

The seminar is designed for managers and heads of travel agencies.

Course program

I. Effective sales for a travel agency manager. The nature of the work of a travel agent.

· “What a tourist dreams about” - what is important for a tourist when choosing a tour?

· What travel agent does a tourist want to find today? Analysis of the desires of the tourist and the means to find mutual understanding with him.

· How does a successful travel agent start?

· The modern manager is a successful professional. What should a tourism manager know and be able to do?

· How to achieve an increase in sales? Practical advice for increasing sales in a travel agency.

· "Portrait of an ideal travel agent", 10 features of an ideal tourism manager.

· "Professional or Master" - what's the difference?

· An individual approach is a specific tactic of a travel agent.

· A list of essential skills and qualities that every successful travel agent needs.

II. How to increase sales in a travel agency? The main stages of work with the tourist.

Stage 1. We attract a tourist by phone

· Rules of acquaintance with the tourist by phone.

· How do tourists "see" you when talking on the phone? What is the power of first impressions?

· How do travel agents annoy tourists?

· How to make your speech on the phone more "attractive"?

· Listening is an important quality of a tourism manager.

· How to correctly find out the needs of the client, if the tourist is "silent"?

· How to determine the buying style preferred by your potential tourists?

· How do you offer tourism products to tourists? The art of presentation. Basic principles of a successful presentation.

· The trust factor is a prerequisite for sales in tourism.

· How to achieve positive communication with the tourist?

· What are we selling? Tourism product: properties, advantages, benefits.

· How to learn to sell not the characteristics of a tourist product, but its advantages and benefits?

· We remember the tourist. The main secrets of the technique of communicating with a tourist on the phone with effective sales.

Stage 2. Communication with a tourist in the office of your company

· Acquaintance and establishment of contact with the tourist. How to arrange a tourist to yourself?

· your image. What might your tourist not like?

· An attractive image will help increase your sales! How to charm an interlocutor?

· We form the image: appearance and manners, smile, voice, name, eyes, communication style, compliments, respect for the tourist, positive attitude.

· The professionalism of tourism managers is one of the advantages of your travel agency.

· Basic rules for customer service in effective sales.

· We apply the psychology of sales in the work of a tourism manager. Practical advice.

· Learning to be "customer oriented".

· Trust is the path to the client's subconscious. How to win the trust of a tourist? Building trust. Important tips for establishing contact with a tourist.

· Finding out the requests and needs of the tourist. How to ask questions to reveal the hidden needs of the tourist?

· What can interest a tourist?

· Inspiration and enthusiasm. Treasure every client!

· Ability to listen to your client.

· Interest the tourist in your offers using emotional involvement.

· Selection of a tour for a tourist. How to choose a tour for a tourist, taking into account all his wishes? The main "assistants" of the tourism manager.

· Demonstration of your capabilities and advantages. How to use the feelings of a tourist and learn how to turn facts into benefits?

· The ability to convince is an important condition for success in sales!

· Leading to the purchase of the tour. How to skillfully bring a tourist to the conclusion of a contract?

· Checking the readiness of the client. Trial completion. Conclude by summing up and listing the benefits and benefits.

· Do not miss the signals of the tourist about the readiness of the purchase!

· Sign language, we read the interlocutor like a book.

· Indecisive buyer. How to help a tourist make a positive decision about buying a tour now?

· How to find out information that the tourist does not want to disclose? Hidden control and manipulation.

· How do you get tourists to always answer yes with ease?

· How to make sure that the tourist does not go to competitors?

· Maintain contact with the tourist during the holiday and after the trip. Turning a tourist into a regular customer. Working with customer database.

· How to optimize the process of selling a tourist product?

· What to sell to a tourist after the sale of the tour?

· How to properly manage your work time? Recommendations for the organization of time.

Stage 3. "Educate" the tourist

· We learn to work without discounts.

· We accustom the tourist to early booking.

· We dispel the myths about low prices and last-minute tours.

· How to effectively use bonuses to increase sales?

· The undeniable secret of returning customers. Motivation should not be “revealed”, but “generated”!

· How to turn one client into several?

· How to turn potential customers into real ones and increase sales?

· How to properly use your business cards and attract new customers?

Hi all!

I want to talk to you about how to sell more tours over the phone, because I know How relevant is this to you today? Let's start by looking at what qualities a manager should have. on tourism, and then we will continue this topic.

The most important qualities of a selling tourism manager

1. Personal qualities - this is how your manager or, if you sell tours yourself, looks, how he dresses, what tone he speaks and how nice it is to hear his voice from the side.

I'll give you some advice:

• If you are a tourism manager yourself, then be sure to work on it. Try to write down your voice and listen from the outside and honestly evaluate - it would be nice for you with such person to communicate on the phone.
• If you are the head of a travel agency, then when choosing employees, be sure to pay attention to this and work with existing personnel on their personal qualities by recording telephone conversations.

2. Expertise - this is knowledge of the tourism product, i.e. destinations, countries, resorts, visa regulations, etc. Today, knowledge of the tourism product at a basic level is already Not index your expertise, you can see for yourself that often the tourists themselves know more about the country and read There is a lot of information on the Internet about this.

I will give some tips on what to do to increase your expertise in the eyes of the client:

• It is necessary to find some features in each direction, such that they cannot be just find it on the Internet. This is your "trump card" when you say this to a tourist it has a WOW effect. For example, talk about a particular store, a restaurant, a guide or a person who should not (or should) buy souvenirs. Try this trick and you will be surprised how it affects sales.
• Every month update your knowledge base in a specific area and always look for such "trump cards".
• Try calling other agencies as a tourist and listen to what they say. t about directions (find a few chips for yourself in their stories).

P.S. Many clients go on vacation once a year and for this they save money for a whole year, so they want to entrust their vacation to the experts (although many people think that they are only looking for cheap prices).

3. Attitude - this is how the tourism manager and his leader relate to business, to clients, to work and to the industry as a whole.

I can firmly say that your sales depend very much on this. Your thoughts and words are material and the more often you think that this is not the right market and here the clients are all "goats", they are only looking for discounts, they do not value your time and, as a result, buy where it is cheaper, the worse your sales. For some reason, this is exactly what happens, amazing, isn't it?!

The worst thing here is when the leader himself believes in this and shows it to his employees their negative attitude towards business, the market and customers. My advice- watch your words and thoughts, you need to be careful with them!

4. Technique - this is just the use of technology and sales scripts (ready-made speech modules).

The sales process can be divided into the following stages (and your task is to create or use already tested speech modules for each stage):

1. Discovery is the creation of a trusting relationship with the client at the first contact with him.
2. Identification of customer needs.
3. Presentation.
4. Work with objections.
5. Closing the deal.

So we discussed what4 important qualitiesa must have for every marketing travel manager. I want to draw your attention to the fact that this is by no means a theory, all these factors have a very strong influence on sales and you should immediately start working on it.

The 4th quality of a selling tourism manager is knowledge of sales techniques. This means that first the manager must understand what stages the process of selling tours consists of and what he must do at each stage, what scripts (speech modules) the manager must create and use.

We followed this whole process and noticed that most managers try to immediately sell tours by phone, voice offers with prices or send tour selections by mail.

We have found that this approach ends up with the client telling you “Thank you, we will think about it” or after sending the collection, the client does not respond to emails or calls at all. And vice versa, we paid attention to the fact that those customers who, after contacting, come to the office (7 out of 10), mainly buy tours, so we decided to develop technology in order to invite the client to the office in the first place.

But there is one big BUT - clients do not agree to come to the office just like that, so we decided to divide the sales process into several stages so that the PURPOSE of the manager was not to sell tours, but to set up and conduct a meeting.

What are the stages of sales

1. Discovery - creating trust in the client at the first contact with him

Unfortunately, our research using phone recordings and mystery shopping at their travel agency and other agencies shows that 90% of managers work very poorly on this and put little effort into it. What is a "discovery" in selling tours by phone?

This is the first contact that the tourism manager makes with the client as soon as the manager takes the application (online application or call). The task of the manager at this stage is to make a bold start and create maximum trust with the client so that the client will be pleased to continue talking with the manager.

• Be sure to find out the name of the client;
• State your name and company name;
• Further address the client only by name;
• Use phrases that the client is pleased to hear and which he rarely hears when communicating with managers of other travel agencies. For example: "I will be your personal manager";
• You must show that you are ready to make the client happy. For example: “I want to convey gratitude to you from our company for choosing us and trusting us with your vacation. I will do everything in the name of the company to justify your trust.”

2. Identification of customer needs

If I were asked what is most important in the sales process, I would call the stage " Identification of customer needs". BUT for some reason, this is what most agencies put very little effort into, and when you ask them why this happens, they answer: “Clients just want to know the offer and the price right away. I would like that myself. Why spend so much effort on this when more applications can be processed instead?”

Of course, I am surprised by this approach and even more shocked when they spend more time sending offers 20 times and then calling 10 times from different numbers, hoping that the client will pick up the phone. It's sad, you know... It is through identifying the need that you can achieve a meeting in the office (that is, you have a better chance of this) and increase sales conversion.

My advice to you when writing scripts for this step:

• Compose all questions in detail to identify the needs of the client. For example: “How many people are traveling, who is traveling, when do you plan to go, where do you want to go, etc.”;
• Find out what clients really want from their vacation and what they would like to avoid;
• Ask the client about past trips, what they liked then and what not;
• Find out what is important for the client when choosing a tour and company.

What points should be paid attention to in the process of identifying customer needs:

• More often address the client by name;
• After the client's response, give comments;
• Show your expertise;
• Create new needs;
• Create a picture of relaxation in the client's head when identifying needs;
• During the conversation, gently remind him of deadlines (for example, that prices are rising every day and places are leaving, since all of Europe is being booked besides us);
• Allow the client to speak and at the same time sell to himself.

IMPORTANT POINT: we sell the meeting to the client. After applying the scripts and identifying the needs of the client, there comes the moment of selling the meeting to the client (scheduling a meeting). The most important thing here is to use only those phrases, the answer to which can only be “yes” or “yes”. For example: “Dimitri, I heard you and, in principle, there are good options according to your wishes. I have a colleague who recently returned from there and we will show you in the office catalogs with real pictures. When is it convenient for you to come to our office? Will it be 18:00 today?”.

My tips for making an appointment:

• Do not use phrases such as: "Could you come to our office?" or “Would it be convenient for you to come to our office?”;
• Make an appointment with a very confident voice;
• Not to conclude that I myself would not agree and that I myself would like to see the proposal first;
• After the offer to come to the office, do not justify why this is necessary and do not wait for the client's response;
• Agree on a specific time, not "at the end of the week" or "in 2 days during the day."

3. Presentation

After you have identified all the needs of the client, we need to present our proposal at a meeting or by phone. Before I tell you how to properly conduct a presentation, how to write the necessary scripts correctly, I want to show you the difference between two important concepts that we will use in the presentation process - this Property And Benefit.

Let's use an example to show you the difference between them: "I live near the subway" is a property. “It doesn’t take long for me to walk to the subway in the morning” is the benefit of this property. I hope I could show you the difference with an example.

"Why do I need it?" - you ask. And here lies one not big secret of successful sales. When presenting, it is not enough for you to show the properties of the trip or hotel, you must also show what benefits the client will receive due to these properties.

For example, during a presentation, when talking about the territory of the hotel, you can do this: “The territory of the hotel is large and green (property), so you won’t be bored and there is a place where you can take a walk with your child (benefit).”

• Make the most complete list of all properties, for example: grounds, hotel location, beach, food (kitchen), rooms, etc.
• For each property, list typical benefits based on the situation.
• When presenting, be sure to use the disadvantages in addition to the positive ones, because a presentation with flaws is more objective and creates more confidence in you from the client.
• When presenting, take into account all the needs that you previously identified.
• After calling the price, in no case do not pause, immediately ask a neutral question to close part of the client’s objections about the price. For example: Dmitry (client), the price of a tour to such and such a hotel from such and such a date to such and such with arrival and transfer from the airport to the hotel and back for two is $ 2500, but tell me everything is in order with the validity of your passport? There are still 6 months before the end of the term (this is just a neutral question).

4. Dealing with objections

The more I communicate with my colleagues, with tourism managers, with the heads of other travel agencies, the more I hear from them how they are tired of customer objections, for example: “We will think”, “Will you give a discount?”, “We were offered cheaper”, “ It's expensive”, etc. and everyone thinks that this is the biggest problem in selling tours and everyone is looking for magic pills for it.

What I want to tell you about customer objections:

• This is not the biggest problem in sales.
• It is necessary to process ALL objections and it is possible and necessary to close most of them.
• If you go through all the previous stages of the sale correctly, and the main thing is to correctly identify needs, then there will be much less customer objections. And if you simply find out in a nutshell what the client wants and send a couple of selections of tours to the post office, this will not end with success.
• The more you are annoyed by customers with their objections, the more often you will get such customers.

• Make a list of all possible objections.
• Compose various responses to these objections (for example: the client says “It’s expensive”, you answer: “It’s expensive compared to what? Can we offer you an installment plan or a loan on good terms, or let’s take a hotel of a lower category, or fewer nights”)
• Do not rush to distribute discounts, our practice shows that not all customers who ask for a discount will not buy without it, many of them simply try to get it.
• You must understand that some clients still “merge” and we cannot sell to everyone.

5. Closing the deal

• No matter how well you identify the needs of the client, no matter how you close the objections and no matter how expert you are, if you do not know how to close deals, then you lose most of the customers.
• Clients (not only in tourism) are never in a hurry to buy and part with money that they earned with sweat and blood during the year, even if they want to get a valuable and desired product in return (in our case, this is a trip abroad).

My tips for closing deals:

I tried to be smart and give you all the practical information from my experience in running the tourism business.

Your task- start implementing all these technologies and get results. Read our articles, come to our seminars and trainings and make your travel agency more profitable.

P.S. write your comments and questions on the stages of sales, so that I can take this into account in the following articles.