Most Innovative Agency
It's official! Barnsley start-up travel agency in top six nationwide.
Barnsley travel agency Holidays First has topped off a tremendous opening nine months of trading by reaching the finals of the prestigious Travel Weekly Globe Travel Awards for 2010, which were held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on Tuesday 19 January.
Holidays First's nomination in the Agent Excellence Awards category for 'The Most Innovative Agency' resulted in the Barnsley team making it through to the final six contenders from 100s of entrants nationwide.
This is a tremendous achievement considering the agency was competing for one of only four awards being presented to travel agents on the night from a total haul of 47 prizes. And as the only finalist from Yorkshire, the Barnsley firm was only too pleased to be flying the flag for the county.
Claire Willoughby, former Apollo Travel director and Head of Direct for The Co-operative Travel, launched Holidays First at Dodworth Business Park in April last year with a team of around 25 specialist travel advisors and customer services staff.
Commenting on the latest accolade for her new agency, Claire says, 'The start we've made is very encouraging, and I feel the main reason for this is our commitment to innovation – and, especially, an appreciation of how it helps us to provide our clients with a truly personal service and the best possible prices on the widest range of holiday options and leisure pursuits. We are naturally over the moon that our efforts have been recognised at the Globe Travel Awards ceremony.'
Innovation in communication is the key to success
The delivery of outstanding levels of innovative customer service lie at the heart of Holidays First, and this philosophy led the firm to invest in a cutting edge customer relationship management system to help the agency keep its promises, extend its reach with smart communications - and thereby maximise sales opportunities.
After considering a wide range of CRM options, Holidays First decided to enlist software development specialists DataConsulting to create a secure web-based system called Rapport.
Built on DataConsulting's data analysis and mining expertise, Rapport CRM allows Holidays First to keep close to its customers by identifying problems, driving marketing campaigns and increasing customer loyalty and retention.
Taking daily feeds from enquiry and booking systems, Rapport CRM accumulates the data and produces priceless intelligence to keep Holidays First close to its clients and fully informed of their needs. Functions include revenue statistics, targeted e-mail communications to thank customers and offer them relevant products, online questionnaires to gather vital information and market intelligence, and advanced reporting and customer segmentation.
