Now it’s highly likely that some of these advances have already been created in some form or another, however it is the combination of the advances working together and linked to the financial software, linking directly to reps and agents websites, customised specifically to the travel industry that makes the software both ground braking and the delivery methods patentable.

FB/CRM1 – Organiser

The organiser comes in 5 parts, communication, workflow, venue recommendations, client details booking suite, and a calendar. It handles all daily interactions with clients and reminds our FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents about arrivals and departures.

Lets look at the workflow, first a client makes an enquiry into the CRM and is given there own customisable order page (client details booking suite), showing their enquiry details, all communications & recommendations neatly arranged.

This page is designed to automatically deal with the client as much as possible before a human gets involved, if it can be booked there and then, the client can do so, but if it’s a general enquiry about say, a Hotel in Cape Town for $300 a night, up will pop the best 5 Hotels available at around that price, the order of which will be presented by previous customer feedback and diligent research, far from a random offering.

Giving as much information as possible to the client, dramatically improves the chances of making a booking if for no other reason than because it stops the client moving on and looking at competitors websites. This functionality is particularly useful when our FaceBook Travel Reps and Agents are asleep, but also useful in working hours as it should engage the client for a minute or so while reps and agents get on with the enquiry page to start live or video chat with the client. Note an SMS will be sent to each agent or rep advising them of the enquiry, so they can get to the client immediately if there near there computer. Engaging a client minutes after their enquiry really improves the chances of making a booking.

All the information about the client is stored in the database of the CRM, in general its best to work via the “client details booking suite”, but emails are automatically imported, so all the information is easy to reference. The layout easily shows you what to do, client responses, new enquiries, gift suggestions, general correspondences. Pages are customizable by adding and removing widgets, which needs to be a very simple operation.

A calendar function and day planner that runs on timelines (a few different layouts to choose from) shows all events to come, so FaceBook Travel Reps are prepared to meet clients at the correct time, and Agents can easily see future busy points where they will need assistance.

Staff can be monitored, sale’s and customer service graphs show the best performers, which is useful to know, so FaceBook Agents know who to congratulate, these graphs and stats also act as motivation to lower performers to do better, no one likes being last! Especially booking agents, if they did they’d be better of as Reps!

Another strong function of the organiser is the venue and holiday suggestion tool, accommodation venues will be presented mainly in order of customer feedback, but also diligent research as highlighted later in Page. 7 FaceBook Travel Agents and Reps Free Websites Choosing a good venue is child’s play, however choosing the perfect venue needs the aid of our reps local knowledge as often there will be a number of quality accommodation options available, and to really see the perfect venue a journey into S-World or FaceBook’s World, is required as described in Page 8. S-World Virtual World, which is in itself intrinsically linked to the CRM.

FB/CRM 2 – Client Gifts

We all know the saying “Its 10 times cheaper to keep a customer than find a new one”, being extremely nice to a client is a big way to keep a client, and we have illustrated how we encourage FaceBook Travel Reps to consistently offer exemplary service, as for original ideas, please look at the gifts, CRM example shown above.

Have a look at this http://www.s-world.tv/Facebook/home.html to see how the Client Gifts advance, like many others, can easily be customised to other industries. In this case the retail industry. Here we made a game that estimates how much money can be made from FaceBook Gifts its year, answers range between $U5 Billion and US$25 Trillion, the later is obviously questionable, currently there is only capacity for FaceBook to quadruple its membership, and there are only so many people rich enough to spend $1 Million a year.

But its shows potential and if we split that potential between FaceBook and “Give it Back” (50/50) $US12.5 then half again goes to FaceBook New Businesses partners (50%/50%) that leaves $ US$ 8.5 Trillion

Know This: If “Give Half Back” does not make US$ 12.5 Trillion a year by 2017, I will see my work as a big failure, near total failure.

The FaceBook Gifts idea did not happen by accident, myself and ten or so employees attended a number “En Lighten” customer service & branding lectures, then we had many private day camps with the “En Lighten” group where we collectively brainstormed how to improve customer service and client retention, a topic was set, and everyone wrote ideas on post it notes, many post it notes, To cut a long story short, we worked out that sending clients gifts or at least cards on special occasions would win there affections and make us the first call they make next time they wanted to go on holiday, and tell their friends, not just keeping a client, further increasing our client base, a classic branding exercise.

I’d been playing with “Goldmine” and more” Act” (Two popular CRM programs) they were limited and difficult to customise to the travel industry. There was no way they could be customised to send gifts, especially not automatically. It was at this time that I realised, I needed to develop a new CRM from scratch, but as all spare money was going into “Experience Africa” the project was put on ice... until now!

Of course there will be other gadgets, news letters specific to client interests, very specific! Last minute deals and so on. If an agent did not meet your client on arrival, reminders to say hello etc, communications on there notice board about special events and places to see. Keeping the interaction going, continually engaging the client and enhancing the experience all through there stay, and after they have returned home.

FB/CRM3 – Psychology Tests

On Page 1. “The Tutorial Game” I have illustrated how this http://www.s-world.biz/FaceBook/Test would be a great advantage in an interview for a new employee, not only does it give incite to the likes and personal traits of a candidate, it also tells you about how they see there future, and more to the point how they see there future with FaceBook Travel.

If they have a thick forest without a path, there working until something better comes along. On the other hand a flower covered meadow with a large path in the middle; suggests a very willing employee that sees his or her future with FaceBook Travel. Now I’m no expert in psychology, but it works, it was told to me by a friend from Cambridge in the early 90’s and I was impressed, I tried it out and it worked, and I’d been playing with it ever since.

Back in 2002 at the beginning of my journey into tourism, I’d employed a very capable manager “John Gilbert” whose degree was in Human Resource’s. John had many test’s some as simple as choosing colours, some more in depth. We did not really utilize them as it was quite a laborious job, writing answers on paper, then going through them, interpreting the data for each employee to see fluctuating mood patterns, and the like was a lot of work and like most businesses everyone already had a lot to do.

But placing them inside a CRM, so they popped up on an employee’s screen every second week or so, then having the data interpreted automatically and management alerted of potential problems, would be very useful.

Of course it’s not up to me to suggest which tests to use, that’s for the HR & Psychology departments, but having a quick scan of the internet, I’ve found a few that I would definitely like to put my employees through.

Moral Test. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/morals/index.shtml
Careers Test. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/careers/
Perfectionism: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/perfectionism/
Millionaire Test: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/millionaire1/index.shtml

There are many more, some to be taken as a once off, during the interview process and others that get taken every month or so to see how an employee is settling in, after the 2 month golden period has expired.

FB/CRM4 – Total Email

This is a new idea I have had, as for feasibility and implementation, I’m not sure, but over the last 6 months, I have found that general e-mail addresses, even for customer centric companies like VIRGIN don’t work. It will be a fun test to see if the email I send to Partners@FaceBook.com gets picked up or not.

I did not send the S-World business plan, but the original “Spartan Theory” which was the basis for much of what is in this plan and much of what will come next, this was sent to many people, I knew it would work and wished some academics to help, turn theory into fact.

This is the list of companies and institutions I approached.

Harvard Business School
Cambridge University.
Nobel
US Burro of Economics (16 different addresses)
The Obama Administration
Mensa

The only reply I had was from Mensa, and only then about testing.

For my sins, in both Experience Africa and CapeVillas I gave up on the info@ email addresses a long time ago, and many other past employees address as well, but the fact remains, if someone does not know an email address, they will often just send to info@companyname.

I expect if I analysed all the emails sent to info@CapeVillas.com over the last 10 years, there would be 50, maybe more genuine enquiries, but as the email addresses get 50 or so spam emails a day, and often good emails get put in the spam folder, so that would have to be monitored as well, it just was not worth monitoring.

But 50 enquiries or so missed, is a lot of money to loose, so I suggest making a word scanner, to explain, I’ll use an example the film “Clear & Present Danger” In this film, the CIA tracked keywords in telephones, if someone mentioned something of interest, it was analysed.

My point is if that can be done for telephone conversations, it can be done for emails. If I were to set up certain keyword’s on my info@capevillas.com email address such as “Booking” “Book” “Reservation” “ID:” and these emails were available only, then I’d have probably salvaged some good leads.

For further reading

http://www.s-world.biz/FaceBook/About_the_FaceBook_Gifts_Idea.htm
http://www.s-world.biz/Early_Tourism_plans/Page_5_CRM.html