Whether you operate a small surfing business or a luxury yacht charter company, your brand will be one of the most important aspects to consider throughout the customer experience. Your brand presence is how customers become aware of you, understand what you do differently, and ideally – refer you to friends and family! Therefore, it’s worth spending some time thinking about how customers will see and interact with your brand at every step of their journey, from marketing through to follow-up.
When we talk about branding, this can of course include your logo – but it’s also creating a consistent experience that fits your business ‘personality’. If you run that surf company, it might be all about using relaxed and friendly language in all of your customer-facing communications. If you’re that luxury yacht charter company, it will be about making sure every interaction and process feels polished and effortless.
Many tourism operators focus largely on their marketing branding to get the word out there, using the power of social marketing and advertising. But this is just the beginning of the customer experience.
Two areas where branding can often fall flat is the booking process, and any required ‘paperwork’.
For the direct online booking process, it’s well worth finding a ‘white label’ solution that will allow you to customise colours, logo and messaging to reflect your brand. This will immediately help customers feel confident that their personal and payment details are safe and that they can expect a consistently positive experience.
While you may not be able to customise too much about the booking experience with major Online Travel Agents (OTAs), you can still invest some time into making sure your listings on these platforms have quality images, plenty of well-written information and answers to frequently asked questions.
For any required customer paperwork, such as a liability waiver, tour waiver or activity waiver, it’s now possible to integrate this process with your booking platform to bring in customer details automatically.
Before the event you’ll be able to send a link via text or email to a waiver page, complete with pre-filled guest information to make the waiver process as easy as possible. With a solution like Wherewolf, you can brand this waiver software with your colours, logo and imagery so that customers will instantly feel reassured about supplying personal information. The process is clean, streamlined and modern, obtaining a digital signature and providing you with an instant record which can be handy for compliance.
You can also use this waiver software to check your guests in onsite. You could have an iPad set up with a dedicated branded app to let guests check in and sign their waiver upon arrival, or a custom QR app for guests to scan and check in on their phone. Or, you could check guests in manually with a custom trip manifest that shows which guests are on the trip, together with assigned staff and equipment. You can also see guest’s medical information and any information like dietary requirements to provide personalised service throughout the experience. This is a great way to strengthen your brand!
With Wherewolf you can take your branding consistency even further, following up the customer’s experience with a friendly request to leave a review – or an opportunity to purchase photos or videos that capture their experience. This can bring in further revenue for your business and create a lasting impression with customers.
Consistently branding your entire tourism experience can take a little research and set-up, but once it’s all in place you’ll be providing a memorable perception for guests as well as an easy way for them to recommend you to others. And with modern solutions like Wherewolf, great branding is now easier than ever.