It’s never been more important for companies to do as much as they can to support their customers, their teams, and the industries they operate in.
We’re all feeling the impact of COVID-19 in different ways. But this challenging situation has been an opportunity to innovate and focus our energy on meaningful work. Not only surviving but coming out stronger than before!
The travel industry has been one of the most hard-hit industries, and this naturally brings new questions for those considering their next steps with us.
So, in light of this, we’ve put together this article to show you 6 ways in which we’re giving even more support to our franchisees, and ensuring business success long after the initial training week is over.
1. We’re training people from the comfort of their own home
Following the pandemic, our on-site training (which traditionally took place at Head Office) transitioned to live online training. It still delivers the same content and value as before, but with some unforeseen perks.
This change brought a higher level of convenience to many of those who would have otherwise had to leave their families for 5 days, stay in a hotel and travel (sometimes over large distances) to undergo our induction training.
With a laptop and an internet connection, people from all over the UK have become qualified personal travel consultants all from the comfort of their own homes.
Not only this but we launched part-time training, so it’s easier to fit around a busy lifestyle. Many franchisees choose to keep their main job and run their business alongside, just until they find their feet and start building a strong customer base. With part-time training in the evenings and weekends, there’s no need to book 5 days holiday from work.
2. We launched the ‘Book & Relax’ campaign to build customer confidence
When you buy a Not Just Travel franchise, you get constant support. That includes travel training, business planning, self-development, and marketing, as well as initiatives like this…
In fact, our innovation and approach has helped make us the TTG Top UK Homeworking Agency for 2020.
Book & Relax encourages customers to commit and make a holiday booking, as they’ll get flexible terms from a hand-picked selection of great travel providers.
Key features of ‘Book and Relax’ are:
- The right to cancel
- The right to change or amend a holiday
- Low deposits
- Booking incentives
- Flexible Payment terms
- Discounts for key workers
Our Travel Consultants are provided with everything they need…
The travel trade team constantly adds great supplier offers to the program. And the marketing team produces graphics for franchisees to easily use on social media.
3. Our franchisees can now offer COVID-19 Travel Insurance
This 5-star rated travel insurance is available to all new and existing franchisees and would be part of your product suite when you join us.
Find out more about this here.
There are a number of reasons why this is great news for you if you’re contemplating starting a travel business, whether full-time, part-time, or alongside another job.
- This travel insurance is another product to add to your business portfolio. Another opportunity to earn commission % outside of hotels, flights, attractions tickets, tours, transfers etc.
- Offering this protected travel insurance to your family, friends, colleagues and Facebook friends will be a game-changer. It’s the ultimate confidence booster in booking a holiday with you.
- It positions you and your travel business above the rest. As one of the first travel companies to offer this to customers, by joining The Travel Franchise, and becoming part of Not Just Travel, it will make you stand out as a professional. You’ll be the place to go for booking holidays.
4. We raised the bar for the level of marketing support we provide. Here are just 4 ways in which we did this…
When you join The Travel Franchise, you benefit from a constant investment in marketing support for your new travel business.
Our new and existing franchisees don’t just get the best travel writing, design, video and printed materials. They also get the best podcast in travel too.
1* The Travel Podcast captures the attention of audiences online in a new innovative way.
The podcast brings the very best destination experts, the must-visit places from around the world, and moments of fun, joy, and wanderlust.
In each episode your customers and website visitors can…
- Get the low-down on what’s new in travel
- Feel inspired for their next trip away
- Get ahead with insight into holiday deals
- Discover the latest trends and topics
2* Brand-new landing pages were professionally designed to help bring more enquiries for our franchisees.
Below are examples of how they look, the only difference is that yours would have your picture on it, your phone number, and contact details.
Find out more here.
3* We provided FREE access to a website tool, otherwise known as a review widget, which independent travel companies pay £199 per month to use.
Trustpilot is a leading consumer review platform. Although it’s free to create a profile or leave a review about a company, some of the features that businesses can really benefit from have a steep price tag.
Our marketing team constantly looks at new ways to support our franchisees and their travel businesses, so we created a partnership with Trustpilot so our franchisees can benefit from showcasing their customer’s reviews, in real-time, on their professional travel website.
Why is this important for your travel business?
It all comes down to feedback and transparency. Review platforms let people share their experiences to help build relationships and enhance trust between businesses and consumers.
Having a process like this in place (which requests a review on each new holiday booking), saves our franchisees time and effort. It also helps them to build their business up and gain more online attention, based on what others say about their experience with them.
If you want to survive in business today it’s not about what you say or think about your business, it’s what others out there think and say about you that matters.
4* A new email campaign strategy is helping to generate new enquiries for our franchisees
Email marketing is essential for building relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers.
For instance, let’s say someone visits your new travel website and signs up for your newsletter, what happens then? How do you nurture that ‘cold’ prospect over the next few months, keep them engaged via email with inspiring content, and turn them into someone who later down the line reaches out to you?
With a team of expert marketeers behind you this is another load of your mind. Professionally designed, carefully crafted weekly emails are sent to your subscribers. So, all you need to do is build your eNewsletter subscriber list!
No matter what new technologies and companies evolve to create new ways to reach audiences, such as Facebook Ads, Google Ads etc. Email marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective digital marketing strategies that can be used to reach and engage your target audience.
5. We helped travel consultants with all the admin that comes with holiday bookings
Our head office operations team, process all the travel admin for you, leaving you free to spend time looking after your customers.
- David Walker sold over £175k of travel during the start of the lockdown
- Nicola Pugh saw her bookings cross over £1miilion of travel sold
- Ben and Toni had their best January in 2021, across the last 5 year
- Lindsay and Tom did £100k in travel sales in the first 8 weeks of joining
- Maureen got her travel franchise for Free after achieving the Money Back Challenge
6. Promoting direct debit to help spread the cost of a trip and £0 deposit holidays have all been capturing the attention of our franchisees’ customers
You won’t just be able to help plan and book holidays across all types of destinations and budgets. You’ll be able to offer your customers the option to book now and pay later.
