How to organise yourself ?

You have worked hard to prepare your itineraries, get your local partners, make pictures and spread the word about the trips you sell. And here you go, you get your first reservation requests ! How to make sure that everything goes smoothly and you won’t forget anything ?

There is no secret about it, you have to be organised !

There are several points to be taken into consideration and they all are interconnected : email (as most probably your reservation channel), your computer organisation and a personal organiser.

Let’s go by order :

 

Organise your Email-flow

No matter which email-system you use (gmail, yahoo, hotmail or others), you have to organise your inbox in the best possible way to always be able to find your email exchanges with your clients or your agency partners.

Several tips :

1. Create a “Professional” folder, in which you only store professional emails.
   1. Within this folder, create subfolders, such as Agencies and Direct reservations. You could also create a folder with th ename “accounting”.
      1. Below Agencies you could create other subfolders with the names of the different agencies you work with. (One should be Phima Voyages 🙂 )
      2. Below Direct Reservations you can create subfolders with the names of your clients, once they confirmed. Like this you will have all the correspondance you had with these clients in one place !
2. Once you receive a reservation request from an agency partner, you always reply to the same email, don’t change the conversation flow. Like this you always have all the information available.
3. Always respond to emails within the latest 24 hours, but better within the hour. Keep in mind that if you don’t reply, another agency will reply to your potential client. Statistics show that the client is drawn towards the agency that replies to him the earliest.
4. Try to finish your day with your Inbox empty. Any mail that needs to be responded, transform it into a task that you will put into your Trello board. (see below).

 

Organise your computer

Your computer is your most precious tool. It will contain all your work, your pictures, your itineraries, your statistics and quotations. You absolutely should invest in a proper Antivirus as well as in at least one external hard disk. Get used to make a back-up once a week or at least every 2 weeks, in order not to loose any of your precious work.

You can also work in the Google Drive or another cloud and like this have access to your documents even from a phone.

Within your computer, you create folders and subfolders as in your Email system.

• Professionnal
  • Agencies – subfolders for the names of different agencies
    • Under each agency you can then keep the reservation documents per client (quotation, itinerary, pictures)
  • Direct clients – subfolders for the names of confirmed clients
    • Under each name of confirmed client, you keep the reservation documents per client (quotation, itinerary, pictures)
  • Pictures – this is where you will keep your pictures (best size is 1920 x 1280 pixels). Arrange your pictures according to the tourist spot they show, e.g. San Gerardo – Banos Termales, San Gerardo – Jardin de Secretos, Herradura – Hospedaje xx etc.

 

Organise yourself – Trello

Organising yourself is maybe the most challenging part of your work. It is important to know what you have done when, at which status are your reservation requests and once they are confirmed, that you take all the necessary action to confirm the hotels and services on your clients behalf.

We recommend Trello, an online project management system, that you can also use on your cell phone and like this follow your different files as well as your tasks. Trello is free of charge for a certain number of boards and group members.

Trello can be used for your personal task management, by preparing several columns such as your To-Do-Today-List, your Tasks for the Week and any other tasks you have scheduled for the near future. Only put as many cards into your To-Do-Today-List that you can definitely treat this day.

It is also perfect to work on your reservations. At Phima Voyages we have one board for Bookings in Progress where we keep the individual cards with the most important information regarding this potenial booking and client. This card will have a reminder date and you will get a notification the day you have to send a reminder mail to your client or give him a call.

Once the reservation is confirmed, the card passes on to a new board Confirmations 2019 and into the right month. More information is added so that any person having access to the board can know everything about the client within a click.

More information about Trello, follow the guide.

 

 

 

 

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