The client changes one date, and it all starts again
The quote was ready, three nights in Vienna, Thursday flight, double room with breakfast, then the message arrives, they're leaving on Friday instead of Thursday, and you start the round again, you open the tour operator's portal, you search, the flight costs something different, that night the hotel only has another kind of room, you redo the sums, you rewrite the document, you send it out again
Then the client thinks it over, and maybe doesn't go at all
The hours that go before you sell anything
A quote is work nobody pays for, you prepare three to sell one, so every minute spent in there weighs twice as much as a minute spent on a booking already closed
- Looking for the same availability on several supplier portals, with the same dates and the same names retyped every time
- Copying what you found into the quote, with the prices, the conditions, the cancellation penalties
- Redoing the quote a second and a third time, because a date changes, or an airport, or the number of passengers
- Opening the booking file in your business software when the client confirms, retyping the data you had already written in the quote
- Collecting the travelers' documents, which arrive photographed crooked, and typing out names and numbers hoping they match the ones on the ticket
- Keeping an eye on the due dates for deposits and balances, because if you miss one the supplier releases your booking
Examples of what the system can do
These are examples of work the system is able to do, not work already delivered for some agency, Muffin Suite started recently and I'd rather write it down than let you guess it
- The system logs into the supplier portals with your credentials, searches the dates you give it and brings the options back in a single sheet, so you compare them without ten tabs open
- It takes that sheet and prepares the quote in the agency's own format, with your wording, your conditions and your margin already in it
- When a date changes, it runs the same options round again and puts the old version next to the new one, so you see what changed in two seconds
- It reads the traveler's document, pulls out surname, first name, number and expiry date, and writes them into the booking file in your business software, then checks that the name on the ticket and the name on the document match
- It looks at the due dates for deposits and balances and prepares the list of who needs a reminder today, not at the end of the month
The point is that the system needs no direct integration with the supplier portals, it uses them the way you would, by opening the screens, this is the house specialty, and it holds for the agency's business software and for the PDFs and Excel files that reach you too
What stays with you
What stays is the reason someone walks into an agency instead of booking alone on their phone, knowing that hotel is far from the center even if the map makes it look close, knowing that with two small children a flight at six in the morning is a bad idea, knowing who to call when the flight is canceled
The system decides nothing in your place, it puts the options together and fills in the fields, and when it finds something that doesn't add up, a name that differs, a price that doesn't match, availability that has vanished, it stops and leaves you the case to look at
Why the agency comes out ahead
The hours taken off mechanical work go back in front of the client, and a quote that isn't waiting for your round of the portals goes out while the client is still warm, not once they have already looked elsewhere
You don't have to replace your software and you don't pay a large sum up front, the monthly fee is agreed before we start and that is what it stays, and you approve every addition
How it starts
I'm Antonio Fuccillo, I write the automations myself and I answer the messages myself, so you're talking to the person who actually does the work
You show me a procedure, even just a short screen recording with none of your clients' data in it, I look at whether it can be done and I tell you the fee first, if you want an idea in the meantime there's the savings calculation and the page on how it works, otherwise write to me from the contact page