What should a travel agent do if a tourist is dissatisfied with the hotel, wants to return a ticket without penalty at a non-refundable rate or book a guest house that is not available on the Internet.
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Even if the travel agent has thought through the trip to the smallest detail, the client is not immune from force majeure such as overbooking, flight rescheduling and problems with check-in. However, today the agent does not have to deal with such situations on his own. Recently, a special service with support for travel agents from the Smartway group of companies appeared on the market. We tell you how IT solutions simplify the work of travel agents. |
The tourist is unhappy with the hotel. What should an agent do?
On June 21, at half past five in the morning, travel agent Elena G. was woken up by a call from Vladimir: a week ago, he bought a tour to Hurghada through Elena’s agency. The tourist was disappointed by the hotel. In reality, the room looked worse than in the photos: there was no window, and Vladimir noticed mold in the bathroom. Besides, he couldn’t sleep all night because of the noisy neighbors. Vladimir asked to cancel the reservation from the 22nd to the 25th. And arrange at least a partial refund from the hotel.
The reservation was non-refundable, and at first Elena was confused. In her panic, she couldn’t even find the hotel room. Then she wrote to the support service where she booked the trip, Smartagent. The manager quickly replied, asked what had happened, and promised to come back with a solution soon.
After 30 minutes, the manager wrote to Elena with good news: support has agreed on a 100% refund and a free transfer to another hotel. Vladimir was offered a premium hotel of the same chain. On the same day, he checked into a room with a sea view.
Smartagent support works around the clock and helps agents quickly find a way out of even the most unusual situations of tourists.
Task: to return a non-refundable ticket without penalty
In most cases, the service managers manage to solve the problem without additional expenses for the client. One day, an agent contacted support who made a mistake when booking a ticket for 157,000 rubles. A fine had to be paid for the refund. The manager called the airline and arranged for the ticket to be reissued without additional payment. It took only an hour and a half to solve the problem.
Sometimes non-standard questions come from tourists. In 2023, a client of Veronica M.’s travel agent. I came to rest at a large hotel in Istanbul and took a pet with me — a toad. When booking the room, the agent noted that the client would be with the animal. The hotel had such an option. However, the tourist was not allowed to enter the reception with the words: “You can only take a cat or a dog to the room.” Veronica contacted the support service, and the manager contacted the hotel. It turned out that there were no restrictions in the rules of accommodation on the types of animals that you can take with you. The only thing needed was a carry. Since the toad was in the terrarium, the hotel had no right to refuse check-in. The hotel apologized to the tourist and gave a certificate for a free breakfast in the restaurant.
The Smartagent support service employs specialists from the main travel areas: air and railway tickets, hotels, transfers, VIP lounges, accounting. In order for managers to quickly solve the problems of tourists, regardless of the time of day, Smartagent has opened support offices in regions with different time zones.
The experts of the Smartagent travel support chat are in touch 24/7 and are ready to solve any question of your customers – even the most non—standard one.
How do I book a guest house that is not available on the Internet?
If a client books a trip to a country where tourists rarely come, it becomes more problematic to resolve issues with the hotel. Sometimes difficulties with settlement arise even on the territory of Russia. Many hotels and hostels in remote regions are not represented online.
Smartagent can find accommodation literally anywhere in the world. Even where this is practically impossible: for example, in remote regions of India and African countries. All thanks to direct cooperation with key players in the tourism market. For example, with Trip.com .
In 2022, the Smartway Group of companies acquired one of the largest hotel consolidators in the B2B market. So 12,000 hotels across Russia have joined the Smartagent database.
One day, a message came to support with a difficult request. The client asked to book a hotel in Altai, which was not in search engines and on maps. Then the manager contacted a nearby hotel, and the reception staff provided the necessary contacts. The manager collected photos and detailed information about the hotel and gave it to the agent.
Tickets at supplier prices
For some agents in the service, round-the-clock support is most important. And someone uses it primarily for the sake of profitable tickets and hotels. In Smartagent, they are sold at supplier prices, without additional fees and commissions. All thanks to direct contracts with most of the Russian airlines: Aeroflot, S7, Pobeda, UTair, Ural Airlines, IrAero, Nordwind Airlines and others.
Everything you need is in one window
The interface of the service is designed so that anyone can use it without additional training. When searching for tickets, you need to specify the city or airport of departure and arrival, dates, number of passengers and transfers, baggage and class. You can create a complex route, choose the right airline or flight time. When searching for a flight, an indicator is displayed at the top, which shows: the ticket is standard, higher or lower than usual for this destination.
This is how the “price temperature” looks in the Smartagent service — a scale that shows the range of ticket prices.
For hotels, you can set up filters by location, by type of accommodation (for example, hotel, apartment, guest house, sanatorium and others), star rating, availability of breakfast, early check-in or other additional services.
You can search for hotels in Smartagent according to all possible customer needs — up to the presence of an electric kettle in the room.
All documents in the service are generated automatically in your personal account. The agent only needs to download the finished reports. To get reports and book a trip, you do not need to switch between tabs — everything is in one window.
In the Smartagent service, all trip reports are generated automatically. The agent only needs to download them in his personal account.
How to connect to the service with a 90% discount%
To connect Smartagent, the agent leaves a request on the website. After that, the service manager conducts an individual online tour of the platform and gives a free demo.
The service operates on a fixed subscription fee. If the agent does not buy anything in a month, you do not need to pay. Special conditions are currently in effect for new users. The first two months for the price of one — with a 90% discount. Detailed information can be found on the Smartagent website.
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