Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

You’ll probably recognize the Three Musketeer’s famous tag line “All for one and one for all”, but does it really work in a software as a service environment?  That is the challenge I was faced with this weekend after we released our latest round of updates to Rezgo.  The challenge I face everyday with Rezgo is balancing the needs of the whole with the needs of the few.  Not to get too nerdy on you, but I am reminded constantly of the line in The Wrath of Khan where Spock says:

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few — or the one.”

Which, when logically applied makes the most sense when trying to build a system that is designed to support hundreds or even thousands of individual members.  Can one system be all things to all people and still be standards based?  My reasoning is no, it cannot, because if you introduce too much flexibility into a system, the possible choices for how to use the system become too great for the average user to comprehend.  This seems to be especially true in the travel industry where technology abounds.  The next most logical conclusion then, is to try and convince the users that the system is not just a technology but a business tool, a “Business System” as opposed to a “Computer System”.  When applied to their business, the standards based “Business System” helps to streamline their business processes and ensure best practices.  So what’s the problem?  Well, the problem is that there are very few, if any, best practices in the tour & activities segment of the travel industry (especially for e-commerce).

So, here are my 5 recommendations to anyone who is providing or is considering providing a Software as a Service (a.k.a SaaS) :

1. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few — or one” : When you get a request from a member, repeat this mantra three or four times before you pull your hair out.  Remember that every single one of your members is an individual person who is relying on your software to run their business.  They are asking for something because they want to improve how they do things.  Consider whether or not the request will have a wide ranging benefit on other members, if it does, then you add it in to the development cycle.  If the feature is only good for one specific member, then repeat the aforementioned mantra a couple times to help eliviate the possible guilt.

2. Focus on what you do best & Share it with others : Salesforce.com is one of the best examples of a successful SaaS solution.  It is used by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide and has a very impressive corporate clients.  What makes it so good is it is very specific and has a very narrow core focus, and that is to be the best CRM system out there.  They didn’t build it to be an accounting package or a global distribution system or an event management tool.  What they did do, is they opened up the system to allow others to connect to Salesforce.com in order to extend the functionality.  Look around at sites like ProgrammableWeb.com and StrikeIron.com and you’ll find a whole host of APIs that are available for integration into your own application.  Honestly, why on Earth would you want to bother building in a complete newsletter management system from scratch (with all the spam and main issues that entails) when you can partner with a service like iContact or Vertical Response and integrate their API?

3. Schedule your development :  SaaS solutions evolve, often times much faster than stand-a-lone software products.  Rapid changes or regular releases can mean new features and functionality, but can also mean user confusion and more support.  Consider using a regular cycle for your releases.  For example, we do almost monthly releases for things like bug fixes or minor feature corrections.  We do a fairly regular quarterly release for larger features or major changes.  Even in our case we still run into situations where users members are unaware of new features, in some cases six months after the feature was released.

4. Stop calling them users : This is another one of those mantras I have to keep repeating to myself.  It really is more of a philisophical thing then a technical thing.  It seems to me that people are only referred to as users in two situations; when they are using a computer system or when they are using drugs.  Needless to say, I don’t like the context, so I have forced myself and the people I work with to refer to the people that “use” Rezgo as Supplier Members or Vendor Partners.  It has been a tough go, but I’m convinced that changing the way we refer to members will also change how we deal with members.

5. Communicate openly with your members: There is no excuse for not keeping your members in the loop.  Give them lots of options for connecting with you.  This doesn’t mean you have to get a 1-800 number or a call centre to handle support requests.  Use tools like Meebo.com for instant web chat, GetSatisfaction.com as a customer support forum, or set-up a simple customer request form.  We find that more than 90% of our support and feature requests come from either one of these three channels.  The important thing to remember is that if you provide these options, you must follow through in a timely manner.  Members will lose faith in your service very quickly if you do not respond to their requests.  In addition to the support forms, I recommend using a monthly newsletter to communicate NON-CRITICAL updates or marketing news.  Remember that you will be lucky to get a 25% open rate on your newsletters, so don’t rely on them to notify members of system updates.  Use a text only support & maintenance update system (could piggyback on your newsletter) to let people know about system maintainence issues.  We also post these notifications on our blog and GetSatisfaction.com.  The bottom line is that is better to be proactive with support then reactive.

Maybe some of you other travel innovators can add to this list.  What is your experience in building SaaS for travel.