Every business communication should have an SMS channel to communicate with the customer and potential prospects. If you’re into the travel and hospitality business SMS marketing it’s necessary to implement seamless communication channels. Only a few companies in the sector prefer SMS marketing even though text messages have impressive open rates. It means only a few customers are receiving text messages from the business.
The travel industry and technology go hand in hand. In recent times, once the pandemic has hit, the approach in the travel industry has changed. So the expectations from the customers have shifted towards no contact service. As everyone is using mobile phones, it’s easier than ever to reach and deliver relevant information and services to customers without putting their lives in danger. So with the help of SMS marketing, you can create more personalized travel experiences.
Let’s discuss how SMS can help the travel industry to communicate effectively.
Ways to use SMS in the Travel Industry:
1. Timely Updates:
The main characteristic of SMS is it can be instantly delivered and most of them read it right away. So the companies can use SMS to send timely updates. One of the disadvantages of the travel industry is the frequency of suddenness by which the critical info changes. The flights can be delayed, boarding gates will be changed, busses can be cancelled. These things happen when the time to close to departure. It’s better to communicate beforehand to customers when you already anticipated the delay. If it did so, the customers will leave the house at the right time to catch the flight/bus.
If you waste your customer time, it will lead to a poor customer experience and lower brand value. Sending real-time updates on any travel delays will improve your service to customers and save your valuable time spent on answering the same question multiple times.
2. Booking confirmation:
Once the customer makes the booking on the app/website, it’s important to send a confirmation message. The customer will be in a dilemma until he knows that his booking is confirmed because in most cases payment will be done in advance and the customer gets worried and contact you immediately.
It’s easier to automate the process by using our Unified APIs. Apart from booking confirmations, you can send check-in time reminders and seat numbers on their mobile phones.
3. Boarding pass/SMS ticket:
Send flight, bus, or train tickets to customer phones via SMS. So that they can show the same while they are checking into an airport or into the station. In this way, they don’t have to dig into their wallets to show the ticket instead they can just the message on their mobile phones.
4. Customer Service:
SMS is ideal for customer service. The SMS allows 2-Way conversation to passengers or hotel guests so that they can easily request information, book services without hassle, accommodate in-room requests with an easy reply. In the mornings, you can send them an SMS of the nearby places around, local events, and breakfast timings. Once the customer checks out the property, send them a link to rate their experience over google and the app so that the visitors will get to know about your service.
5. Promote Travel packages and last-minute deals:
SMS is a great way to send offers and promotional messages to existing customers. By using MOBtexting’s data analytics you can target the group that showed interest earlier. Send the customized travel packages to customers who enquired before and didn’t make the purchase. You can send last-minute hotel deals and airfare price drop SMS to the prospects who are on the verge of booking. Send travel vouchers and promo codes so that customers can easily use the same while booking.
Benefits of SMS Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality:
There are a lot of reasons why SMS marketing is a great idea for tourism:
Simple and Direct: People are attached to their smartphones. The text messages are only about 160 characters. Your message will be short and to the point, immediately showing value to the customer.
High Open Rates: Recent surveys say that 95% of SMS gets opened, which is 3x higher than emails. If you want to get your message right in front of people, SMS is a great way to ensure that it’s seen.
Fast and reliable: With the help of API’s we can deliver thousands of text messages within a fraction of a minute to intended recipients. It will ease the customer experience too.
Easy reports and results: The attached links in the messages help to derive the source and make it data-centric. This will help us to track the traffic from different platforms that have got integrated.
Try business SMS today.
Contact MOBtexting sales@webrevenant.com or give a call +91 9019 120 120.
