Wish You Were Here

As summer is winding down, we are all reflecting on the fun we had.  I know I’m thinking about that beautiful sunset while on the boat, or the rainbow I saw on an afternoon run.  If you own a rental or tour company, hopefully you are doing the same as you remember the joy on your customer’s faces as they took that tour with you, or came back on one of your boats after a fun filled day on the lake.  Your customer’s happiness is your success.

The goal is to keep these customers coming back, so engaging them throughout the year is a great way to ensure they’ll be back next season.  This engagement should start soon after they depart from your business.  Sending emails about special offers, newsletters, or posting on social media sites are great ways to let your customers know about what is going on with your business, and to keep you on the forefront of their minds.

Partnering with a Booking System that keeps track of your customers is key to your continued success.  At WebReserv, the system does just that.  Every reservation is accounted for and searchable, and every customer is saved.  You can easily extract your customer’s contact information in the WebReserv System by running a Customer Report.

Generating a report to use for an email marketing campaign or to send a newsletter or postcard can be completed in a few easy steps.

1.     Gather the data and select the options

In WebReserv, navigate to Frontdesk – Reports.  Choose Customer Report from the list.  On this page, you have different options for the report.

Name Range: Choose the range for the report by sorting by letter.  The default is A – Z which will generate a report of all your customers.  If you want to only search for customers with only A and B names, then adjust this range accordingly.

Date Range: As an option, you can input a date range.  This will generate a report of customers that were entered in the system during that time frame.

Opt-Out: If selected, this will remove contact information from customers that choose to opt-out of marketing emails. It will only add customers that indicated they do want to receive emails from you.

Report Fields: You can choose to add additional columns to the report, such as Birthday or Anniversary information.  Select Change Fields to add additional columns to the report.  See below for information on the Field Selector.

2.     Select the Report fields (optional)

By clicking on Change Fields in the Report Fields section, you can add or remove columns for your report.  If you have gathered Birthdays or Anniversary information on your customers, then you can add that information to this report as well.

To adjust the fields, simply drag the selection from Additional Columns box to the Selected Columns box.  You can also remove the Selected Columns by dragging to the Additional Columns box.  Once you are satisfied with your selections, save your changes.

3.     Download the Report

You have two options for viewing the report.  In order to capture the contact information easily, you will want to use the CSV format for upload.  This will give you the ability to upload the information directly into an email program such as Mail Chimp or Google.  Click View to access the report.

A box will pop up to ask you if you want to Open or Save the report.  Save it to a folder on your computer.  You will also have the option to Open the file into program such as Excel.  Choose the option that works best for you.

4.      Upload to your email program

Open your preferred email program, and upload the CSV file (if applicable) to your contact list.  If you cannot upload using the .csv format, you can also copy the email addresses from the spreadsheet and paste into the program.

5.     Reach out!

After you have extracted the data from WebReserv, you can now work on reaching out to your customers.  You will want to come up with a communication plan for the coming year while you are in your off season.  A good, simple plan should have variety (emails, newsletter, print) and frequency (quarterly).  See an example below.

1. Wish you were Here email  – Send week or so after their visit: A simple “thank you for visiting” or “Wish you were here” email is a great reminder to the customer of their time with you.  This email can include a link to a review site, so they can share their experience with others.
2. Holiday Postcard with Book Early discount – if budget allows create a beautiful postcard that you can mail to your customers.  Include a discount code (that you set up using WebReserv’s Discount Code feature!) that they can use to book with you for next season.  This will get them thinking about their summer plans and book early with you.
3. Happy New Year newsletter – Send just after the new year with exciting information about your business or new happenings for the upcoming season.
4. We Hope to see you this Summer email – send to customers in March or April.
5. Book Now for the Opening Day email (optional) – Review bookings for the upcoming season in the beginning of May, and reach out to only those customers that haven’t booked yet.  Sent them a quick note and possibly add a ‘last minute’ booking discount to entice them to book for the weekend holidays (if you have availability).

If you do not currently have a booking system that you use for online bookings, WebReserv has a solution for you.  Contact us today to get started with a 30 day FREE trial.  You won’t be disappointed!