Conversing Digitally – The Basics of E-mail Rapport
November 30, 2007
With all the wonders of e-mail and its possibilities for connecting you with clients and potential clients, there is a downside – you can’t see the person you’re conversing with. That makes it hard to for you to judge their reaction to what you’re saying. Without hearing their voice or seeing their body language, it makes it difficult for you to know what to say next.
E-mail is a wonderful tool, but it’s just that: a tool. It cannot replace the basics of building a rapport with your client, which should be what your online business plan is all about. Your online presence should not simply be about making sales, it should be about showing your clients and potential clients that their travel needs are best handled by a seasoned, polished professional – you. You need to show them that you care about their overall business and not just their immediate dollars.
The defining question in the online marketplace is, quite simply, who has the customer relationship? To succeed, the answer must be you. Here are some basic things you can put into practice today to improve your e-mail finesse:
Be liberal in what you receive and conservative in what you send
This means you shouldn’t overreact if a client says something that seems rude. Chances are they didn’t intend to be offensive. On the other hand, take a look at what you’re sending them. Always keep it professional, even if you think the client is your friend. Those really funny jokes may not be funny to them at all. Refrain from trying to build a personal relationship with them by relying on your good sense of humor: everyone has a different opinion of what’s humorous.
Pick up the phone and call
Even the most wired people like to hear a real live human voice now and then. It shows that you really care about them. If your clients are local then a meeting (also known in geek-speak as face-mail) is a good idea, too.
Don’t clutter their world
If you use a mailing list to send out specials, don’t send multiple advertisements each week for the hottest deals. I’ve just unsubscribed from a national hockey club’s mailing list because they sent me 8 urgent notices last week alone. (An offer to buy a $20 sweatshirt is not urgent to me.) Know your audience, keep your content relevant and concise and compile all your specials into one weekly mailing. Most airlines and vendors send their specials out on Wednesday. Try to send yours on Monday or Tuesday and beat the rush.
Spell-check. Enough said.
Get another set of eyeballs
Let someone else proofread an important note or response before sending it. Don’t let a small mistake ruin a great note. Perception is everything.
Never reply when you’re angry
Leave the recipient’s address off the note while you compose it and add it in right before sending. That way there’s no chance of accidentally sending it before it’s ready. Cool off before you reply, or even better, pick up the phone and call. Some things should never be said in e-mail.
Don’t SPAM
Never send unsolicited e-mail. You’ll kill your business and maybe even get kicked off your Internet service provider to boot.
Don’t get too attached
If you want to send a document to a client, call first to make sure they have compatible software to open what you are sending. Not everyone has the latest software or even the same manufacturer as you. Most are compatible, but it’s best to check and save the recipient the frustration and time of opening a non-compatible attachment. Once you’ve verified that it will work, virus scan the document before you send it and add a note alerting them that there should be an attachment and you’ve scanned it prior to sending with XYZ software. It’s no guarantee, but it shows that you’re on the ball.
Keep it plain, Jane
Know the difference between HTML and plain-text e-mail. I always suggest sending plain-text e-mail since some e-mail programs aren’t set up to read the fancy stationery, graphics or fonts.
Sign it properly
Always include a signature line. E-mail isn’t perfect and if you don’t give them an alternate way to connect with you, you could lose them. My signature line covers all the important aspects of contact – name, address, phone number, web address, fax number and e-mail address.
In the best case, e-mail is a professional powerhouse for serving your clients. With a little planning and some proper training, your clients will appreciate that you’ve added another way to keep them connected. Worst case, better get out your papyrus and a good stylus.
Online Travel Agency Success Stories: How to Be One.
November 30, 2007
Your web site is up and running and it looks fabulous. Rich content, plenty of eye-candy and all the right links in all the right places. You’ve even gotten a few leads from the site. Any day now and the money will be pouring in and Fox News will be reporting on your public stock offering.
Reality Check.
Are you ready to be an Internet success story? Great. So is every other travel agency with a web browser. How can you compete? You’ve got one shot. How you handle the potential customers. An amazing web site, creative marketing and strong traffic cannot grow your online business without the right handling of the inquiries that come in. These leads require a different way of thinking. Here are some observations I’ve made over the past seven years:
Forget Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific – Think Web-Time. It’s a whole new global time zone. Potential customers want information immediately and they are steadily getting used to shopping at 4 a.m.. To increase your chances of working with a customer, you should plan on getting back with any overnight inquires by 10 a.m. the next day and within 30 minutes throughout the day. Be sure someone watches the incoming e-mail on the weekends, too.
Call first to confirm – one of my clients was very excited to receive a cruise lead on a Disney Group. It was very promising and she spent quite a bit of time researching it and e-mailing all the information back to the customer. They exchanged several e-mails and it looked better and better as time went on. When it was far enough along in the process, she called to get a credit card number – only to discover it was a 12 year old boy trying to get his parents to book the trip. One initial phone call would have saved many wasted hours.
If the potential customer includes a note in their e-mail that says, ‘do not call’ then it’s probably one of two things – a) not a serious inquiry or b) another travel agent ’shopping’ your rates, which is more and more common these days. In my experience, serious inquiries do not mind a phone call to introduce yourself, discuss your qualifications and establish some rapport.
Think beyond the sale. When we design web sites for small & medium size travel agency clients, we include a consultation in which we determine what customers they would like to target. We stress that they should not think in terms of growing their sales base, but growing their customer base. One agency client is now working with customers that have booked four repeat cruises!
Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. Converting leads to sales is not an easy process, but follow-up is worth all the effort.
Keep content fresh and in front of them. Many sites we redesign haven’t been touched in months. Web customers are always on the lookout for the best deal and if they see a lovely banner that says ‘Happy Holidays’ in late January then they will surf off to another site. Another high priority is to keep a mailing list and advise your customers of new specials and make it easy for them to reply.
Finally, take stock of the most obvious (but often overlooked) point of differentiation. How are your customer service skills? It may sound simplistic, but think about who you do business with and why. As a customer, I drive an extra 15 minutes and pay slightly more for groceries simply because I can get everything under one roof – that’s called value. I also shop there because they carry everything to the car – that’s called service.
If you make it easy to do business with you, offer good value and genuinely treat the customer well, you can successfully compete with mega-agencies, direct-selling vendors and web-based travel agencies. Make these points part of your online business plan and then I’ll be on the lookout for your public stock offering.
Hitter or Pitcher? Pick One and Be the Best.
November 30, 2007
I heard a story years ago (and I think it’s now even a song) of a little boy playing an imaginary game of baseball by himself. It’s in the heat of the pennant race, the bottom of the ninth inning and there are two outs when he comes up to hit.
He tells himself that he is the greatest player of all time – better than Sosa, DiMaggio and Ruth together. He tosses the ball in the air to pitch to himself and takes a huge swing — and misses. Strike one.
He buckles down, readies himself for the next pitch, and — strike two. Finally, with the game, the series and the pennant on the line, he steps up to the plate again, and with the determination of McGwire he “calls” his home run. He is the greatest. He cannot lose.
His mom calls him to come in, but he barely hears her over the roar of the crowd. This is his moment and he takes his shot with all his might.
The umpire yells Strike three!
As he walks home, the boy says to himself,
“I didn’t know I could pitch like that. I really am the greatest!”
I may have a form of baseball fever, but I use this as an illustration of how agencies need to focus on their core competencies. Are you a hitter or a pitcher? If you’re trying to be both, then the rules of the game say that one side will lose.
Figure out what you do best and do it. Don’t try and be all things to all people. Those days are over. The Internet has transformed the way the public researches and purchases travel forever, and that’s a good thing. We now have the potential to reach consumers that appreciate our professionalism and expertise and are usually willing to pay for it. You’ve got to show them that you’re worth it.
So, once you’ve figured out that you’re a family travel specialist or an Aussie specialist or a small-upscale-African-safari-but-only-to-the-eastern-continentspecialist, make sure you stay on top of your field. Know your suppliers, know the destination, and know your resources.
What you’re really selling is yourself. Your clients have already decided on the destination and they pretty much know what they’re going to spend. They are out there and they’re waiting for you to let them know that you’re out there,too.
In this era of tiered commissions and preferred supplier agreements, a specialty is not only smart marketing strategy,it’s good business. And every ball player knows that strategy wins over sheer strength and size every time.
Play Ball!
DNS Transfers
November 29, 2007
Before a domain name can be live on our servers so the world can view it and send e-mail, it must be changed to show our name servers as its “authoritive name servers.” This is accomplished via what is called a domain “modification” or domain “transfer.” or just simply a “DNS transfer”.
We like to think of it as an “internet change of address” – it’s so much simpler when you think of it like that.
We can HELP you transfer the domain name but we cannot authorize the transfer. If we could, then we’d could have every website in the whole world, if we wanted them, and that would be a little bit scary. Therefore, it can only be done by the owner of the domain name, and you must have the user name and password for the account. Hey – we don’t make the rules. We just help you play the game. If you can’t remember who your registrar is, you can look it up through Network Solutions. Once you have the user name and password you can either provide it to us, or follow the steps for “transferring the name” – In any event, don’t skip the next part about e-mail. That’s important stuff.
By the way! you MUST continue to renew your domain name with your registrar each renewal period and you should keep your e-mail address and contact information current at all times. This is a contract between you and the registrar and is the only way you will keep your domain name. If you’re paying more than $15 per year for the registration of the name, then you’re paying too much and you should check with us about cheaper options.
E-Mail Considerations
Before you transfer your name, you need to plan for a time of transition with regard to your e-mail. While the internet change of address happens globally, some people will see your old site and some will see your new site and some e-mail will go to the old site and some to the new site. No way around this – it’s how the ‘Net works. You’ll need to check your e-mail in both places during this time to insure that you receive all your mail. This usually resolves in about 48-72 hours from the time you authorize the change. We say usually because each Internet Service Provider chooses when they update their address information and some servers in Ghana might only do it one every full moon. Here in the USA, it’s pretty much every day. We suggest, however, that you make the change on a Friday to reduce the impact to your operations. Especially those in Ghana.
Create all the mailboxes for your new account
Setup your new mailboxes in Outlook/Outlook Express using your IP address as the incoming and outgoing server.
Call the company that currently hosts your e-mail (this is usually the same company that hosts your website, or it could be a separate company. If you’re not sure, we may be able to help you determine who it is) and tell them that you need the settings to check your e-mail with an IP address because you are transferring your domain and e-mail. They should be able to walk you through this part and make any needed changes on their end to reflect the change, as well. If they are ALSO your Internet Service Provider (in addition to your webhost) they will need to change their system so they properly allow your outgoing mail.
When you’re finished, you’ll have two accounts per person in Outlook/Outlook Express. About a week after the new website is live, you can remove the account for your previous host.
Transferring the Name
Look up your registrar (http://www.internic.net/whois.html)
Work with the registrar to determine your user name and password to administrate your account. You may have to apply for lost passwords or lost accounts to do this. Allow plenty of time before any deadlines to make sure you have this information.
Change the NameServers and the Technical Contact information, or send the user name and password to us and we’ll make the change for you. Be sure and tell us the date you want the change made, and be sure that your e-mail preparations are in place!
Our NameServer Infomattion and Technical Contact information are as follows:
Primary Name Server:
NS1.GEMTRAVELSITES.COM
Secondary Name Server:
NS2.GEMTRAVELSITES.COM
Technical Contact
Crossover Consulting, Inc
15842 Portillo Dr
Corpus Christi, TX 78418
909-752-5318 – FaxNetwork Solutions NIC Handle:
CY360
If you have any questions regarding these steps, please let us know and we’ll step you through it.
Mainteinance Complete!
November 24, 2007
We completed the network maintenance last night with zero downtime.
Here are some enhancements:
- Added Server Memory: We doubled the amount of memory in the server for faster processing speed and delivery of mail.
- Connections for Mail: We doubled the number of mail connections for enhanced spam filtering.
- Spam Filtering: When someone sends an e-mail to you, it will go through a check as follows:
- If the sender’s email server is listed in zen.spamhaus.org, or bl.spamcop.net (Realtime Blacklists of Spammers) it is rejected
- If the sender’s email server doesn’t exist, meaning it is forged, then it is rejected
- If the sender’s email address doesn’t exist, meaning it is spoofed, then it is rejected
- If the sender of the mail is validated, then it is checked for viruses. If one is found, it is rejected
- If it is clean, then the content is checked for Spam and assigned a score. If the score is greater than 20, it is rejected
- If the score is less than 20, but greater than 5 it is passed to your local spam filter, SpamAssassin to see if the sender is in your “whitelist” which will allow it through. If it is not on the whitelist, then the subject will be rewritten to include ***SPAM*** and it will let the mail through
- If the score is less than 5, then it will let the mail through (Note: you can change this score; see below)
Once the mail makes it through, then you can set up local filtering. Here is an excellent tutorial to setup Junk filters and Filters in Microsoft. You can change the settings of your local SpamAssassin to automatically discard mail and/or reroute it to a Spam Box.
You can also change the score anywhere from 1 (most restrictive) to 19 (least restrictive). It is recommended that you leave the score to 5 for a week or so with the mail coming through. If you see mail tagged as Spam which should not be, this is called a false positive. If there are less than 5 senders caught, then whitelist them in SpamAssassin. If there are more than 5 senders then you might want to increase the score to 6 and leave it there for a week to see if that takes care of the false positives.
If you have questions about Spam Filtering, let me know in the comments and I’ll post the answers for everyone.
Network Maintenance This Weekend
November 21, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Just a quick note to wish everyone a very healthy and happy Thanksgiving. It is my very favorite Holiday ever since Martha Stewart taught me “turkey 101″ in 1990 – my very first year of marriage. I still have my dog-eared copy of the recipe (cheesecloth, butter & white wine basted, of course) and I must say I’m told that my feasts are legendary.
While we’re all turkey-napping, our Network Engineers are going to add some boosters to the mailserver. Right now it is taking between 15-25 seconds per message to Spam & Virus Check, and that’s causing a bottleneck for some messages. We are also adding a couple of extra fraud prevention measures and a lock down on some bad guys that have been trying to hack passwords. There should be NO downtime.
Again, I hope you have a very wonderful Holiday.
Warm Regards,
Chelle
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 20, 2007
Our office will be closed Wednesday – Friday this week to celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday. We hope that you and your family have a wonderful, restful long weekend.
New! For technical support, please submit a ticket through our technical support page. We also offer live support when our staff is online.
Reminder: No Bulk Client Mailing Allowed
November 14, 2007
For some reason since switching to the new server the outgoing email has gone through the roof. We are working to stabilize the server load, but in the meantime allow me to remind everyone that it is NOT permissible to send out bulk mailings (and that includes internal office and/or client mailings to more than 10 recipeints) using our server.
When things settle down tonight I’ll look at the server logs and see exactly which users are dragging the server down. In the meantime, if you don’t use your consortium to send mailings (vacation.com, STN, Carlson) you need to contact me for alternatives.
Also, PLEASE stop hitting the send/receive button to check mail every other minute. I realize this has been frustrating, but it is also causing the mailserver to lock down because it thinks its being attacked. Please set your mail to automatically check every 10 minutes and don’t hit send/receive or get mail any more than that.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Chelle
Installing Spam and Antivirus
November 14, 2007
This morning there will be intermittent times when email times out while I reload the Spam/AntiVirus protection. I’m sorry to do it during the day, but we’re getting SLAMMED by Spam Mail and if I don’t deal with this now it could take longer for mail to come in, and cause more outages as the connections to the server are used up. It should be finished by 2pm Central Time.
Importing Existing E-mail from Webmail or Outlook/Outlook Express to GMail
November 13, 2007
As promised, here are the instructions for importing your existing e-mail from webmail or Outlook/Outlook Express/Thunderbird to GMail
Download the PDF file of these instructions to print out
This pdf outlines two ways – the simple way and the technical way. Please be sure you’ve got some technical help if you choose the second path! It will be essential to have someone ONSITE with you if you run into difficulties.
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