(The Margie’s Travel Goes Online series tells the story of how Margie, John, Delores and their fictitious travel company use Microsoft Office Live Small Business to overcome everyday business challenges.)
Since signing up for Office Live Small Business, Margie’s Travel has created a Web site, started selling travel guides online, e-mailed several promotions to customers, and developed a better contact management system. The result: Business has steadily picked up.
The travel agency quickly filled all the openings in the five summer tours it offered for the age 55-and-over set. So Margie and John decided to put together three more tours to accommodate those on the waiting list.
“All this business is great,” Margie told John one Sunday morning when both were putting in some extra hours. “But it’s getting harder and harder to manage the details of each tour and get the information out to the tour participants and our vendors.
“I don’t want to hire more staff to help us out, but I also hate to ask Delores to work extra hours.” Delores, John’s peppy mother, helps part-time around the office.
“I know what you mean,” John said as he headed out the door for a golf date. “We need another way to communicate the details of their tours with our customers.”
At the golf course, John met up with his friend Cal, who ran a real estate company in town. Cal mentioned how he was using Office Live Small Business to share information online with home buyers and sellers.
“Office Live Small Business has a service called workspaces,” Cal explained. “It’s like a private Web site where I can post and share everything from announcements and documents to links, photos, calendars, and tasks. I even use these workspaces to post confidential mortgage documents since they are more secure than sending via e-mail.
“Then I give my buyers or sellers a password so they can get to the workspace from any computer and see the information I put there. Passwords keep everything more secure. And if I want, I can also give workspace users the power to add to or change stuff in the workspace. “
Since Margie’s Travel also used Office Live Small Business, John listened closely. The more he heard, the more he knew workspaces could help their travel business, too.
The next morning over coffee, John told Margie and Delores about his talk with Cal. “We could create a workspace for each tour group so participants could log in and keep track of their itinerary, clothing recommendations, airline requirements and all of the other details related to their upcoming trip.”
“And we could give our hotel operators, transportation vendors and guides access, too, so they can verify when and where things are happening,” Delores added. “And maybe create a separate workspace for each of them to keep contracts and agreements on file.”
Margie quickly agreed that workspaces could really help them. “With workspaces, each tour becomes a team event. People like being part of a team,” she said, but then paused.
“Do you think our customers would really use it? John, not all seniors are as savvy as your mom is when it comes to computers and the Internet.”
“I’ve checked it out and it’s pretty intuitive,” he assured her. “You can see for yourself.”
“OK, let’s give it a try,” Margie agreed. “Besides, if customers have any trouble they can always e-mail Delores.”
Read more: The Margie’s Travel Goes Online series includes six episodes that follow the travel agency as it successfully incorporates Office Live Small Business features into its business.
Margie’s Travel Goes Online series