|
|
|
|
Quokka Systems Attends the 2004 Vancouver International B&B Conference Trade shows are always very exciting and tiring and Trant and Leah of Quokka Systems will tell you. They'll also say that the show is an excellent opportunity to make contact with existing and future clients. The conference committee developed a great, creative method to drive traffic to trade show booths. Each B&B owner had a list of vendors (company name and booth number) and had to visit each booth to obtain a signature. A completed vendor list with signatures could be entered into a draw for a grand prize. This helped the attendees overcome the nervousness of visiting the booth and gave the vendors a chance to at least explain who they were. Our system is called the Quokka Online Booking System. Unfortunately, it's a technical term that does not necessarily hold meaning for B&B owners. Often it holds fear. What we learned was that what we really meant by "online booking" is "allow your guests to learn availability and prices and then book a visit with you instantly with our request handler directly off of your Web site." Availability is an interesting issue. Some B&Bs want their availability to be shown right away for upcoming dates. This would tell guests when they were full and the guests could either not waste time proceeding further or adjust their travel dates. Others, however, don't want any availability showing because if they are full, the guest might not call at all, eliminating an opportunity to sell a stay on different dates and make that personal connection would not occur. A further complication is competition. Do you want competitors to know how busy you are? Also, if you aren't that busy and one of your competitors is showing as full, what conclusions do the potential guests draw? This is made worse by B&Bs blacking out peak times because they know they will be full as a result of return guests who normally phone anyway. But to the new customer that finds a B&Bs site via the Internet, this reads as a false-full situation and they don't bother to phone. Trying to create computer programs to handle our clients various market conditions is a challenge. A feature that works for one person is a disaster for another. But we work hard to have flexibility in the program and to work with our clients to meet their guests needs. Robert Ford is the president of Quokka Systems Consulting Ltd. and is a regular contributor to ComputerWorld Canada. (www.itworld.com) Robert can be reached at Robert@quokkasystems.com |
|
 |
