Travel agencies take pride in offering customers a relaxing, simplified alternative to the chaos of booking flights, hotels, and vacation destinations. But what is simple for the traveler is often anything but for the professionals responsible for coordinating vacation logistics. Too often, agents are overwhelmed by data and left to navigate unsupportive, user-unfriendly booking and CRM systems.

This is precisely the problem Cruise & Vacation Desk was dealing with — and why the agency’s leaders reached out to Gerent to help them find a better solution. In this episode on Transformation @ Work, we break down the end result of that partnership: Travel Essentials, a bespoke Salesforce solution purpose-built for the needs of the travel industry.

Key Insights
01:40: Challenges faced by travel agents when booking vacations for customers: complicated data streams, managing multiple relationships, and more
03:41: The complexities of managing customer data and relationships without a comprehensive CRM
04:47: The current state of how travel agencies manage data: complicated, costly house-built CRM solutions
06:34: Why Cruise & Vacation Desk sought out a better option for managing customer data
07:20: Key features Cruise & Vacation Desk needed in their CRM to truly simplify the booking process
09:45: How Travel Essentials helped Cruise & Vacation Desk transform the booking experience
10:45: Business outcomes Cruise & Vacation Desk were able to unlock with Travel Essentials
11:24: Exploring the scalability that Travel Essentials offers Cruise & Vacation Desk and similar travel agencies
12:38: How Travel Essentials supercharges Cruise & Vacation Desk’s marketing capabilities
14:55: How Cruise & Vacation Desk plans to leverage Travel Essentials for future growth
16:58: Looking ahead: what Travel Essentials offers to the travel industry at large

Guest Bios
George A. Barnett, Jr., President and General Manager, Cruise & Vacation Desk
George has been part of the Cruise & Vacation Desk team for over 20 years, eventually taking over the company from his father and stepping into the role of president and general manager.

Andrew Bonichi, Vice President and COO, Cruise & Vacation Desk
Andrew has worked in the travel industry for over 30 years, the past 21 of which has been with Cruise & Vacation Desk. As Vice President and COO, Andrew leads his team in delivering industry-leading vacation packages and rewards programs to their customer base.

Ketta Riley, Practice Leader, Travel, Tourism, and Entertainment, Gerent
Ketta has over 35 years of travel and hospitality leadership experience, 10 of which have been spent working on Salesforce implementations. She leverages her experience combined with extensive knowledge of industry market trends to support our customers’ businesses.

Valentine Christopher, Director of Delivery, Gerent
Valentine brings over 25 years of experience in IT consulting to his current role, with over 8 years specifically in the Salesforce ecosystem. In his current role, he leverages that experience to help set up businesses in the travel, tourism, and entertainment industries for success with Salesforce.

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