Time Savings
Automation not only saves time, but increases employee productivity.
“Dynamic pricing was new to me, and I was actually manually dynamic pricing before. Every time we wanted to increase the price for a specific day or a specific cruise, I was going into the system and keeping track of that myself through a price override. I had a big notebook filled with the information!”
The findings indicate that operator ROI analyses should consider automating employee tasks not only in terms of time savings, but in the ability to scale their knowledge to value added activities.
Organizations can save up to 35 hours per week by automating routine tasks including updating pricing, collecting information, data entry, customer service and reporting. This frees employees to scale the knowledge they gain in the field towards higher leverage activities like ideating and managing new content and offers, process improvements, and turning data into actionable insights to make the whole team more efficient.
The biggest hindrance to training seasonal and part time workers is the system ease of use.
"Not having to train the staff top to bottom on [how to use RocketRez] made the transition very easy. I have 75 staff, so I can’t sit them all down for training. I prefer to train them where it’s happening – like at the ticket booth or at the office.”
Cost Savings
The average customer can add capabilities while decreasing overall software spending.
"When I started, we were not doing online ticketing. We were using a retail inventory system. We switched to [an online provider], but it took 3 and a half minutes to process a customer, and it’s not scalable. It created extra labor demands. My focus is on trying to automate and make things run more efficiently. This is the appeal that RocketRez has.”
The average RocketRez customer uses four different SaaS point solutions, sometimes in combination with a legacy on-premises ticketing and access control software, to run their multifaceted organization.
Consolidating all software under the RocketRez roof provides operators the ability to add modules as needed and save costs by shifting to a monthly subscription + usage-based pricing model. The time savings from reporting seamlessly across the entire business is a core differentiator of the RocketRez platform.
Customers can scale operations without increasing headcount.
"[RocketRez customer] was able to do 60% more revenue with half the time spent managing.”
Scaling operations into new products and new offers at a tour or attraction company generally comes with demands for new employees to support growth. The power of automation on the RocketRez platform has allowed operators to do more with less. Improvements to operations such as timed-ticketing, faster admissions, faster payments, pre-booking, and advanced information gathering from customers require less staff to manage.
“We wanted to invest in self-serve kiosks for low traffic times. Our goal is to be open 24-7, 365, and it is mutually advantageous to not need a ticket agent on staff at midnight on a weekday.”
Some companies have an opportunity to use self-serve kiosks, running on the same user interface as the RocketRez point-of-sale, to reduce the need for several full-time employees in the ticket booth. Automated chatbot technology reduces customer service time spent by 75%, fundamentally changing the structure of customer service on site for many tours and attractions.
A flexible and modern online booking process gets better ROI on content marketing and ad spend to increase direct bookings, eliminating costly OTA commissions.
"We want to become part of the decision-making tree for families to come . If we do things right, they will visit our brand several times before they physically come here. They sign up for newsletters, read blogs and follow us on social media. Then when they are here, since we know people spend an average time here of 7.82 days, I want them to visit the first or second day, and it will set the tone for their entire visit. We have a high rate of return visitors.”
In the past, operators have relied on OTAs to aggregate and bring in their audience with additional exposure from airline and accommodations purchases. We’ve found that this reliance is dwindling, as operators on the RocketRez platform count OTAs as just 4% of their sales mix, versus the industry average of 18%.
The customer benefits most from the RocketRez platform has a strong aptitude for in-house performance and content marketing. The RocketRez platform is a blank canvas for these operators to build a best-in-class sales flow, informed by data, to get the best engagement from their audience.
Cancellations have always been viewed as lost revenue compounded by chargeback fees from payment processors.
Cancellations are among the greatest sources of lost revenue for tours and attractions. Industry wide, operators see an average of 8% of booked tickets get cancelled. Providing ticket cancellation assurance at the point of purchase results in greater confidence from the traveler to complete the purchase and a massive cost savings from the attraction who no longer lose that revenue, don’t pay chargeback fees, and can resell the cancelled ticket.
“We want to become part of the decision-making tree for families to come to Maui. If we do things right, they will visit our brand several times before they physically come here. They sign up for newsletters, read blogs and follow us on social media. Then when they are here, since we know people spend an average time here of 7.82 days, I want them to visit the first or second day, and it will set the tone for their entire visit. We have a high rate of return visitors.”
Common Legacy Tour and Attraction Operator Tech Stack
Ticketing:
- Legacy Ticketing Provider
- Limited SaaS Ticketing Solution
Bolt-on SaaS point solutions to add functionality:
- eCommerce
- Payments & Point of Sale
- Memberships
- Private Events
- Fundraising & Donor Management
- CRMInventory/ERP
- Retail/Gift Shop/Food & Beverage