Travel Place — a month of learning | Travel Research Online

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Travel Place — a month of learning

So, it has bee a couple of difficult weeks – busy, but not so much with new stuff.  It seems as though every single final payment came due at once; and that “once” was last week.  And then I discovered that I hadn’t invoiced some things!  And then our accounting office found some commission payments of mine that were missing in action previously; but were not reconciling with the correct invoices!

But the most interesting thing I’ve been up against is trying to figure out (well, actually learn) a new iZento program – using a ClientBase+  “rescard” to drive the iZento “trip journal.”  I’d seen iZento before; I know several agents in the TRO Community use it and I’ve been very impressed.   But for me, even with all the Italy FITs, it never seemed to make sense to use iZento when I was already manually inputting so much into CB+.  A couple of years ago I showed it to a manager and we agreed that it wasn’t going to add much value to the transaction, but was certain to add time.

But through our consortium, Travel Leaders, we were introduced to a new version of iZento  – we attended a webinar to get the basics and then turned it on in the agency allowing two of us to fiddle around with it.  It’s interesting.  First of all it drives you into producing very, very complete “rescards” in CB+.  I began to receive emails that said things like “A Transfer Drop-off City is missing from the Service Provider Record. Please review and update the Res Card.”  Finally, when there are no blanks in the “rescard,” you end up with a beautiful, professional “trip journal!”  A frustrating learning curve this week for sure, but one well worth it–I think.

So this month I closed a some new bookings, serviced quite a few existing bookings, and learned something new which is a “value-add” for my clients.  Definitely worth it…I think!

Mindy Milliron has been a professional travel consultant since 1996 working in suburban Washington, DC. She specializes in personalized vacations and exotic adventures. Mindy has earned her CTA, and is certified as a specialist luxury travel and destination weddings. She has been employed by three agencies and her current agency is in the process of shifting affiliations from American Express to Travel Leaders.

 

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