Online customer reviews

November 2015

• The UK’s leading premium escorted tour operator

• Established in 1978

• Today, a multi-award winning, growing brand, part of the Saga Group since 2008

• A more comprehensive programme of land, river and ocean tours than any other operator

• Historical focus on USA and Canada now replaced with a truly worldwide portfolio - North America/Canada, exotic long haul, river & ocean cruise, Europe & UK

• Industry leading, fully owned and operated VIP home transfer service on every departure

• Multi channel sales model: direct, travel agents and web

About us

• Paper-based ‘CSQs’ are a core part of our DNA

• Online feedback takes this to a new level – enabling our travellers to share their experiences with others

• Adds richness and ‘reality’ to our website – helps potential bookers make better decisions

• Increases online conversions

• Increases search authority – Google Seller Ratings help boost search rankings

• Up and running since December 2014 with over 2,500 reviews collected and published on the site

• 95% recommendation score (‘would book again’)

Why online reviews?

• Travellers are invited to complete their ‘standard’ CSQ at the end of their holiday

• This gives the chance to tell us in detail about their holiday experience

• Two weeks after their return, they are invited to complete a Reevoo questionnaire via email

• We ask them to write a short review and rate both their specific holiday (mark out of ten) and whether they will travel with Titan again

• This drives a ‘product score’ for each holiday, and an overall ‘recommendation’ score which is featured on our website

• Customers also have the chance to ‘ask a traveller’ – with questions & answers posted in the public forum

• Over 60% of our holidays currently have reviews

How do our reviews work?

Where do our reviews appear?

• Home page (overall recommendation)

• Product page (individual product score) • Search by ‘top rated’

We don’t moderate or remove reviews, so are we drawing attention to poor customer service?

Our reviews are overwhelmingly positive A few negatives demonstrate that the reviews are real. And we’d rather have these on our

own site than a third party review site A negative review with an appropriate response can lead to positive sales conversion

Are we causing additional work for the Customer Services team?

Often cases are already known and being dealt with We offer a direct email facility to Customer Services within the initial invitation We have a fast track process for any serious complaints (as we do with 3 rd party review sites) Overall the existing team has been able to absorb this work Some evidence that negative reviews on 3rd party sites have reduced

Who ‘owns’ the process?

Overseen by Marketing; responded to by Customer Services

Any challenges?

The future – text analysis… and a single online questionnaire to integrate CSQ and online reviews.

Thank you