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Trends The biggest red flag in a travel tech provider? Their service-to-sales ratio.

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photo of the author Gregg Blanchard

Let me try to summarize a sentiment I’ve heard over and over again within travel.

“It’s kind of ironic that they had 10 people at the booth when they sold me on their platform, yet now that I need some help I can’t seem to get a single person on the phone.”

What travel professionals across the industry are describing in this sentiment is what I call the service-to-sales ratio.

Take the size of a company’s support and account management teams, divide it by the size of their sales and marketing team, and you’ll have one of the most insightful numbers in the world of technology. A number that explains:

  • Why setting up a demo is easy, but calls to support just ring and ring.
  • Why industry success rates for CRMs hover at 50%.
  • Why so many ROIs are “meh” or non-existent.

Why?
And you can probably already see why, right? Headcount represents investment. Any number below 1:1 tells you, quite simply, that they invest more heavily in trying to get you to buy their solution than they do actually helping you be successful using it.

Look across the travel space at booking engines and CRMs, and you’ll find that the average support:sales ratio is about 1:2. Meaning, for every one person helping existing users, there are two people trying to get new users.

So even if a company has 10,000 users to support, they’ll have more people trying to make that 10,001 than helping the 10,000 get what they paid for in the first place.

Great for their bottom line. Not so great for you, the customer.

The Difference
We talk a lot about how amazing our support is, how experienced they are, and how much we invest in the success of our clients. But the easiest way to visualize this idea is to look at our service:sales ratio.

You’re reading that correctly: our account management and support team is 3x the size of our sales and marketing team.

  • That’s why when our clients call, someone they know by name answers the phone.
  • That’s why at a time when CRM success rates are around 50%, our clients are near 100%.
  • That’s why the ROI of our platforms is off the charts.
  • That’s why our clients say we’re “something you can’t get anywhere else.”

You can find cheaper solutions out there. And you’ll absolutely get what you pay for.

Because for every dollar of your fees that goes toward helping you use this thing you’re paying for? Well, there are two spent trying to get more folks like you to sign on the dotted line.

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Have a question? Just ask.

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Tyler Maynard
SVP of Business Development
Ski / Golf / Destination Research
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Doug Kellogg
Director of Business Development
Hospitality / Attractions
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