Join Leisure Direction in Bristol and receive a £25 “Thanks”

[Receptional]

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Just before the Bristol Get2gether at 4:00 PM on the 23rd Feb, Leisure Direction invites all affiliates to a presentation at the Bristol Royal Marriott Hotel. You will receive a £25 incentive for your troubles and the company’s director – Alan Potts – is being wheeled in from the Big Smoke to tell you more about the brand and its pedigree as a promotional holiday and ferry ticket provider. Sanela Mujakovic will also introduce herself as the program affiliate manager and show some of the great deals on offer and I will explain the tracking technology behind the program.

Naturally, everything will be finished in good time for the main event at the Pitch and Piano.

Please let Leisure Direction know if you plan to attend by emailing sanela@mujakovic.idps.co.uk before 6pm on Monday Feb 20th. Places at the presentation are restricted and offered on a first-come-first-served basis, subject to minimum numbers, starting at 4:00 PM at the Marriott

[ResultMedia]

Could we have some more information? i'm assuming it's to with this site http://www.leisuredirection.co.uk/

[Receptional]

Thanks for asking Results:

Could we have some more information?

Yes, the program is indeed www.leisuredirection.co.uk. The meeting will take place between 4&5 pm at Marriott Royal Hotel in Bristol, next Thu, 23 Feb.

Sanela will go through some of the unique elements to the program and Alan Potts - the company's managing director - will give you his vision of the company and the unique opportunities for you. I am being wheeled in to show you the technology behind how we have tied the affiliate tracking into the call centre so that you cannot easily be lose sales if people call to book... which is pretty neat.

Leisure Direction has worked closely with the likes of The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, Teletext, eBookers, Lastminute.com, Thetrainline.com and The RAC for years to provide them with quality holidays at competitive prices and has a number of well known travel brands in its own right.

Leisure Direction has just won the prestigious "Maison de la France" award for the 'best short breaks operator 2006' and Eurostar's 'best holiday promoter 2006'. We are also official Tour Operator for Da Vinci Code in conjunction with Eurostar and Sony.

The affiliate program is designed to give affiliates as much access to its portfolio as possible, giving the affiliate as many opportunities as Leisure Direction's largest commercial partners.

I'll keep tabs on anyone that says they'll try to be there in this thread, but Sanela is trying to keep a list of people that have said they'd like to attend as we only have a limited space. To get your name down for sure, she is on sanela@mujakovic.idps.co.uk.

I hope you will indeed find it useful and I look forward to seeing you there.

[essdeekay]

I hope that's not a "£25 off your next holiday" voucher!

Simon

[Receptional]

I hope that's not a "£25 off your next holiday" voucher!

Hehe - not quite - There is real cash, but not totally cheque for nothing....

I am not doing the voucher, so I don't know the exact wording, but as I understand it, The voucher will give you an EXTRA £25 commission if you become an affiliate and at least one sale is achieved, regaredless of value. The cheapest thing I can find on there is £8 for a London sightseeing ferry or bus if you really want to take the money and run - but I hope there will be a little more honour and at least an attempt at genuine sales .

An affiliate can only benefit once from the £25 of course... I remember a show in New York where Google were giving out $100 Adwords vouchers... valid only on a new account set up... How many account were set up as a result of that I dread to think...

[essdeekay]

Sorry Receptional,

Just jesting!

Simon

[Keith]

Many thanks Alan, Dixon and Sanela for your presentation, an illuminating insite into Leisure Direction's role in the travel industry.

Also great to see a travel site tracking phone orders, only know of one other that does this.

[3wdl]

A real shame I missed this one as I was signed up but got caught up in a meeting.

How exactly are they tracking the affiliates sales via the phone? Think we can get a copy of the presentation up on the interweb?

[Receptional]

Thanks Keith - I appreaciate the feedback. I think we'll try to do a few others.

James, phone call tracking has been at the heart of this integration. Essentially, the affiliate number is hardwired into the call center... which means the affiliate tracking system itself is given the same tracking priority as thetrainline, The RAC, the Telegraph and other marketing partners. Affiliate links have a different phone number on the web page to non-affiliate links. The call center doesn't have to remember this though, as the phone number... called a DDI ... directly opens the internal booking database and sets the affiliate relationship up. Also on the screen - in at least four places including the booking reference number - the affiliate ID is visible. It is impossible for the call center to complete a booking on the affiliate phone number without assigning the booking to an affiliate. The only way we think they can miss the number is if the caller takes down the phone number at work, but not the booking reference. Then the call centre knows it is an affiliate sale, but can't track which, In this event only, they have to assign the sale to a dummy affiliate. Where this occurs, it comes up as an error in the key performance indicators and Sanela has totry to chase these up manually (she phones the buyer if on occassion) to keep the error factor down. I can tell you that in JKanuary we lost £10.25 in commissions. With 50 call centre staff and 50 more in reserve, we don't think that was bad, but we'll try to eliminate it altogether soon.

I think the fact that we can measure the size of any lost commission has been part of the key. By being able to quantify the error, we can build in KPIs that encourage any error to be reduced or eliminated altogether.

The big advantage, of course, is that a person calling is MUCH more likely to convert. Especially, we have found, on the larger holiday packages.

Dixon.

[3wdl]

Dixon - Thank you for the summary. An interesting read and good to get an understanding of how it all works and see an agency being very proactive. Was also very nice to meet you at the GTG.