ADTRAV optimizes Zoho CRM to meet their industry-specific needs and achieves a 100% adoption rate

Key results:

• Adoption rate100%
• Increase in conversion rate40%

The company

ADTRAV, a privately owned family business based in Birmingham, Alabama, has been at the forefront of travel since 1977. With over 300 dedicated employees, ADTRAV specializes in managing all aspects of travel, from corporate and federally funded to meetings and vacations, all catering to the needs of each customer and organization. ADTRAV takes pride in offering personalized and exceptional service to its clients that positively impacts their overall travel program and experience.

Under the guidance of Kristian Collins, Director of Strategic Operations, ADTRAV's Adventure Travel division has thrived as a subsidiary of the company. This division focuses on organizing meetings, vacations, events, group air travel, and long-term housing arrangements, ensuring that every aspect of their clients' travel experiences is well-coordinated and hassle-free.

ADTRAV's success is built on a strong reputation for delivering exceptional travel services, combining professionalism, attention to detail, and a passion for customer service. With its extensive network of partners and a dedicated team of travel experts, ADTRAV continues to serve as a trusted partner for individuals, corporations, and couples alike, ensuring that their travel experiences are nothing short of extraordinary.

The challenge

In the fall of 2020, ADTRAV's Director of Group Air, Meetings and Events, and Vacations, Kristian Collins, noticed a need for more sophisticated CRM tools on the market specifically designed for travel companies. Recognizing that their legacy industry tools and Microsoft products like MS Excel were insufficient to manage their business in the modern marketplace, she sought a platform that would best align with Adventure Travel's specific needs. Her vision was to implement a comprehensive business management tool that would create a seamless ecosystem, connecting all the necessary tools and enabling them to communicate with each other effectively.

The goal was to find a holistic solution that could significantly enhance the company's day-to-day operations and streamline its business management processes by integrating various systems and tools into a single platform to improve efficiency, collaboration, and overall productivity.

Determined to leverage technology to its fullest potential, Kristian embarked on the journey to find a solution that would elevate its business operations and provide ADTRAV with the tools it needed to thrive in the modern marketplace.

The solution

Choosing Zoho

After several months of dedicated discovery and extensive research, it became evident that Zoho was the best choice for ADTRAV. Zoho's business management tools provided the perfect balance, offering a wide range of features necessary for ADTRAV's operations at a more affordable price compared to its competitors.

Teaming up with Zoho's partner network

Having decided to implement Zoho, Kristian reached out to ZoHelpers LLC, one of Zoho's most advanced and trusted software implementation partners. ZoHelpers quickly understood the nature of ADTRAV's business and helped the company customize the Zoho system. As the two entities worked together and enhanced the scope of the project, they developed a great partnership. "Working with Mike DeWees feels almost like working with family," Kristian says. "I could never really imagine working with anyone else for our system."

Streamlining operations and enhancing engagement

The foundation of Adventure Travel's operations lies in Zoho CRM. The Prospects module plays a crucial role in capturing leads from various sources, such as the website, social media, email, and forms, and consolidating them seamlessly. By leveraging CRM's workflow rules and email templates, the team has automated the communication workflow for all new prospects. The first email serves as a business-oriented welcome and introduction, while the second—sent by the assigned advisor 30 minutes later—provides a very personalized touch. Surprisingly, the team discovered that the engagement with prospects was significantly stronger by simply adding the second email.

Once a prospect schedules a meeting with an advisor, they're converted into a contact within Zoho CRM. The CRM serves as a central repository for all essential information, and details related to the clients' trips are stored in the Opportunities module. This includes invoices, payments, and other relevant data, ensuring comprehensive and efficient opportunity management.

Despite the automation and workflows integrated into Zoho CRM, Adventure Travel recognizes the importance of maintaining human touchpoints and interactions. While Zoho CRM streamlines processes, it also provides opportunities for meaningful engagement with clients and emphasizes the significance of personalized interactions alongside automation.

"This is where Zoho has been such a huge help for us," Kristian says. "Before, our agents had to remember all of the steps and touchpoints that we had to do with each prospect. Now, we rely on the system to track incoming opportunities all the way through to the completion of the trip. Zoho CRM really helps us maintain a regular cadence of check-ins with our customers and prospects."

Enhanced lead capturing and customer insights via integrations

Adventure Travel maximizes its lead-capturing efficiency with Zoho CRM by seamlessly integrating it with various systems. The third-party integration with Cloudtalk —available on Zoho Marketplace— facilitates call recordings and text messages recordings and provides a comprehensive communication history within the system. The Zoho SalesIQ integration automatically captures website chats and offers valuable insights into client acquisition, browsing behavior, and engagement metrics.

By consolidating data within the CRM, Adventure Travel can track clients' origins and interactions effectively. These invaluable insights empower the team to tailor their sales approach based on prospects' interests and engagement.

Moreover, the integration with Zoho Bookings enables smooth appointment scheduling on the website.

Amplifying conversions with workflow rules

Kristian highlights the invaluable role automation plays in Adventure Travel's operations. By optimizing workflow rules and email templates in Zoho CRM, her team has seen a significant increase in prospect conversion rates within the vacations department. With the right emails sent at the right time and timely reminders for coordinators to contact prospects, the conversion rate soared from 3% to an impressive 17%. Once the workflow coordinator establishes a consultation with an Advisor, Adventure Travel achieves an average client conversion rate of 60%. This has created a combined conversion increase of 40%. The automation capabilities of their Zoho CRM configuration drive efficiency and enhance results, ensuring successful conversions and improved customer engagement.

Leveraging Zoho CRM's analytics for operational excellence

The company harnesses the power of Zoho CRM's analytics to gain valuable business insights and enhance their operational efficiency. The dashboards' funnel conversion modules offer a comprehensive overview of the client journey, from lead acquisition to invoicing, significantly reducing the time spent on data compilation. The dashboards also track essential KPIs, including pending proposals, payment reminders, and Group Air projection reports, all of which were previously managed manually.

By utilizing dashboards and reports, Adventure Travel now identifies potential business opportunities with ease, enabling them to adjust staffing and properly support their clients.

Unleashing efficiency with seamless integrations

Zoho CRM's integration with Zoho Books acts as a pass-through to seamlessly transfer invoice data from CRM to the company's master accounting system, thereby streamlining their financial processes. Additionally, by integrating PandaDoc with Zoho CRM and transferring data between them effortlessly, the company efficiently manages client contracts and proposals.

The integration between Zoho Forms and Zoho CRM enables the company to create complex forms with integrated logic, which has proven to be transformative for the business. The seamless flow of data between the form and the CRM simplifies the process of collecting vital information from clients and advisors. Zoho CRM stores marketing preferences, travel brand preferences, and other essential details, enabling Adventure Travel to personalize communication and send targeted emails. This integration has revolutionized Adventure Travel's operations and enhanced client management capabilities.

Benefits

For Kristian's team, Zoho CRM has been a game-changer, automating manual follow-ups, emails, calls, and text messages and boosting efficiency without sacrificing human interaction. Creating email templates and streamlining tasks has saved time and reduced stress. The company has achieved a 100% adoption rate of Zoho with its employees due to diligent support and training. Zoho CRM has become indispensable, making Adventure Travel's day-to-day operations smoother and more efficient.