“Our agents need to look larger than life and have a 20,000-page website, have their own smartphone apps, so a customer can actually book a cruise right on their phone. And it all downloads into our backend systems. We have the technology that major players have, and our agents have it as a home-base,” Fee says.
Cruise Planners has a nine person in-house IT team to manage that technology, most of which is proprietary. Fee says it gives the company more control, whereas outsourcing involves extra time and expense to fix problems when something isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to be.
“Maybe a third-party wouldn’t understand why we would invest that kind of money into technology. But we felt it was going to catapult us forward, and it has,” Fee says. “When people want to come on-board, they look at the entrepreneur lists and see a big gap between us and our competitors. They’ll call us both to see what we can offer, and nine times out of 10 we win the bid because of what we’ve invested in.”
The in-house technology team recently worked with the finance department on automating processes to help them be more effective.
“If you used a third party, you probably wouldn’t take on those extra expenses every time you wanted to make a tweak. With in-house IT, every single department can have the best technology to help the agents sell,” Fee says.
Cruise Planners also added a marketing director and assists franchisees with promotional materials.
“We have a complete marketing team on staff that creates mail pieces we mail for them — they don’t have to do anything. We send weekly e-cards and monthly newsletters. We make sure our agents have everything they need to communicate out to their customers,” Fee says.
Reaching the next level
Sometimes it becomes apparent that changes are necessary to take a business to another stage in terms of growth. At Cruise Planners, the foundation for the future included not only an investment in technology, but in developing agents.
“At this point, that’s where our focus is. I’m not going to say it’s a huge challenge, but we have to fine tune it a bit,” Fee says.
Cruise Planners has 50 full-time employees and more than 900 franchisees. The company conducts six-day training sessions six times a year, teaching franchisees not only the technology and systems, but how to develop and market a business.
Classes are run by all of the company’s directors, including Fee, who oversees a two-hour marketing session.
“I want to be involved. I want them to know that the figurehead is not here in an ivory tower,” Fee says.
Training is crucial because many people want to own a business but don’t fully understand what that takes.
“We do a walk-through with them that spells out who we are and what we do. Then they get a franchise document they cannot return to us until they’ve had it for 10 business days. It’s not something that is ‘get rich quick,’ it’s not something that they can make a hasty decision about. It’s very regulated, and that’s great for us because then we get people who are more focused,” Fee says.
Franchises require a $10,000 investment, so there’s not a lot of profit in getting people to sign up and training them if they don’t end up generating sales.
“We make money when they sell travel. So we all have the same goal, and that’s to help them build their business,” Fee says.
Provide customers with value
Most businesses experience slower times. Cruise lines have proven they know how to get customers back — that’s why Fee doesn’t get overly concerned when there are news reports of a stranded ship or sick passengers.
“Even when 9/11 happened and people said they weren’t going to travel at all, the minute cruise lines adjusted pricing and added certain value amenities people started booking again,” Fee says.
