Royal Caribbean Delivers the ESPRESSO
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has unveiled ESPRESSO, a completely
new reservation system designed for travel agents selling Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Pullmantur, Azamara Club Cruises and CDF Croisieres de France.
Launching in March, officials say “ESPRESSO will deliver a faster, powerful and intuitive reservation system to help the cruise company’s travel agent partners sell more cruises, earn more commission and grow their businesses.”
As part of the preparation for the launch of the next-generation reservation system, Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity and Azamara will hit the road and provide training seminars to travel agent partners across Canada and the US. In order to prepare for the transition to ESPRESSO, agents are highly encouraged to register online at http://www.bookespresso.com to attend one of these training seminars, being held in six major cities, and online using a new computer-based training tool that simulates ESPRESSO at http://www.espressocbt.com .
“Royal Caribbean’s relationship with travel agents has always been a top priority and this is another demonstration of our commitment to making our brands the easiest in the industry to do business with,” said Vicki Freed, senior vice-president of Sales and Trade Support & Service for Royal Caribbean International. “These new tools deliver an easier and more intuitive booking experience for our valued travel partners. We’re excited to see how this smarter, more dynamic platform will enhance their business results with our brands.”
Dondra Ritzenthaler, senior vice-president of sales for Celebrity Cruises, added, “the new ESPRESSO will harness the latest technology to deliver the industry’s most advanced booking system. A new simplified, intuitive and modern user interface dramatically reduces the number of clicks to make a reservation – from seven to five, and assembles the most important and frequently used functions up front. All inventory is centralized and travel agents can select up to four stateroom categories at once for quick and easy comparison.”
ESPRESSO also provides side-by-side comparison views of selected itineraries to help agents identify the best possible cruise for their clients. Once submitted, the new reservation system’s search engine zeroes-in on the best available price and applicable promotional offers to deliver the best vacation options for travel agents to present to their clients.
“We listened to our travel partners and custom designed the new ESPRESSO reservation system based on their feedback to build a powerful and intuitive tool,” said Ellen Bettridge, vice-president of sales and marketing for Azamara Club Cruises. “ESPRESSO allows travel agents to focus more on their clients than on their screens and significantly helps improve the experience when they connect with clients.”
And, what is truly revolutionary about the new ESPRESSO is the reservation system’s ability to provide a side-by-side view of groups and individual inventory at point of sale, or Single View.
Travel agents can use Single View to compare individual pricing against their reserved group space to determine the best value and price for their clients. No longer will travel agents need to switch screens between individual and group bookings to query the best deal, freeing up time that could be better used to service their clients and sell more cruises.
The new predictive search function can help travel agents find an existing reservation from a single identifier, saving valuable time when servicing a client’s booking. ESPRESSO can also identify past guests and display a customer’s history, such as recent promotions sent to them, last cruise taken, destination and accommodation preferences, and any other interests that has been shared, and automatically populates their information and preferences when making a new reservation .
ESPRESSO is also optimized for tablet devices, providing agents the freedom to engage their clients wherever they are, at their desks or on-the-go at the coffee shop.
Interactive deck plans highlight the best available staterooms and filtered selections, like available connecting rooms, closest to and accessible staterooms, allows agents to view the best available staterooms with the ability to select one or multiple staterooms by simply clicking on them.
Agents can also get fast support, in the way that’s most convenient for the way they do business individually. Reaching the Automation Support desk has never been easier as the Automation consultants can now be reached using an “live chat” or “request a call” feature.
