Technology Solutions for Advisor Success

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Efficiency experts will tell you that technology and the ability to automate what can be automated is the key to productivity and essential to success.

So, how could we, as a host agency, help automate and streamline our advisors’ productivity and our own at the same time?

It started with a belief that access to information is crucial. We then analyzed our agent portals as well as the orientation process the advisor experiences when joining our agency. We found that we were slowing down our advisors’ transition time because we were using different platforms for different applications. It was decided we needed to improve the advisor experience and ours as well.

The overall goal was to create one place where advisors and management could access all of Montecito Village Travel's resources. We started with the basics - IATA numbers, phone numbers, supplier Information and then added invoicing capabilities, commission tracking services, secure credit card information collection and processing. We then looked at the supplier connection and we worked with developers to create a platform to decimate exclusive offers and opportunities. Today, we have taken it one step further and are now offering white labeled consumer-facing promotion pieces that advisors can email to their clients. The platform is called YTC360 and every advisor has their own private logon for reasons you will see below.
Shown below are some of our advisors’ favorite aspects of YTC360:

Supplier Hubs – Each supplier has its own detailed page (hub) showing the advisor how the product is booked, commission levels, business development manager and sales contacts, reservation information, available agent resources, client benefits, advisor benefits, GDS booking instructions if applicable and recent recorded trainings. Also, advisors can add their personal notes to the hub for their own use and can make suggestions for notes for the MVT community’s access. Supplier hubs are found via a dropdown menu or within a classification field (e., Cruise Partners). Currently there are hub pages for over 5700 hotels, 63 cruise lines with 5,000+ added value sailings, 306 tour companies with 400+ pre-set land itineraries, 253 airlines, 45 Car & Limo, 14 insurance companies and 22 Specialty Services suppliers.We have also created a hub for supplier logons so that advisors joining us can search for a specific supplier’s agent portal and know immediately how to obtain a logon for that supplier.

Watch the video below to learn more

 

 YTC360 Supplier Hubs
Montecito Village Travel offers advisors all four GDS systems as well as the YTC AirDesk and BookYTC.

To initiate an AirDesk booking, advisors utilize a request form found on YTC360. They may either ask for air research or actually create a booking. The improvement here is that by creating a standardized form on YTC360, information comes to the AirDesk in a uniform manner and ensures that all needed information is collected at the time of inquiry.

In addition to the AirDesk is BookYTC. While this platform is separate from YTC360 it is an excellent online booking tool for hotel and air reservations for the non-GDS advisor. The proprietary software of BookYTC sits on Sabre and it allows the advisor to work in a familiar point and click environment for air and hotel bookings 24/7. Additionally, air routings may be booked in various classes of service and advisors may add a service fee. These bookings may also generate commissions for the advisor.

Watch the video below to learn more

 

 BookYTC
Invoicing & Commission Tracking – Advisors sometimes lag in invoicing their sales due to time constraints. This can often lead to a sale not being invoiced.

We needed to create a simple way for bookings to be invoiced and then pushed into our CRM tool, ClientBase. The invoicing tool we created on YTC360 takes less than a minute to complete and has greatly simplified the invoicing procedure for advisors. It has also helped to eliminate “unclaimed commissions” that occur when a sale is not invoiced.

Additionally, we linked advisor sales to their profile, so advisors can view all of their invoices, email invoices or reprint invoices from their home page on YTC360 as well as view current month and year-to-date invoices and historical reports. Advisors can also view their Agent Statement and see received commissions for the current month, prior month and YTD. Drilling deeper, with just a click, the prior months’ and years’ information is available to the advisor.

For advisors with sub-agents, we created an agent grouping for the primary agent that will allow the primary advisor to see all of the production of his/her subagents.

Commission tracking or chasing is another technology advancement we have made available for our advisors. We track all sales ninety days past day of departure and if commissions have not been received for that sale, we notify the advisor by email and on their home page of YTC360. When the advisor sees that commission has not been received, they may click a link that creates an email for them to send to the supplier. Auto-populated into that email is the client’s name, travel dates, confirmation number, room category or other identifying information, making it simpler and faster for the advisor to “chase” their commission for a specific booking.

Watch the video below to learn more.

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Additional YTC360 Features

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COVID-19 of 2020

This feature was added in 2020 to house all supplier and industry notifications as they were received relative to Covid’s impact. Information was categorized by supplier type (cruise/tour/air/insurance, etc.), supplier name and date received. This provided advisors with one source to turn to for information regarding the ever-changing rules surrounding their client’s bookings. 
COVID-19-2020
COVID-19 of 2021

Today, COVID-19 Central includes information regarding legislation relative to PAU for independent contractors, weekly video updates from Virtuoso and news articles relative to COVID-19.  COVID-19 Central houses information regarding testing requirements and regulations for traveling both domestically and abroad as well as news information, government relief for independent contractors and is updated daily.
YTC360 Forum
Travel Advisor Forum

This is peer to peer networking at its best. Advisors ask questions and find solutions to their situations from other experts in the network. And, of course, advisors can search communication threads by topic.

Features Continued

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Webinars & Training

MVT routinely facilitates 4-8 webinars per week focusing on both supplier information as well as MVT programs and services. Invitations are sent on Mondays and Fridays. Advisors are also able to register for these events on YTC360. If an advisor misses a session, the recorded webinar is available in the Webinar Hub as well as the supplier’s Hub.
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Exclusive Offers

Supplier news and exclusive events/promotions are prominently displayed in YTC360 with an interesting tweak. Advisors interested in a specific promotion can, with a simple click of the mouse, convert the promotion to a consumer-facing email customized to their brand to be promoted to their clients.
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Cruise Groups

MVT provides added amenities to advisors' clients with the potential to earn additional commission on our groups. Our consortia, Virtuoso, also offers sailings with group amenities. Prior to YTC360, an advisor needed to search both our data base as well as Virtuoso’s to look for added amenities. We created a cruise search feature on YTC360 that allows advisors to query both databases at one time, eliminating a dual search. The simple query allows advisors to query by destination, cruise line, sale dates or ship.

The best use of travel industry technology, however, is when it supports both the advisor and the company. While the above information focuses on the advisor side of YTC360, I’d also like to elaborate on how YTC360 has benefited our management team.

For MVT management, YTC360 is also a CRM containing advisor information including not only contractual information, but notes, attachments, emergency contact information, sales production (both gross sales/commissions and sales/commissions by supplier) and more. Conversations between the company and an advisor can be documented within the profile with notes of the conversation emailed directly to other support team members as needed for follow-up.

Required agency forms and agreements can be sent for electronic signature via the platform. Advisors can not only sign electronically, but they can upload required information securely to their profile. Other processes, such as reminders for annual renewal documents or E&O binders can be programmed to be sent automatically to the advisor as well, including reminders if the needed documents have not been returned by a specific time. This significantly reduces expensive accounting time.

Marketing commitments are more easily supported and fulfilled, with white label marketing materials available to advisors.

Maintaining information is easier as well. Previously, keeping supplier hubs up-to-date was a laborious process. Beginning this year, suppliers are able to update their own profile in YTC360, either on an ad hoc basis or when they are reminded at the annual renewal time.   Temporary data such as promotions can have a start and end date that allows expired promotions to be automatically removed.

The accounting benefits are numerous as well. There are fewer unclaimed commissions to monitor as invoicing is a faster and easier process. The ability to automatically track unpaid commissions 90 days past day of departure and advise the advisor, shortens the collection time. This feature also functions to keep accounting updated if an advisor cancels a reservation without cancelling the invoice.

Eventually, YTC360 will be also used to replace redundant software.

In short, YTC360 has been and is a game changer for our advisors and for Montecito Village Travel.

It is allowing both advisor and company to be more proficient saving both time and money. The most exciting part is that there seems to be no end to the efficiencies we can create with YTC360. If we can dream it, we can automate it.

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Our Team

CW-700x802 Colin Weatherhead President
jacki-700x802 Jacki Jones Chief Financial Officer
RSanchez-700x802 Robin Sanchez Chief Operating Officer
ShaneL-700x802 Shane Lefeber VP, Operations and Training
chris_weatherhead-700x802 Chris Weatherhead VP, Hotel Relations & Marketing
connie-miller-700x802 Connie Miller VP, Business Development
janet_wagstaff-700x802 Janet Wagstaff IT Director
Leanne Seli Leanne Seli Accounts Payable
LAlva-700x802 Loretta Alva Director of Leisure Sales
vtw-1 Yvette Angel Quality Control & CBC Assistant
Geana Bielenda Geana Bielenda Financial Controller
jessica_freeman-700x802 Jessica Freeman Digital Marketing Specialist