Xavier Allee of Avis spent a lot of time talking the company's blog - WeTryHarder.co.uk - in his interview on the latest Travolution Purple Pod.
So this post from Joe Buhler continues the theme.
Of course, the most famous corporate blog in the travel space is that of Bill Marriott.
Hospitality.net started the discussion.
NB: Buhler has a new blog, Marketing on the Smart Web. Worth adding to your RSS reader.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
What is it about customer relationship marketing that turns people off?
If you invited a load of people to a conference on social networking the room would be packed with delegates expecting pearls of wisdom from twentysomething year olds.
Conversely, if you decide to host a CRM event you attract some really articulate top level speakers ready to impart valuable case studies on consumer retention but delegates are likely to be thin on the ground.
And, so it was at the Travel Technology Initiative's spring conference earlier this week.
The room was fortunate enough to hear from Virgin Holidays general manager of CRM Helen Litvak on customer segmentation; Avis' Xavier Vallee on the blog and Peter Matthews from Nucleus on online techniques to foster loyalty (more on all that later).
CRM might not be perceived as sexy but there's a lot of people out there in travel talking about it behind closed doors at the moment. It goes hand in hand with customisation and personalisation which are both being hotly tipped to be the next big development in online travel.
Maybe it's just those words and we should simply call it something else - 'look after your customers or you'll go out of business', - not very catchy!
How about Customers Really Matter? Anyone got any better suggestions?
Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution
In the latest edition we talk to Xavier Allee (Avis), Trenton Moss (Webcredible) and Paul Furner of TravelRepublic, following the Travolution Awards last week.
Enjoy!
Click here to get your own player.
Remember you can subscribe to the Purple Pod by adding this feed to your RSS reader or via iTunes [NB: link opens your iTunes application].
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Interesting interview on E-Consultancy with Xavier Vallee, UK head of marketing for car hire giant Avis, about the WeTryHarder blog.
Vallee goes into a fair amount of detail about why the company launched a blog, its policy on comment moderation ("We don't filter negative comments - just spam" - which is encouraging, if its true 100% of the time), and costs.
The WeTryHarder blog was shortlisted at the Travolution Awards 2007 in the Best Use of Social Media category. It was eventually beaten by the STA Travel Travel Blogs.
Full interview with Vallee here.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
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