FROM HANDLING ALL RESERVATIONS MANUALLY TO CAPTURING 79.08% OF BOOKINGS ONLINE
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Streamline booking capabilities reduce administrative burden and improve customer experience
- Streamlined operations facilitate significant growth
- Xola as a partner
STREAMLINE BOOKING CAPABILITIES REDUCE ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN AND IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Tigertail Lake Recreation Center saw 32,902 customers and 79.08% of these bookings were made online in 2018. Tigertail is Broward College’s experiential learning facility, and they offer team building experiences, a ropes course, watersports rentals and more.
Prior to implementing Xola in the fall of 2017, they managed 100% of their bookings manually, using pen and paper. For Jose Sierra and the Tigertail team, not only did the transition to Xola mean a significant decrease in administrative burden, but also an opportunity to refocus energy on serving the customer and providing exceptional service.
“Placing the process of creating the reservation in the customer’s hands has ensured that the customer is getting exactly what they want, when they want it and it allows us to really concentrate on providing a higher quality level of service in what matters most to us rather than spend countless man-hours hunting down paperwork,” said Jose.
STREAMLINED OPERATIONS FACILITATE SIGNIFICANT GROWTH
A confluence of events led to Tigertail’s growth including a new website, an increased marketing budget, an additional product offering, and going live with Xola.
Jose shared that Tigertail has “experienced significant growth in the last twelve months” and that “Xola has been instrumental in ensuring that we’re able to capitalize on revenue channels efficiently by providing a reliable booking system.” Xola helps the team stay organized, adequately staffed, and provides visibility for upcoming bookings. Before Xola, “our workflow consisted of several different solutions that didn’t communicate well with each other and occasionally created conflicts and challenges.”
“At our current volume of business, these challenges could potentially have been magnified significantly, so Xola played an important role in providing a single workflow solution that mitigates conflicts and gives us great foresight.”
Overall, Tigertail Lake Recreation saw 149.06% increase in revenue between their off season in 2017 and December 2018. Jose says, “just looking at the reporting in Xola I can see a progressive increase in revenue from May almost into December.” Typically their ‘season’ ends around August “so seeing a visual representation of our facility’s performance pushing well past August gave us the data we needed to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate for the unexpected traffic.”
XOLA AS A PARTNER
More online bookings, an increase in sales and streamlined operations were just a few of the benefits the Tigertail team saw from using Xola. Jose and his team are better prepared to grow in the long-term with a product that is continually improving to meet customers’ needs.
Jose said, “Xola’s updated reporting should help us even further as [next season] approaches, and we take on budget planning and marketing strategies.” As is, “being able to see the popularity of our different offerings, the effectiveness of last summer’s marketing strategies, and the effect of newly-installed elements through easy-to-use reporting within Xola supports us as we grow even more for 2019.”
As they plan for growth, they know they need a platform that can help them along the way. This means feature development that is focused on customer needs and growth tools. Jose remarks that “Xola has done a fine job of adding important features as the platform has grown…we continue to feel that the development team is listening to the customer base.”
And perhaps most importantly, Jose and the Tigertail team need to know that Xola has their back.
He said, “Xola is growing fast and so are we, and there’s been a few growing pains as we grow together. Support has been instrumental in keeping everybody sane and moving forward.”
Adopting a new software will never be without challenges along the way so finding a partner that is ready to help get through those alongside you is crucial. “Xola is great on its own, but support is what makes Xola a truly special product.”
