With the launch of the agent booking module, Affiliate Voyager, is another way EAN partners can access EAN’s competitive hotel rates and availabilities in addition to EAN’s API and ‘Hotels.com for Partners’ template solution.
EAN’s Affiliate Voyager, launched in 2015 as a way for agents to manage bookings made through the EAN API, is a simple and speedy portal used by more than 2,500 of Expedia’s own agents worldwide, designed to drive incremental revenue, customer satisfaction and make life easier for travel agents.
The booking module expands the range of tasks an agent can perform themselves. With comprehensive search, comparison and payment options on more than 290K properties, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to deal with customer enquiries and make and manage bookings directly rather than asking their hotel supplier to do it.
In addition to sending, reconfirming and cancelling itineraries, Affiliate Voyager allows agents to make changes to the traveller’s personal information, travel dates, property, room type and bed configuration. Agents can specify and change travellers’ special requests, view cancellation policies, and search booking and payment histories. Furthermore, agents can create multiple itineraries in one shopping cart, view localised content with multi-language and multi-currency display options. With the addition of the booking module agents can also make bookings directly on the customer’s behalf in five easy steps.
Ariane Gorin, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EAN brand, says: “We estimate that Affiliate Voyager will result in more efficient sales and customer service experiences for agencies, with a 15%+ increase in customer requests that the agent can handle without escalation and a 5%+ reduction in total handle time for affiliate agents[1]. The net effect for travel agencies is improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
“Affiliate Voyager has been built specifically for agents. Based on feedback from our partners, we took an agent tool used by Expedia and enhanced it to give partners’ agents ownership of their customers and also instil those customers with the confidence that the right person is looking after them. Through an efficient and seamless booking experience, Affiliate Voyager empowers agents to deliver exceptional customer satisfaction and now they can even close the booking.”
EAN’s Affiliate Voyager is fully maintained and optimised by EAN and comes with face-to-face and online training to drive agent adoption, alongside reporting and full support from EAN.
EAN’s Affiliate Voyager is now available to agents so they can deliver a better booking experience for travellers who expect that extra level of service when planning their trips. For more information on Affiliate Voyager and to explore how EAN can support your business, go to: www.ean.com/affiliatevoyager.
ENDS
For further press information:
Trudi Beggs / Marc Cornelius
80:20 Communications
T: +44 (0)20 7664 6310
E: tbeggs@8020comms.com / mcornelius@8020comms.com
About Expedia Affiliate Network
Expedia® Affiliate Network (EAN) is a global B2B brand within the Expedia group that powers the hotel business of leading airlines, top consumer brands, online travel agencies and hundreds of other partners through its API and template solutions.
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[1] Based on assessment of agent calls in 2016