Apps Make Life Easier For Agents and Clients
by Michele McDonald /At its current pace, the Sabre Red App Centre will reach a major milestone – one million downloads -- by the end of the year.
Although it got off to a slow start when it was launched two years ago, its growth—in both the number of apps offered and the number of downloads—has picked up in recent months.
“Apps are exploding everywhere,” Chip Gordon, Red App marketing director, said. “There’s a continual flow from all around the world.”
Guided tours
Gordon likes nothing better than giving travel agents a tour of the online shop and showing them how the apps can extend their capabilities and save them a lot of time.
The apps are plug-ins for the Sabre Red Workspace. Some sit in the “sidebar” on the right of the screen; others live in the background and pop up when needed. All of them must be downloaded by an authorized person in the agency.
Some of the most popular apps are also free. Some are simple, like a calculator. We’ve all got calculators on our computers, but the calculator app sits within the Red Workspace so the agent doesn’t have to move off the desktop.
A calendar app “listens” to the agent’s workflow and takes appropriate action whenever necessary. For example, it captures dates, posts them on the calendar, and changes them when it “hears” the agent making a change.
No more lousy seats
SeatGuru by TripAdvisor is free app that’s taken off in a big way, according to Gordon.
Originally designed for consumers, it includes user-generated comments on the pros and cons of particular airline seats, such as limited recline or awkward location.
Once downloaded, an agent no longer has to go to the SeatGuru website to ensure that a customer isn’t assigned a dud seat. The app has “skyrocketed” in popularity to the No. 6 position on the hit parade in just three months, Gordon said.
Destination information made easy
The all-time most popular Red App, however, is Clipboard which charges an annual fee and “pays for itself within a month,” Gordon said.
Agents often devote a lot of time responding to e-mail requests for destination information or suggestions for vacation spots. The customer may not be particularly serious about the request, but the agent can respond, copying and pasting the information and making sure it looks attractive.
Clipboard provides pre-formatted templates that can turn a 20-minute job into a three-minute task.
“You multiply those 15- or 20-minute blocks of time by several times a day, and it adds up,” Gordon said.
Pricing models
There are a number of different pricing models, said Gordon. Some apps have one-time fees; others have subscriptions or transaction fees.
Currently, Sabre acts as the middleman in the billing process, but “in the future, we’ll enable transactions directly,” he added.