Availability & Booking Systems
The Affinity Control Centre™ has a bespoke Availability and Booking Systems module that allows integration with offline systems and allows clients to publish in real-time online availability with booking functionality.
Affinity have worked with music festival promoters on ticket sales, self-catering cottage holiday companies, boat hire operators and numerous other companies who have linked a front-end sales function that requires availability and date-driven processes with a client’s existing proprietary offline systems.
Case Study: The Cottage Collection
http://www.the-cottage-collection.co.uk
Back-office integration with a stylish easy-to-use website, has been crucial to the success of The Cottage Collection, founded in 2003 and now one of the UK’s leading self-catering holiday companies. With a diverse range of properties available throughout the country, the Company needed to engage with and respond to the requirements of it’s customers with accurate, up-to-date information and availability in real-time. Through its website, the Cottage Collection allows its customers to match properties to individual requirements. “We involved Affinity from the beginning” says Chairman Robert Dossor. “They formulated a bespoke solution using the Affinity Control Centre™ that effectively means the website is powered by our offline back-office bookings system that our telephone call centre uses. The website takes it’s information from the main booking system in real time so that customers can check accurate availability.”
By having a fully interactive site with real time availability and booking, Dossor further explains, “The Cottage Collection can compete on level terms with the biggest agencies. Online bookers can confirm their choice confidently and accurately with the same confidence as telephone bookers. Whichever channel they opt to book via, they have access to accurate and up to date information thanks to robust integration between website and back office.”
Article excerpt – MKT Marketing Strategy & Creativity Magazine
