For more than six years, we’ve been building out booking software, waiver and/or marketing tech integrations connecting to the PicThrive Workspace. That means we have learned integrations save operators time. And we now know a great deal about how our customers most benefit when they connect reservation and waivers technology with their photo and video sales platform. Ease and simplicity for the guest experience – it’s at the core of what we do and who we are.
With the goal of making things easier, there are a few tips we’ve observed from working with hundreds of outdoor adventure tours and outfitters along the way. Planning out your workflow is a necessary step to efficient operations and easier staff training. It’s also an opportunity to identify places where software integrations can save you time. Here’s a few FAQs and best practices from developing integrations for so many of award-winning tour operators.
How can integrations save operators time?
Automating operational workflows by connecting technology is a great way to cut down on manual tasks. For adventure tour companies operating a photo and video sales and marketing program, integrations reduce friction in the guest experience, and create new touchpoints for converting video and photo sales. Here’s a few specific tips for how operators are optimizing their operations with our integration partnerships.
How can I WOW my customers after their trip?
Easy. Use integration partnerships to extend the guest experience automatically. Impress guests with amazing photos and/or videos direct to their phone to relive the experience and show it off with friends and family. See how it works.
Which tech companies integrate with PicThrive?
We’re proud to work with many of the industry leaders. Just this year, we’ve added two new partners. First, we joined with Peek and you can read about the Peek partnership here.
We’ve also just turned on our integration with The Flybook, so tour operators can easily use Auto-sales and AutoComplete with their preferred booking software of choice.
It never hurts to remind guests they can purchase photos online
Integrating your booking software or your waivers system is a key step in generating more photo sales because PicThrive knows which guests purchased photos and which didn’t. What do we mean by “it doesn’t hurt to ask”? Adventure tour guests get distracted in the gift shop, or they may just be too tired to scan their photo album. Things happen. If you can extend that guest experience from offline to online, and pick up more sales, what is there to lose!
PicThrive automatically triggers an email to any guests who didn’t purchase photos. Operators using auto-store haven seen it lead to increased sales, as much as 35% more effective than a regular follow-up email sent by reservation systems.
Automate the tasks staff repeat every day
Operators selling photos and videos can send hundreds of email a week. Depending on their model and their volume, this can bog down the whole sales flow. It also ties up staff behind a computer, when they could be connecting with guests.
Skydive Oregon found their integration between Smartwaiver and PicThrive regained an hour of their time a day just by automating the email look up for each guest. Through the AutoComplete feature, as staff start typing PicThrive instantly recommends the right email and phone number for the guest.
“We are saving an hour a day by having the ability to autofill guest’s email addresses and phone numbers, which means our guests receive their media faster,” says Skydive Oregon’s Office Manager Amy Lucht.
Check to see if your waiver system is a PicThrive integration partner.
Smooth tour operations start with a good naming system
Adventure tour operators already manage a lot of changes, so adding more technology may not sound like a change worth facing. However, it is completely worth the ROI with simple upfront planning.
For example, thinking through your naming conventions for photo albums before getting started gives you a consistent process for training new staff year after year. A simple format for naming albums also means it’s easy to remember for a quick look up.
Naming Tour Albums (use 1 to 3 of these options!)
- Time of Tour/Experience
- Tour Name/Type
- Guide Name(s)
- Photographer
- Location/Store Name
Best Practices to have consistency
- Forget the date! PicThrive automatically organizes photo albums by date, and offers full calendar options for your team & your guests!
- Think about your guests first. Guests will be using Album Titles to locate their trip photos, so it’s best to setup naming that makes sense to them.
- Keep it short. Have more than one Guide per trip? You can use initials to help shorten Album Titles.
- Consistency helps with Integrations. Ensure you’re naming Albums as close to the tour name for optimal coverage.
We’ve also thrown in a couple Integration Partner FAQs from email and conversations we have with operators.
Ask your platform providers about the PicThrive integration or request a live demo here and we’ll be happy to show you how your chosen software works with PicThrive.
Let’s partner so it’s easy for your guests to buy and share photos and videos. We’re always available to talk about your integration needs.
