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SUCCESS STORY

Juneau Whale Watch

juneau-whale-watch

Overview

 

In its 17th year of operation, Alaskan-owned company Juneau Tours and Whale Watch weighs in as the largest independent tour provider in Southeast Alaska. But don’t let that title mislead you, this family operation is all about the customer experience. From sales agents and dock representatives to bus drivers/ guides, naturalists/deck hands and boat captains, Juneau Tours and Whale Watch treats everyone like well-loved family.

Back in 1998, Sky Bonnell relocated from Hawaii to fish commercially and drive a cab in the off-season. Even back then—before everyone owned a cell phone—Juneau greeted a large number of visitors. The growing demand soon warranted the need for a larger vehicle so Sky bought a bus in 2002.

Flash forward to 2019, Sky’s little company that started with a cab is now in two locations (Juneau and Skagway), offers more than eight different tours and serves close to 90,000 guests every summer. Managed by his sister, Serene Hutchinson, Juneau Tours and Whale Watch employs 60+ employees (more than half call Alaska their home) and has a whopping 70% employee retention rate!

Results

 

After deciding to move forward with Rezgo, they visited our office for an in-person onboarding experience.  Within two days, they were able to answer our accounting, operations, sales, and marketing department questions.  Rezgo helped us resolve our previous pain points related to our daily operational flow and revenue channels.

The Rezgo app is also a great addition for dock sales during peak season.  Bookings can be completed with just a few clicks. We’re looking forward to working with Rezgo on future projects!

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Don't Just Take Our Word For It

  • In-person Classes and Online Learning

    Ocean Wise

    Ocean Wise is a globally focused conservation organization on a mission to protect and restore the world’s oceans. Through research, education, direct-action conservation and field projects, we empower communities to take action for ocean health. Our past booking system was very clunky. Prior to Rezgo, we were unable to customise bookings, or change many details at all! Rezgo gives a lot more in-built analytics that enable us to know more about our customers Results Rezgo is full of options to make customising bookings and making payments easy. Cool and quick – like a racing penguin! Switching has saved us an incredible amount of time throughout the booking process, especially with custom or unique bookings. It is extremely user friendly and makes visualising bookings a lot faster and easier. Rezgo makes bookings a breeze with so many customisation options. The customisations make the booking process extremely time efficient and allow for staff to focus on other things. Rezgo staff and customer service has been amazing. They find ways to go above and beyond in support with any difficulties or unique needs. Rezgo has lots of tools to make the process so much more efficient, such as ‘Rules’ to easily control when an offering can or can’t be booked. This has saved a lot of time and made for a much smoother experience. Receiving payments has become so much simpler since switching to Rezgo. The best part is it is secure and simple for our customers.

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  • Kayaking

    Atlantic Sea Kayaking

    At Atlantic Sea Kayaking, we’ve been offering unforgettable kayaking experiences on the stunning west coast of Ireland for over 25 years. Our passion is sharing the beauty and tranquillity of our local waters with adventurers from all over the world. We provide a wide variety of tours, from serene moonlight paddles and wildlife encounters to exhilarating open water sea kayaking adventures. Whether you’re an experienced kayaker or a first-timer, our highly trained guides ensure that every tour is tailored to your abilities, offering both safety and adventure. Results A few months back, we switched from WooCommerce to Rezgo, and it’s been a total game-changer for us. Before that, we were spending hours on bookings, sorting payments, sending out notifications, and chasing after customers for simple things such as waivers. One of the biggest advantages of Rezgo has been its ease of use. The platform effortlessly integrates into our daily operations, simplifying processes that once seemed overwhelming. It’s clear that Rezgo was designed with tour operators like us in mind. The support we’ve received from Rezgo has been top-class. From the very first demo and local support, the team is always on hand. We know that no booking system is perfect for everyone, but Rezgo has really shown they’re dedicated to working with us as genuine partners. They’re always keen to hear our feedback and are constantly improving the system to suit our needs. The Rezgo team has really gone above and beyond for us, and we couldn’t be happier with their support so far.

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  • Attractions

    Phare, The Cambodian Circus

    Phare Circus is the most unique, authentic and socially responsible business in Siem Reap. The circus is the social business extension of Phare Ponleu Selpaknon-profit school. The school was founded by 9 young men and an art teacher from France who came together in the refugee camp during the Khmer Rouge war. Arts, education and social support are the primary missions, but some students showed tremendous talent and determination. The circus was started to provide those students well-paying job opportunities that didn’t previously exist in Cambodia, while at the same time providing financial support to the non-profit school. Phare Circus is the textbook definition of a social enterprise. The business is 75% owned by the non-profit school. All revenue generated from the business supports the school or other social causes. Jobs created have helped break the cycle of poverty of at-risk Cambodian youth. Phare Circus is not a conventional acrobatic circus. It’s uniquely Cambodian story telling using live music, dance, drama, circus and sometimes visual arts. The artists create the stories themselves based on their life experiences. This brings a character and authenticity not often found in live performances. They share a part of their lives with guests. Before Rezgo, Phare Circus did not have its own online booking platform. A link to a third-party site was provided on the ticketing page, which was the only online sales presence we had at the time. It worked, but didn’t help with credibility to send sales to another site. It limited the amount of customer information we could get and how we interacted with them. It’s also an expensive way to sell compared to a proper direct-sales mechanism. Then our CEO met Rezgo at an event in Singapore. It happened to be at the same time that a bank in Cambodia first introduced online merchant accounts. We introduced Rezgo to the bank and they worked out all the programming needed to connect. This kind of service has been one of the main reasons Rezgo has retained our business. There have been several competitors approaching us since then, but we feel Rezgo has been a true partner and that means something. Rezgo has been very responsive to our requests, even if they are a bit unique. Results With Rezgo, our website bookings have become our #1 single source of ticket sales. In 2019, ticket sales on the Phare Circus website were four times higher than the highest-selling DMC. Having more control over sales allows us to make decisions that best benefit the organization vs being at the mercy of business partners. Customer information collected during the booking process has allowed us to build relationships with guests. The most important element of Rezgo for us is that customers can book, pay and receive instant confirmation from our own website. Online direct bookers don’t want to wait, and the process must be fast and easy. Providing POS access to higher volume local agents took a lot of pressure off our own customer service staff too, automating the transaction rather than having them call in. Rezgo’s personal service and flexibility has helped make Phare Circus a leader in Cambodia for booking and paying online.

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