Nelia Scott of Wild BC Glide Segway tours shares her story from transitioning to a segway company from a conventional sightseeing company
Giving up on a tried and tested business model that is working well to try something new can be scary, but sometimes you have to take that leap. “My name is Neila Scott. I have been guiding sightseeing tours for many years.” For years this is exactly how Neila Scott has introduced herself. She and her team have been showing tourists around Vancouver for the past 10 years. She wanted to try something new, she wanted to do segway tours, “Segways! How much fun is that! I just love this! Segways are so much fun it is hard to describe.” She could barely contain her excitement has she talked about her new venture. Her and the rest of her team would be doing Segway tours in the British Columbia area. She was going to need some help with the transitioning of her business model, so she turned to TrekkSoft.
Neila going for a ride on a segway
The transition needed to be smooth and effortless so Nelia wouldn’t miss any precious bookings. The TrekkSoft team understood that time is of the essence and were on call for Neila through the process, “Michael and Tom helped me with the software, and Michael is available any time I have an issue.” We are passionate about what we do, and we heard that same passion in Neila’s voice every time we spoke to her. She was definitely excited about her new activity and wanted to share the nuances of segway riding with us, and why she prefers the term gliding, “They are really easy to learn to operate, and of course we train all our new users on how to Glide. Thats what we call it, Gliding. Sort of like riding one of those conveyer belts they have at the airport, or is it like riding a horse…a bicycle will fall over if you stop balancing. But not a Segway, like a horse it balances all by itself. Strange but true, and lots of fun.” We wanted it to be easy for Neila’s customers to experience the thrills she gets from riding a segway.
We provided Neila with the booking system and payment gateway that would revolutionize her business. “It was the feature that was the most useful to my business, the booking engine and the credit card payments. This allows me to pay more attention to other parts of my business such as marketing, bookkeeping and the running of the tours. It also saves money on staff, my full time booking agent can now do other things such as bookkeeping.” TrekkSoft’s office suite of tools keeps track of all the bookings, and payments which Nelia can print out and use it for accounting purposes. The software kept everything organized for, so she doesn’t have to spend time worrying about that. She doesn’t have to outsource the work since everything can now be done in-house.
Not only is it easier for Neila, it is easier for the customer as well and that is exactly what she wanted. “Since I didn’t have online booking before, I feel that TrekkSoft has made it more
convenient for our customers, they just came to the website and booked, without any problems. It is much easier than having the customer call us and then try to talk about what dates and times are available and possible for them. Neila and her team are not in the office taking calls they can focus on making the tour great for the customers like scouting out new locations, “We have arranged many wonderful locations all over the Fraser Valley near Vancouver BC, We have found some really cool new locations, and continue to add more all the time.” Her team can spend most of their time finding new routes while waiting for bookings to come in.
With their attention elsewhere and the simplicity of the system, sometimes bookings take her by surprise. “Booking is easy for the customer, you simply receive an email notifying of it. My last customer who booked through the site asked me about what she should bring, and the funny part was that I didn’t even realize she had paid in full. It is so seamless that all the work is done and all you have to do is do the tour.”
Neila took a leap of faith to change her business model. With the a good attitude, amazing passion and the right booking system, her new business is also a success. Heres to another 10 years!!!
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