Facing the pandemic head-on:
Building a TMC for the future
Lisa Simpkins,
CEO at DealCaptains
About DealCaptains
Lisa Simpkins has travel running through her veins. Growing up she watched her mother run a travel agency and working for travel agencies all her life few understand the industry better than Lisa.
In 2018 Lisa started DealCaptains as a travel consulting group. With 15 clients going into 2020, covid hit and Lisa had to revisit her vision for DealCaptains.
“I chose to see it as an opportunity to focus on building a business for the future. It was an opportunity to focus on building our own travel technology offer and get our business foundation just right focusing 100% on creating the best possible customer experience.”
– Lisa Simpkins, CEO at DealCaptains
The challenge
The travel industry is dominated by traditional business models. Processes are mostly manual or semi-automated and data is stored in various systems that do not work together making it very difficult to react promptly to new opportunities and to utilize data and insights in general.
To Lisa, having all data in one system and being able to deliver the best possible customer experience was essential. She wanted to break with the traditional travel “way” and had a visionary approach to how DealCaptains should be run with a tech-first approach.
“We started DealCaptains to build a modern travel management company – a company that does not rely on older tech-stacks and models. Our customers want omnichannel experiences, a high-tech approach, and a hazzle free experience. As we see it there is only one way to provide that: With one end-2-end platform in the cloud.”
– Lisa Simpkins, DealCaptains
Finding the right partner with an end-2-end solution build on a true cloud platform was the first challenge.
“We were looking for a 100% cloud–based solution built on Microsoft technology enabling us to add on solutions and features as we grow. We demoed all the mid and back-office solutions out there but before TravelOperations not one came close to what we were looking for. The first issue was that most had not migrated to the cloud and were based on very old technology. So, when I was introduced to TravelOperations I was honestly blown away. It had everything we dreamt of and more.”
– Lisa Simpkins, DealCaptains
The Solution
With the right partner in place, Lisa was ready to build the travel company of her dreams. A visionary and customer-centric TMC fueled by a true tech-first approach that will enable DealCaptains to lift the travel experience.
“Building a sustainable business requires digitalization and automated processes. We need to work smarter and TravelOperations deliver all the key components we need ranging from CRM & profile management to end-2-end travel Backoffice/ERP solution. In that way, TravelOperations help us deliver the omnichannel and hazzle free experience our customers are looking for.”
– Lisa Simpkins, Deal Captains
To Lisa TravelOperations’ open-source integrations with telephone systems, booking sources, agnostic GDS/NDC enabled, ARC, and vendor and bank reconciliations (just to mention a few) make a world of difference.
“With every vital business function in Microsoft’s eco-system the cost savings is thousands and thousands of dollars a month. To a small business this is huge! And I must add that it works brilliantly. Having all functions within one ecosystem is amazing – it just works.”
– Lisa Simpkins, Deal Captains
Next step
The journey does not stop here for DealCaptains. Next step is to deploy TravelOperations Engage – a Dynamics 365 based CRM and traveler profile management tool that truly ties the knot and provides an end-2-end system with one point of access and all data gathered on Microsoft’s trusted cloud platform.
With TravelOperations Engage DealCaptains’ agents will have access to all the data they can dream of in their preferred application. The platform is naturally connected with Microsoft’s call center technology displaying all the data required when a travel agent receives a phone call.
“Building our business on Microsoft gives me a sense of security that we can scale as needed and that we will never fall behind with systems that become outdated. As we grow, we can grow within Microsoft and TravelOperations. It truly fits our vision and business concept!”
– Lisa Simpkins, DealCaptain
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