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Cajun Food Tours
Bookeo Case Study
BOOKEO CASE STUDY | Cajun Food Tours | Copyright © 2015 Bookeo Pty Ltd | www.bookeo.com
Making a career change after 23 years isn’t easy, but Marie was motivated by her love of people and her hometown, and what she knew was a gaping hole in Lafayette’s tour industry. After struggling with handwritten notes and time lost on the phone, she’s found Bookeo’s comprehensive online booking system the easiest to navigate and to integrate with her own site. She compared Bookeo to other online booking systems, and found that “all of the others were much harder to get a handle on AND more expensive.” For Cajun Food Tours in Lafayette, Louisiana, using Bookeo has improved business, the customer experience - and Marie’s day-to-day life.
"Starting this business was truly a calling for me. And Bookeo has been a godsend" - Marie Ducote, Cajun Food Tours
"I did a couple of live demos. But when I opened Bookeo, I realized right away how easy it was!" - Marie Ducote, Cajun Food Tours
Marie's Calling For 14 years, Marie Ducote was a schoolteacher in Lafayette, Louisiana. For another 9, she was a school administrator. She loved the work, but after 23 years, she burned out. She needed to find a new passion. She went on education conferences in different cities around the country, and while she was there, she took time to go on a few food tours. She loved each one - but knew her hometown’s authentic Cajun cuisine and colorful restaurateurs would beat them all, hands down. “How does Lafayette NOT have a food tour like this?” she wondered, never guessing that buying a bus and running her own food tour company was in her own destiny. After months of soul-searching, Marie happily accepted her new calling, did her homework, and started Cajun Food Tours in Lafayette as a one-woman operation. Like many new business owners, she answered all phone calls and took all booking information by hand.
The Challenges Cajun Food Tours was immediately popular with residents and tourists alike, but it didn’t take long before Marie realized that taking reservations by hand over the phone wasn’t time-efficient. The phone calls were getting hard to handle. Worse, she suspected she was losing business while she was away from her phone while operating a tour. And she knew that writing down customer credit card information wasn’t secure. She worked hard with her web designer to create a booking page on her new website, but it simply wasn’t doing what she needed it to do. Out of the blue, she got a call from an online scheduling company and tried their demo. At first, it looked good. But after working with it for a while, Marie realized that it was far from what she needed. “It was so un-user friendly. You never knew which section you were in, there was no calendar... it was just horrible.” She went back to the drawing board and found some other options, including Bookeo. “I did a couple of live demos. But when I opened Bookeo, I realized right away how easy it was! It was a godsend.”
"People can book online even when they can’t get in touch with me by phone. About 70% of my bookings are made online with Bookeo" - Marie Ducote, Cajun Food Tours
The Solutions “I set up Bookeo by myself. My web developer was amazed!” Marie immediately experienced how user-friendly Bookeo was, and how seamlessly it integrated with her own site. “I set it up completely. I put it on my website. I linked it to my Facebook page. It was all so explanatory - I’ve been able to make it do anything I need!”. Now she can take online payments and deposits, offer gift vouchers, interface with social media and promotion sites. Her customers see updated tour availability in real time, get confirmation emails and SMS reminders, and can book and pay for multiple tours in a single transaction. “My web developer was like, ‘Wow! That’s a whole lot better than we would have gotten for you, Marie.“ “People can book online even when they can’t get in touch with me by phone.” Marie is no longer attached to her phone. She loves getting to know her customers, but she also loves getting about 2/3 of her bookings online with Bookeo. Now she’s got more time to run her tours and focus on growing her business. She can also now operate her tours without losing bookings. Her voice mail simply directs callers to the Cajun Food Tours website, where they can view all available tours, dates, times and pricing - and easily book the one they want.
"All this and it’s really inexpensive!” While other online booking systems were charging Marie for each booking, now she pays no commissions at all - just one simple, low monthly fee. Bookeo’s no-commissions policy means many businesses can save potentially thousands of dollars. “It’s easy to set up with the credit card gateway.” With Bookeo, Marie no longer has to worry about handwritten notes with sensitive information; her customers’ credit card information is safely encrypted and secure with Bookeo: Marie has now reduced her risk of liability to the major card networks - and enjoys the same level of encryption used by banks. “Bookeo Support is so great about answering you right back in an email.” Getting quick answers and solutions is crucial to any new business owner, and Marie finds Bookeo’s Help Portal “easy to search and very step-by-step in its explanations.” She says Bookeo is so self-explanatory that she seldom has a question. “And when I do email a question to support, they are very quick with a reply - very easy to understand and very friendly!”
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