A new live chat feature on Gold Medal’s website is proving “really popular” as more agents book online, according to managing director Simon Applebaum.
The long-haul tour operator introduced live chat in December as another way for agents to contact the company, particularly in the evenings after the call centre has shut.
Live chat is currently available between 9am and 8pm during peaks from Monday to Friday.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast managing director Simon Applebaum said: “The web has just been a phenomenal growth story for two straight years and we have asked ourselves how do we support more agents in the evening? We can’t be a 24 hour operation but we can man live chat in the evening.”
Applebaum, who trailed the launch last summer, said staff were taking customer service enquiries and supporting agents on complex bookings.
“The team can deal with both and it’s proving really popular. We launched live chat on our site in December so we are now open between until 8pm, supporting agents, mainly homeworkers, every night on our website,” he said.
The operator’s website has been bookable for years but until two years ago has been a “really small part of the business”.
Applebaum explained: “As as we have invested and improved it, what we have seen over the last couple of years is agents have become more confident [booking online]. We [now] book loads of packages on the web; we see really sizeable, complex bookings.”
He named Dubai, New York, Las Vegas, Orlando, Maldives and Iceland as popular in terms of online bookings, with “loads of twin centres” sold on the website currently.
Web business had also been boosted by the launch of its ‘Curated Offers’ service in September 2024, which segments quotes for different types of holidays and makes them available for agents to create window posters for their shops or social media posts, he said.
The curated offers product has also been expanded, with 2,000 to 3,000 available now “at any one time” so agents can pick deals to promote that will work for their business. Agents can filter price points of quotes by specific regions, departure airports, dates and by star rating.
He added: “A lot of [what we do] this year will be how do we roll this out to the [Dnata Travel UK] other brands and make [offers for] more complex itineraries. The team ae working hard in the background.”
Dnata Travel UK’s other specialist brands include Pure Luxury, Cruise Plus and Incredible Journeys.