For years, travel advisors didn’t have very many choices when it came to the technology they could use to make their lives easier.
But in recent years, everyone from tech companies to advisors themselves have stepped up, creating dozens of pieces of technology designed for travel sellers that are also available to the industry at large.
There’s about to be a new customer relationship management (CRM) tool in town, this one the brainchild of an advisor who created it to do exactly what he would want in his travel agency. It’s called Trazel.
Tim Evans is the president of the Modern Travelworks agency in Houston and CEO of Trazel, which is a separate company.
Evans got his start in the industry at Vacations to Go in 2002 (today, it’s No. 24 on Travel Weekly’s Power List). Early on, he recognized the agency’s ability to scale thanks to its processes and its internal CRM.
After three years, he decided to start his own agency. He couldn’t find a CRM like the one at Vacations to Go, though, so he partnered with a developer to create his own.
“It allowed us to scale from a couple people to 20 people within 18 months,” Evans said.
He always wanted to create a CRM to bring to the market for any advisor to use, but he couldn’t find the time. However, when the pandemic hit, Evans said he realized just how much he wanted to diversify, and he created Trazel. He brought one of his advisors over to the new business, Krystal Aziz, who he named Trazel’s director of operations
“Really, what we want to do is just create a system for travel advisors, built by travel advisors,” Evans said.
Trazel offers users a central client portal, quote generation, group and event management, client communication, analytics and data and API integration. It is designed to scale for any size agency, whether it’s a one-advisor shop or an agency with thousands of advisors.
Its biggest differentiator, Aziz said, is its functionality for group bookings. Modern Travelworks, he said, “was heavy on destination weddings, and we were successful in that, and I feel like we brought that same process into the CRM here with Trazel.”
Additionally, travelers have their own portal, where they can see quotes and bookings, manage groups and chat with their advisors.
Trazel is still under development. Evans last week estimated beta testing will begin in early December, with the product likely to launch in the first quarter of next year. February is the team’s goal. The company is working with an advisory board of agencies to gather feedback and beta test the CRM. Advisors can join a waitlist for Trazel online.
“What we’re trying to do is make it the CRM of most travel advisors’ dreams,” Evans said.
Its cost will be $75 per month for an agency owner and $39 per month for each additional user, billed monthly. Yearly subscriptions will be discounted to $62.50 per month for an agency owner and $32.50 per month for each additional user.
