As soon as the guests call, Yamsafer gets all their details through the app, so there’s no need for the guest to give them all that information, as they would have to do with a traditional booking – which increases the speed of the booking and the customer experience.
“This is really helpful for customers who want a bricks and mortar experience or to make a booking immediately without spending so much time online,” comments Zaher.
As part of its focus on the regional traveller, Yamsafer operates a 24-hour, minimal fuss call centre, as, Zaher notes, “GCC travellers in particular and Arab travellers in general don’t tend to keep 9-5 hours – they want to pick up the phone at midnight or 1am and make their booking as soon as they decide to travel”.
When devising the call centre and its goals, Zaher and partners focused on creating an easy experience for callers, using their own experiences with OTAs as a template for what not to do.
“How frustrating and time-consuming is it to call a booking site’s customer service line?” he asks, laughing.
A few other features that are bound to appeal to GCC nationals are the in-built Yamsafer maps over the Google map of each property. The maps show things that are of interest to regional travellers, such as distance to religious sites and F&B offerings.
Not only that, but Yamsafer maps show navigation in a way that Arab guests actually navigate. “Street names are useless to a lot of Arabs,” Zaher explains. “They don’t navigate by going right on 3rd Street – they notice landmarks or they name intersections after buildings that are long gone. We incorporate that mind set into our maps.”
| Advertisement |
One thing that hoteliers will love about Yamsafer is the amount of focus that goes into each property’s USPs.
“When we sign a new hotel”, explains Zaher, “We notice customers who have booked similar hotels in the past. Then we target those customers to advertise the hotel to get the hotel immediate exposure.
“Even if people aren’t booking straight away, it’s creating brand awareness for the property and raising their profile amongst travellers.
“A European coming to Dubai might be going on a once-in-a-lifetime trip and you’ll never see her again. But a Saudi going from Jeddah to Riyadh will be going there three to four times a year, so it’s worth so much to your hotel to market directly to that guy for a new property.
“Hoteliers like working with Yamsafer is because of the average transaction amount– we do a lot of upselling for the hotel.”
For now, Yamsafer’s customer base is mostly Saudi Arabian properties, with most of the guests booking through them also hailing from KSA.
Zaher said the company’s goals are to move into new markets, with aggressive expansion plans as well as developing supplier relationships in target markets – and he has his sights set firmly on the UAE.
With Yamsafer just having secured a new round of financing, its expansion plans seem a certainty.
Search our database of more than 2,700 industry companies
