Apr

11

“All ahead full”

Filed Under Cruise, General, Tripharbor.com, Tripharbour.ca |

So far, I’ve been sharing some thoughts around cruises and cruising, but I wanted to give a little behind the scenes tour (like the very cool galley tours some ships offer, but maybe less interesting ;)) of what’s happening with us.

First off, our team is growing. In addition to having people working on site development, we have others dedicated to Guest Sales and Service (and we are hiring), a newly added Community Commodore (more about that in the future) as well as others writing text, dealing with data, handling finance, accounting, HR and all the other things a business needs. So while so far it’s been me speaking here, in fact I am not alone. I am very fortunate to be joined by people who, regardless of their area of expertise, are cruise and travel veterans. Folks who really understand the challenges and share a passion for cruising and for helping Guests make the right decision - be that with a site that’s thoughtfully designed and always to be improved upon, or offline Guest Sales and Service that’s staffed by cruise pros. I am really fortunate to be able to work with such a strong group of folks.

Secondly, we are busy! We have been doing a lot to get ready to introduce our service to the world. The site development team has been burning the candle at both ends, and we have been playing with an “Alpha” - in other words, the first sort-of real version of the site - for a few weeks now. It’s pretty neat to see it starting to come together. We have also been hiring, training and getting things ready in the Guest Sales and Service area. That team has been doing role-plays, working out phone setup and response times, practicing with our customer technology tools, developing Frequently Asked Question responses and a lot more. The rest of us have been trying to keep multiple balls in the air, working on marketing, various plans, financial this and that, liaising with outside providers and a whole host of other things - including moving into a new location.

I could go on. But, suffice to say that we are “all ahead full” getting ready to bring our service to you. We’ve thought about and built a lot of things already, but we know there are things we’ve either forgotten or just can’t get done quite yet. But as I tell the team here, it’s a marathon and not a sprint and we are only in the very early stages of creating something that gets better and better from-here-on-out, and always be centered around what you, the current or future cruise traveler, needs.

We really hope you will like it.


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