By Judy Melanson

Savvy travel marketers have long known the wisdom of focusing on their best customers.

But those who woo the best and ignore the rest are missing out on a huge potential pool of future customers. They are also missing out on a valuable bank of information that they can use to improve their services and product offerings and better target their marketing.

Increasingly, market researchers are finding that travel marketers have more leverage than they often recognize to build business from their existing database of customers and prospects.

If you look at the engagement spectrum-from looker to booker to repeat booker-you can see that by identifying and removing the barriers that prevent people from continuing to the next stage, you can increase your conversion rate. You can also help those favorably disposed to your company to become more effective advocates for your offerings with relatives, friends, and co-workers.

The Customer Engagement Spectrum is shown in four stages:

At Stage One are the Inquirers. They are aware of your company and may have some knowledge of products and services. If they form a positive image of you and like what you offer, they can often be moved to Stage Two.

At Stage Two are the Bookers. Among them are some who will go on to become travelers (Stages Three and Four) and some who will cancel before taking a trip, whether because of "buyer's remorse," or for other reasons.

At Stage Three are the One-Time Travelers. All that most travel companies know about this large category of travelers is that they didn't come back for more.

At Stage Four are the Repeat Travelers. They're most likely the foundation of your business, your loyalists, the people you look to as your champions. But actually people who value the service you provide can become advocates at any of the four stages.

We recently conducted a Customer Conversion study for a direct marketer of coach tours and vacations for the mature traveler. The tour company sought to meet its aggressive sales goals by increasing the conversion rate at each stage of the Engagement Spectrum, using the existing customer/prospect base and product line.

Working from the customer's database of more than a million customers and inquirers, we segmented customers based on their stage in the conversion process. We conducted 500 telephone interviews, asking targeted questions for each stage. Our client was not identified as the study's sponsor so as not to influence the responses.

Our specific objectives were to understand the barriers to movement up to the next stage and to identify the behavioral characteristics ("markers") of high-potential prospects. With that information, the client could take steps to remove the barriers and to make more effective marketing appeals to increase the rate of upward movement.

Each group was asked about their travel experience with the client and any competitors, their travel preferences, knowledge of and image of the client and competitor offerings, satisfaction with the products and services received, decision process, and future travel intentions. Specific questions for each group were aimed at uncovering the key motivating factors at each stage for supporting or preventing movement:

For Inquirers, we sought to understand why they didn't book. We therefore inquired about their understanding of the product offerings; their image of the company vs. competitors; timeliness and quality of product information received; experience with the product category; evaluation of services received, and preferred modes of obtaining information (in-person, telephone, Internet, etc.)

For Bookers who never traveled, we wanted to know why they canceled. In addition to the above questions, we wanted to know if they had traveled with a competitor and if so why; if they had suffered from "buyer's remorse" (second thoughts about traveling); if they were interested in re-booking from current product offerings, or could some new offering entice them? For those that did move ahead, we wanted to know what tipped the decision for them.

For One-Time Travelers, we sought to find out why they haven't returned. Specifically, were they satisfied with the trip, are they traveling with competitors or on their own, are they likely to re-book, why or why not? And have they or would they be willing to refer others to the tour operator?

For Repeat Travelers, we wanted to find out how to maintain and capitalize on their loyalty. What "share of trips" does the client currently receive? How can they be encouraged to refer more people to the company?

Many of the blockages we discovered are correctable through process improvement or training. Some people lost interest because they felt it took too long to get the information requested. Others expected the customer service staff to be able to answer specific questions about the content of trips.

Some respondents expressed willingness to become advocates for the company but felt they lacked sufficient information to do so.* Some said they'd enjoy participating in a session to suggest or brainstorm new product offerings.

We also discovered specific markers that identify good candidates for certain types of services: Veterans like U.S. and Canadian tours, for example; people who enjoy certain types of cruises are not highly likely to take bus tours. We found a strong correlation between reading habits, especially magazine subscriptions, and tour preferences.

Armed with this information the client was able to prioritize improvement activities: establish more effective training programs for customer service reps, improve delivery of product information and make other high-leverage improvements. The research also suggested what kind of marketing appeals are most effective at nudging customers from one stage to another.

Most travel companies mine their databases for information about today's best customers. But they don't systematically identify the factors in the conversion process that help and hinder people on the road to becoming the "best customers" of tomorrow.

By studying the engagement cycle from the customer's viewpoint, through better research, travel marketers can find the nuggets of "gold in them thar hills"-transforming more and more of those inquirers into repeat travelers and company advocates.

Judy Melanson is a vice president at Chadwick Martin Bailey, Inc., a Boston-based research and consulting firm.