Tripcentral.ca employees feel like family

Tripcentral.ca started as a one store operation in Hamilton, Ontario back in 1989. It has maintained that intimate, family dynamic over the years even though they now employ over 120 people with agents in 25 locations across Central and Eastern Canada.

To keep this family feeling among the employees, Tripcentral.ca has provided a social chat function on their employee home page that allows employees to reach out to each other with questions or concerns. It enables new agents to reach out to experienced agents, and also encourages communication between the company’s IT department and the staff as well. This chat function not only serves as an invaluable tool for research, but also contributes to the development of ideas to further company initiatives and make their proprietary software an even better application. Add to this the social atmosphere of the chat function that keeps employees involved in each other’s milestones and encourages the celebration of each other’s achievements and you have a wonderful tool that is central to the core structure of the company.

Tripcentral.ca has also created a database where agents can find answers to frequently asked questions regarding company operations and protocol for various situations. This enables all agents to quickly access necessary information without having to spend a lot of time searching for someone who is available to help. This is especially helpful in the busy winter months when agents especially need immediate access to information for their clients. Whenever there is an update or new information added to the database, a quick email is sent out to all employees to keep them up to date. Webinars and Youtube training videos are also uploaded to this database whenever possible. They even use Youtube publicly to engage employees for worthy causes such as the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS, remember that?

To add to all of this social sharing, Tripcentral.ca has created a self-contributed database where agents can post the destinations they personally have traveled to. This database is available for all agents to access so they in turn can call upon the agent who’s been there if they have questions about a particular destination. Access to this information is the lifeblood for a travel agent. Tripcentral.ca has always promoted “agents who’ve been there” as its market position, and this allows agents to access and share information about the places they have been. This internal sharing of travel related information ensures that employees can be confidant when making recommendations to clients.

~“Tripcentral.ca is a leader in the travel industry. We are a hybrid business consisting of store front locations and a decentralized call centre business that is structured on our front line agents and our online business. We invest heavily in online vehicles such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets to market to the consumer. We advertise our agents and products to drive business both to the website and stores.

We strongly encourage each of our agents to use Facebook, Twitter, etc to build their personal business. Agents link their personal Tripcentral pages to each other and to the main site which grows the number of viewers. Tripcentral blogs, fam reports, specials and other information are spread amongst the agents to reach the public. They share their personal travels as well which then leads back to the main site with “agents that have been there” advertised.” ~ Debbie Wright, Regional Manager, Tripcentral.ca

Lessons for Others

Tripcentral.ca agents enjoy a high degree of autonomy. The use of social media tools within the organization are instrumental in motivating employees to work together for the good of the company even though they are in many different regions across much of the country. These tools are what make the difference for the employees at Tripcentral.ca; what earns them a 4.8 star rating on their Facebook reviews, and what keeps them engaged and productive during the work day. It’s what keeps them connected and what makes them feel like family.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

---

References