SegAway Tours of Columbus | Customer Stories

The monthly fee is very reasonable. I appreciate not being charged every time someone makes a reservation

DAVID WELLER SegAway Tours of Columbus

During the first two years operating his Segway sightseeing tour business, David took all of his reservations by phone. But when he started using Bookeo, his customers could suddenly make reservations 24 hours per day – and he didn’t have to hire an employee.

David says that he’s no longer losing business by not being able to answer the phone after hours. In fact, many SegAway Tours customers prefer to conduct business securely online with Bookeo, and often make their reservations after normal business hours.

“I would recommend Bookeo to other businesses,” he says. He feels that Bookeo’s monthly fee is “very reasonable.”

He also likes that Bookeo never charges his customers or a percentage of his revenue. “I don’t feel that a customer should have to pay an additional fee simply to conduct business with you.”

David's Story

Having been self employed since 1988, David Weller could easily be called a “serial entrepreneur”. But he didn’t start out that way. After he graduated from college with a finance degree, David worked in banking as a financial analyst.

Five years in the corporate world was enough for him, so he ventured out on his own as a licensed real estate agent. But after a few years, he wanted to find something even more different. In 2009 he opened SegAway Tours of Columbus, and he hasn’t looked back since.

Running his popular tour business now has David out every day, showing Ohio’s buzzing capital city to people from all over the world.

Bookeo is an integral part of his company operations. Bookeo online booking platform handles 95% of his bookings and allows him the time he needs to create uniquely entertaining sightseeing experiences for his customers.

I started using Bookeo at the start of my 3rd year, and ... my revenue increased significantly.

DAVID WELLER SegAway Tours of Columbus

Customers appreciate supplying their credit card information through an encrypted online system, rather than over the phone.

DAVID WELLER SegAway Tours of Columbus

The Challenges

SegAway Tours excels because it’s customer-centric. But running several two-hour tours rach day – with over 50 points of interest -, takes up a lot of the day.

As his company was growing, David had less time to answer the phone for bookings, payments, and general questions. But he wasn’t willing to sacrifice SegAway’s customer booking experience for his own convenience.

David didn’t have the budget to hire a receptionist. He also knew that most of his customers were pretty tech savvy; many actually preferred to research, book, and pay for products and services online, through an encrypted online system.

Equally important, he wanted a quick and easy way to promote his new business, and he found Bookeo.

The Solutions

I appreciate not being charged every time someone makes a reservation.

When David looked into different online booking systems, he found that they’re not all alike. Far from it, actually. Bookeo, for one, is unlike other booking systems which charge a percentage of a company’s revenue.

“I personally think,” David says, “that it is bad business if a customer is charged simply for wanting to conduct business with you.” In contrast, Bookeo only charges one monthly flat fee – and never charges commissions of flat fees on bookings.

Bookeo assures me that I’m not missing potential business when I can’t answer the phone.

Not only does Bookeo save David a lot of time, but he says, it gives SegAway Tours “an advantage over those tour businesses that only take reservations by phone.”

“Many of our customers make reservations late at night when we are not available,” says David. With Bookeo, that doesn’t matter. “If a customer reaches our voice mail, it directs them to our web site to complete a reservation. Customers can see all of the dates and times that we offer tours.”

Bookeo allows us to sell gift certificates instantaneously online.

Before using Bookeo, David had two choices for SegAway’s gift certificates: Either snail mail them, or request his customers to come to his storefront to pick them up. With Bookeo, customers purchase and send easily trackable and redeemable gift certificates online – usually with no help from David.

Marketing his tours and running promotions has gotten a lot easier for David now too. Bookeo lets David create promotion codes for different groups in a snap too. For example, he periodically offers discounts to large groups, or he runs special promotions for prior customers.

The Bookeo system is very simple to use and flexible.

David loves spending his time developing customer loyalty, focusing on his clients and researching his city’s landmarks.

With Bookeo, he can do just that. He found that once his initial format was set up, Bookeo was intuitive for him and for his customers and “it was very easy to make quick adjustments and changes as needed”.