Smart Talking Social Media With Jacobite Cruises

In this week’s Smart Talking we return to chat with Jennifer Fraser, Sales & Marketing Manager,  Jacobite Cruises, to catch up on some of the company’s latest developments.

Hi Jen, and welcome back to Smart Talking. Jacobite Cruises were recently shortlisted for “Best Use of Social Media” in the Highlands & Islands Tourism Awards along with two other Highland businesses. What does that mean to Jacobite?

Jen: It’s fantastic news for Jacobite, particularly when we’ve been working on developing our use of social media since the beginning of this year. At Jacobite we have a strong culture of always working to maintain and develop the highest quality of service for our customers and preparing for and entering awards initiatives helps us to maintain perspective on our business, and how others see us. We’re in very good company in the shortlist and very much looking forward to the awards ceremony on the 18^th November!

How does Jacobite benefit from using social media?

Jen: Engaging with our customers and visitors via social media channels has given us new ways of talking to them at different stages of their trips– we can help them in real time with enquiries before they travel and after they travel they really enjoy sharing their experiences with us and with other travellers via their photos, videos, blogs and conversations via our Facebook page and Trip Advisor forums; for example.

To get customer feedback in this way is really important for us, and having our customers act as advocates for Jacobite is incredible – it gives us a real buzz when we see that our customers have really enjoyed their trip with us and they want to tell the world about it!  Listening to our customers also helps us improve our services and operations.

As well as engaging with customers and visitors, we have also developed new relationships via Facebook and Twitter with other local tourism businesses and beyond, from hotels and B&B’s to restaurants and other tour operators. There is a definite sense of ‘community’ and we really enjoy being part of that – we always try to remember the ‘social’ in social media – ultimately, it’s fun to use and get involved with.

Talking of Trip Advisor, can you tell us more about your “Certificate of Excellence”?

Jen: We were recently awarded the Certificate of Excellence from Trip Advisor because we achieved a rating of 4.5. We take our Trip Advisor feedback very seriously – we have a response policy, where we try and respond to all our feedback within 2 weeks.  The TA feedback is included in our own wider customer feedback mechanisms.

Jacobite participated in Social Media Week Glasgow in September – tell us more about the experience.

Jen: Participating in Social Media Week Glasgow gave us the opportunity to talk about our experiences as a Scottish tour operator using social media in relation to the ‘staycation’ trend but it was the chance to share our experiences with everyone at the event which was of real value, something which we’d like to repeat. We learned from other businesses including Rabbies’ Small Group Tours, Visit St. Andrews, Holiday Inn Express Hamilton and Ee-Usk Oban, and it was great to be a part of that – we made some new friends online and offline!

The most exciting recent news relating to Jacobite must be about your new boat – the “Jacobite Warrior” – tell us more!

Jen: The Jacobite Warrior is a catamaran capable of 11 knots and with a capacity to seat 250 people, which will offer us a much larger customer capacity than our other current vessels. In her previous life she took visitors on cruises in Vannes, France, and was known as “Les Sept Iles”. The new boat is not quite ready yet but you can see plenty of pictures of her on our Facebook page and she has even inspired someone to write a poem about her! Our new addition will be ready in time for the new season next year, so we are all very much looking forward to welcoming her into the Jacobite fleet and seeing what our customers have to say about her too.

Many thanks for Smart Talking with us, Jen, and fingers crossed for the 18^th November!

For more information on Jacobite visit www.jacobite.co.uk or follow on Twitter or Facebook

Highlands & Islands Tourism Awards 2011: Visit www.highland-tourism-awards.co.uk