16 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

From: Scott Fisher <scott@jsfisher.com>

I put Roatan Wk#3, Bahamas, and St Croix out for first review this morning. I will work on Roatan Wk#2 after lunch.

 

After doing three of these in one morning I am willing to say this new process blows the the old trip opening process out of the water. I am willing to call this part of the process an unqualified success like we have never seen in the forums. Congratulations

 

To that end we have to be diligent and remember the following or it will be disaster again.

1) Everybody has ownership of a role and the owner needs to formerly relinquish that role before somebody else takes over in their role. Otherwise, it is nonproductive chaos. I think we are just now painfully starting to develop this discipline.

 

2) We need to use the forums to plan trips and not use email. This has been a godsend to me this morning. I have chrome in the trip buildout area and firefox in the trip itself. Then I can compare them by just scrolling down in each one. This would have taken hours and hours before.

 

We do need to standardize on fonts and such but that is a minor problem compared to what we and the members have been dealing with. I think this is the right track and we are nearly there.

 

Kamala, once you are done with your edits, please post in the trip buildout area that you are done and ready for me to do something.

 

 

[WreckWench]

 

I put Roatan Wk#3, Bahamas, and St Croix out for first review this morning. I will work on Roatan Wk#2 after lunch.

 

1. Saw this and I have now replied as well.

 

After doing three of these in one morning I am willing to say this new process blows the the old trip opening process out of the water. I am willing to call this part of the process an unqualified success like we have never seen in the forums. Congratulations

 

1. Congrats go to all but yes it is tons easier to get these open now.

 

To that end we have to be diligent and remember the following or it will be disaster again.

1) Everybody has ownership of a role and the owner needs to formerly relinquish that role before somebody else takes over in their role. Otherwise, it is nonproductive chaos. I think we are just now painfully starting to develop this discipline.

 

Who owns what roles? Have we defined them somewhere? Do we have an internal process flow for this? How do we SUGGEST REQUESTED changes to the MASTER TEMPLATE? I have made some for training and the ins info etc.

 

2) We need to use the forums to plan trips and not use email. This has been a godsend to me this morning. I have chrome in the trip buildout area and firefox in the trip itself. Then I can compare them by just scrolling down in each one. This would have taken hours and hours before.

 

I have always liked the forums for this reason. I was ONLY using email as Pam is often on her phone and not on a computer. ALSO I have not been able to log into the forums with MY PHONE but could reply via email. Hopefully this is only an issue right now.

 

We do need to standardize on fonts and such but that is a minor problem compared to what we and the members have been dealing with. I think this is the right track and we are nearly there.

 

I agree. We need to fix the headers and bolding etc. I ALSO FEAR THAT WE HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE CODING IN YOUR MASTER. It appears to be a mix of new and old and no matter if I change NOTHING in the Roatan #1 topic BUT I click on the save button...the code for the buttons break. I have not attempted to do this on the other trips....but I think the issue is in the master template.

 

Kamala, once you are done with your edits, please post in the trip buildout area that you are done and ready for me to do something.

 

I have done this already. The ball's in your court as they say  THANK YOU!

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

I am sure the Master Template has problems but your button problem is not a global problem and so far has only been confirmed to happen on the WreckWench account.

 

We need to nail down the details for everything else more formally at the right time.  Pam is good at this but does not have time right now.

[WreckWench]

I need to know where what you call the MASTER Template is.

Once I know where that is I can take over where you left off.

I will tweak the content per the suggested changes that I think will help to standardize it a bit more for all trips in general and then we can all review and keep streamlining it

We can however start moving forward with getting the trips open and continue the process improvement you have masterfully created.

 

Thank you!

 

p.s I hope this works for everyone. Thank you!

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

Master is in the New Trip Template. It's not a master like in MS Office. It's just a starting point to copy and change.

[WreckWench]

Ok thank you. I have skipped the first dive to try and get something opened up. I do not know if any trip inputs are ready in Hika. Everyone very upset I am not diving since its the first dive.

 

Its night there and both Pam an dScott are offline til Sunday. I will do all I can and try to take care of people on the trip as well as get something opened up. Thank you!

[Blue151]

Kamala - I posted proposed progress payments for St. Croix in the St. Croix topic.

Based on your guidance going forward I recommend the following with respect to payments:

A. Published payments schedule needs to be based on the Credit Price.

B. All progress payments be due on the 1st of the month (it is when people usually get paid, so hopefully they have money to pay SD). It will make it easier for all accounting efforts as well.

C. I payments are rounded up to the nearest $50 in order to leave the last payment as the smallest.

[WreckWench]

Thanks Pam. We need to decide if we want to post ALL The pkg prices worth of progress payments OR JUST ONE AS A SAMPLE.

 

Also we need to figure out if all payments need to be due the first of the month or not.

 

Pros: People are paid the first of the month

 

Cons: If doing more than 1 trip then too many payments on the same dates are due the same time.

 

We can figure it out.

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

My take is you put in a sample with correct dates.  Each package has a different payment schedule (prices, not dates) and listing them all is cluttered and not beneficial.  Few people end up paying that schedule anyway and too much stuff on the page is overwhelming and off-putting.

 

I say put the correct dates and something generic like

 

Signup - deposit

Jan 3, 2015 -  25% of adjusted package price

Feb 3, 2015 - 25% of adjusted package price

April 3, 2015 - 25% of adjusted package price

Balance - balance due

 

* adjusted package price = (package price - deposit)

 

This is basically the formula Pam and I use to calculate payments so it is fairly close.  The number of months vary by trip so the % will vary also.  It's possible to change the adjusted package price and have less due at the end.  (package price - 0.5*deposit) should do it but that is for the future.  

[Blue151]

I really like the idea of % of the trip instead of the actual amount.  If it is important to know the exact amount, the should be able to do the math.  It doesn't need to be rounded up to the nearest $50 if it isn't published.  This is great because it removes the need for us to coordinate these exact values.

 

50% down puts you at less risk overall and increases your cash flow for payments you have to make.

 

Even if you keep the 25% down, we can still vary this as long as we are on the same page, for example:

- if we have 6 months to book a trip, use 3 progress payments spaced 30 days apart (25% each)

- If we don't have time, then use 50% deposit and 2 progress payments of (25% each)

- If you are 9 months or more out and the trip is really expensive (i.e. Raja), use 3 progress payments spaced 60 days apart (25% each)

​You still don't have to calculate the exact values, just the % and the # of payments you want.

 

 

However, I would still keep the dates on the 1st or 15th of the month.... or any other day you want (i.e. the 20th), but make it a standard. 

 

Why?  

1.  Customers generally record when the payment is due, so if you pick a standard time frame they will make it... probably without even realizing it is a standard you set.  

 

2.  Most people only get paid once or twice a month, so if you have one payment due on April 21 for one trip and April 23 for another trip, whether they make two payments or not on those due dates, they probably don't get paid in between.

 

3.  You probably don't change late fees anyway, so if they miss the payment by a day or two it will be ok.

 

4.  It will be better for your internal team to coordinate behind the scenes.  If they know all payments are due on the 1st, 15th, 20th of the month or (other standard day) then it sets up the team to start being proactive to collect payments.   The more I think about it, the 20th of the month might actually be the best day instead of the 1st.

 

5.  It establishes a standard between Hika and the Forums - less chance of us being out of sync.

 

6.  Many other major company usually does this, so I think it makes SD look more professional.

[WreckWench]

Not sure if this is where we want this but I want to capture it...

 

 

1. Scott suggested we put the discounts on the Hika page vs pricing. This will allow people to remember the discounts and do them correctly. This is a huge benefit so we do not have to track them down when they do the wrong discount.

 

Thank you!

[WreckWench]

I really like the idea of % of the trip instead of the actual amount.  If it is important to know the exact amount, the should be able to do the math.  It doesn't need to be rounded up to the nearest $50 if it isn't published.  This is great because it removes the need for us to coordinate these exact values.

 

50% down puts you at less risk overall and increases your cash flow for payments you have to make.

 

Even if you keep the 25% down, we can still vary this as long as we are on the same page, for example:

- if we have 6 months to book a trip, use 3 progress payments spaced 30 days apart (25% each)

- If we don't have time, then use 50% deposit and 2 progress payments of (25% each)

- If you are 9 months or more out and the trip is really expensive (i.e. Raja), use 3 progress payments spaced 60 days apart (25% each)

​You still don't have to calculate the exact values, just the % and the # of payments you want.

 

 

However, I would still keep the dates on the 1st or 15th of the month.... or any other day you want (i.e. the 20th), but make it a standard. 

 

Why?  

1.  Customers generally record when the payment is due, so if you pick a standard time frame they will make it... probably without even realizing it is a standard you set.  

 

2.  Most people only get paid once or twice a month, so if you have one payment due on April 21 for one trip and April 23 for another trip, whether they make two payments or not on those due dates, they probably don't get paid in between.

 

3.  You probably don't change late fees anyway, so if they miss the payment by a day or two it will be ok.

 

4.  It will be better for your internal team to coordinate behind the scenes.  If they know all payments are due on the 1st, 15th, 20th of the month or (other standard day) then it sets up the team to start being proactive to collect payments.   The more I think about it, the 20th of the month might actually be the best day instead of the 1st.

 

5.  It establishes a standard between Hika and the Forums - less chance of us being out of sync.

 

6.  Many other major company usually does this, so I think it makes SD look more professional.

 

Ok. make it so #1.

If someone is signed up for multiple trips then we can adjust. I typically use the start date of the trip as my guide UNLESS it is a multiweek trip and then both trips are the same dates as the first week.

 

Once we get ahead again and get back to the 90 days it won't matter because we will be so far out again. Thank you...all great ideas.

[WreckWench]

POSSIBLE EDIT FOR BETTER VISIBILITY OF DISCOUNTS (to prevent people from signing up without using them)

 

Can we do one of the followiing:

 

1. Add the word discounts to the title below so it become  For Trip Details & Discounts go to:  .....   and put this in bold

 

or

 

2. Just add the discounts to the trip pricing.

 

I prefer the former so if we extend discounts we can EASILY chg the dates in the forums and not have to update hika. But I will defer to the team. Again having a li8ttle info is a good customer interface but driving them to the forums trains them to look in one place ONLY for all details. Add t4he word DISCOUNTS should accomplish both.

 

[WreckWench]

HEADS UP NOTE TO TEAM ON DISCOUNTS....

 

One of our older members signed up for the Bahamas and did not use the coupon code.  Her booking was for the quad which was ALL MALE anyway which we need to find any references to the QUAD and make the description MALE ONLY to prevent this confusion going forward. (Posting in the Bahamas Trip Inputs topic for action there on this matter)

 

Since her booking is messed up anyway I will honor the discount manually IF she tells us how she managed to book without using the code. My guess is she just signed up and THEN read the details after the fact.

 

Once we know what she did we can try to close this loop.

[Cmdr. Clownfish]

The following style was added inline to the "At A Glance" Table, undoubtedly so it will flow better and not have so many lines.

 

style="width: 1024px; height: 1262px;"

 

This made difference on IE and Firefox, where it was probably checked but broke the flow on Chrome. I removed the inline style from the table and now it works on Chrome as well. I have checked all major browsers except for Safari. I no longer have any ability to check Safari.