From beautiful, “picture postcard” dives in the Philippines, to exhilarating (and definitely more challenging) adventure dives to see the spawning in Palau, and bucket list dives that are way off the beaten track in the Galapagos or Truk Lagoon, Master Liveaboards offers something for every generation of diver.
Most liveaboard companies offer only a few destinations, but Master Liveaboards operates 11 vessels in as many destinations, meaning there is an itinerary to suit everyone. Whether it’s a diver’s first, tenth or hundredth time, Master Liveaboards has them covered.
Master Liveaboards at a glance
Challenge: Payment experience mismatch, expensive card costs and regular shortfalls
The payment experience evolution at Master Liveaboards started over 10 years ago when they introduced Paypal to provide customers the ability to pay for trips by card. Before then customers could only pay for their liveaboard trips by bank transfer.
Regardless of how clients paid for their trips, currency conversion and international transaction fees meant that payment shortfalls were common. Master Liveaboards regularly wrote off anything between $5 and $35 per transaction; considering there are 2-3 transactions per trip, and nearly 5,000 trips booked a year, the amount Master Liveaboards was writing off quickly became significant.
Overall, the process to request, identify and reconcile payments was time and labor intensive. Payment shortfalls only made the process more difficult, resulting in confirmation delays.
Regardless of how clients paid for their trips, currency conversion and international transaction fees meant that payment shortfalls were common. Master Liveaboards regularly wrote off anything between $5 and $35 per transaction; considering there are 2-3 transactions per trip, and nearly 5,000 trips booked a year, the amount Master Liveaboards was writing off quickly became significant.
Overall, the process to request, identify and reconcile payments was time- and labor-intensive. Payment shortfalls only made the process more difficult, resulting in confirmation delays.
Solution: Rethinking payments enhances customer experience and saves costs
Master Liveaboards set about reviewing and improving key processes and systems—payments included—choosing Flywire to maximize internal efficiency and deliver a consistently excellent customer experience from beginning to end.
After a swift and smooth implementation period, requiring minimal resourcing from Master Liveaboards, Flywire’s payment request solution was up and running.
Moving seamlessly through the booking process, customers receive an invoice including a “Pay Now” link that directs them to the Flywire payment portal. Here they can see the total cost in their local currency and choose how they want to pay using familiar local payment methods - ensuring payments are made in full and short payments are a thing of the past. Flywire’s simple fee structure has reduced merchant fees for Master Liveaboards. The majority of direct customers now pay by card and many agents use the Flywire bank transfer option that saves them money on international transactions. All in all, payments—both requesting and receiving them—have become very simple. There are now no surprises for clients and payment queries reduced significantly almost immediately.
For Master Liveaboards Flywire removed hours of weekly administrative work and because of Flywire’s simple fee structure the company made significant financial savings on merchant fees too.
Flywire’s simple fee structure has reduced merchant fees for Master Liveaboards. The majority of direct customers now pay by card and many agents use the Flywire bank transfer option that saves them money on international transactions. All in all, payments—both requesting and receiving them—have become very simple. There are now no surprises for clients and payment queries reduced significantly almost immediately.
For Master Liveaboards Flywire removed hours of weekly administrative work and because of Flywire’s simple fee structure the company made significant financial savings on merchant fees too.
Benefits
It’s incredibly simple. For the customer, they click a button and they can pay; for [Master Liveaboards] converting bookings is so much easier too, because everything is automated. Flywire has delivered efficiencies that save our reservations team hours of administrative work every week, allowing them to focus on delivering a great booking experience for our customers.
More recently, as part of a larger project to revamp their whole infrastructure, upgrading and automating many of their key processes, Master Liveaboards integrated payments into their new booking and distribution software: Inseanq. Now, the time it takes to convert prospective bookings into confirmed trips has been cut massively, and by using Flywire’s virtual terminal they are able to capitalize on in-the-moment enthusiasm to secure more dive show bookings.