Spanning more than half of the Northern Hemisphere and six time zones, Canada’s magnificence and diversity provides something for every kind of traveler - from adventure and remote wilderness to vibrant city culture, and everything in between.
The most relaxing and scenic way to experience all that this vast country has to offer is to make use of the country’s extensive rail network, something Fresh Tracks Canada have been offering their guests for over 20 years through their popular Canadian Train Vacations.
These personalized rail journeys allow guests to immerse themselves in the majestic beauty of the country, including the spectacular Canadian Rockies, all without sacrificing comfort or luxury. The unhurried pace of rail travel makes the journey an integral part of the experience, as much as the destination, making Fresh Tracks Canada a pioneer in slow travel, a movement that has been gaining traction across the travel industry in recent years. Fresh Tracks Canada's other unique travel experiences include seeing awe-inspiring polar bears in their natural habitat and witnessing the wonder of the Northern Lights.
Fresh Tracks Canada at a glance
Challenge: Old-fashioned payment methods caused significant delays
While Fresh Tracks Canada was spearheading the slow travel movement, their payment process was behind the times. Their retirement-age international client base is very security conscious and tend to pay for their trips using personal cheques or wire transfers, even though these methods were slow and expensive. While Fresh Tracks Canada offered card payments via a POS machine, the process was a manual one, and most guests chose to pay using other methods to pay because of the perceived risk associated with card payments.
For Fresh Tracks Canada, managing cross-border payments through their bank was slow and difficult. Short payments were common as transaction fees were applied, often twice, before the payment arrived. This impacted reconciliation, which was a manual process. After waiting for days, or sometimes weeks, to receive payment - that’s if it arrived at all - it was difficult for the Fresh Track Canada team to correctly identify payments and where to allocate them, because of mismatching payment amounts or missing identification information. They would then have to wait for the funds to clear before any elements of a trip could be paid for and the booking confirmed. Customers would call, usually several times, to check up on their payment, often becoming increasingly frustrated with the slow progress of their booking.
Overall, processing payments was a time consuming and inefficient endeavor for the Fresh Tracks Canada team, resulting in confirmation delays and a negative customer experience.
Solution: Tight integration simplifies payment processing, improves booking and customer satisfaction
Fresh Tracks Canada doesn't believe in the concept of a typical guest, personalizing each trip, and they wanted to improve their payment experience to become seamless, and as individual as their guests and the trips they book. Their CEO found Flywire on LinkedIn, and, after a few conversations, it became clear that Flywire, with their travel-specific technology and expertise, provided everything Fresh Tracks Canada needed to achieve this.
With Flywire, guests now pay online, by card or bank transfer, in their own currency, providing a simple, localized payment experience. The payment is secure (no more lost cheques or POS machines), and, as well as knowing exactly what the transaction will cost them, guests now have complete visibility of the progress of their payments. Flywire also provides guests with around-the-clock, local language customer assistance in case of any payment issues.
Flywire is tightly integrated with key systems for Fresh Tracks Canada, seamlessly embedding payments into core processes. Flywire handles all deposit bookings through their BMS platform, and full balance payments through a bespoke Salesforce integration.
Automatic payment reconciliation and real-time payment posting means teams across the company - Sales, Customer Support and Finance - can see the details and current status of payments, providing complete transparency that makes guest queries or issues easier to resolve. At the same time, because Flywire provides payment-specific assistance to guests, the customer support team has more time to help guests with other, more complex, enquiries.
Results
Fresh Tracks Canada receives all payments from guests and their many travel agent partners - from over 30 countries - in US and Canadian Dollars, their preferred currencies. Flywire has simplified the merchant fees they pay which has saved them $750,000.
The booking process has accelerated so, now, Fresh Tracks Canada guests can have their trips confirmed within three days, instead of the two (or more) weeks it took before Flywire was implemented. Overall, the customer experience has improved dramatically.
As part of their partnership, Flywire helped Fresh Tracks Canada develop communications, including FAQs, to reassure their security-conscious client-base that Flywire was the legitimate way to pay for their Fresh Tracks Canada trip, and to educate them on Flywire’s benefits.
Flywire is more than just a payment provider; they are a true partner to Fresh Tracks Canada. As well as providing a great solution to our payment problems, they are always open to, and making, suggestions for how to improve the payment process even further.
