Caribbean Cruise Line announces the implementation of TeleMagic as its customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Recently, Royal Caribbean merged with Celebrity Cruises to create the second largest cruise line.

Royal Caribbean sells its cruise products to over 18,000 travel agencies using 16 full time telephone-based sales representatives. Each representative is responsible for maintaining a relationship with about 1,200 agencies. Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line that markets directly to agencies in this manner.Because of their use of TeleMagic, the 26-year-old cruise line has begun capturing client data in a new way. Representatives use TeleMagic Enterprise to maintain records on each agency's history with the cruise line; notes on special packages or services each agency desires, as well as documentation on every interaction they have with the agency.

All price quotes, unique offerings and other information are captured and maintained for easy and accurate reference.The "EMT Pit Crew", of Emerging Market Technologies, Inc. (EMT), (TeleMagic's number one Master VAR for nine consecutive years), helped Royal Caribbean systematically design their TeleMagic system. EMT saw its ship come in because of an industry trade show contact made nearly two and a half years ago. That's when Jeff Multz, CEO of the Atlanta based VAR, met Walter Bjorkman, CruiseConnect support representative at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and a conversation ensued regarding CRM issues.Bjorkman complained about the cumbersome CRM application currently in use and lamented about his long weekends at the office importing and exporting data to keep his antiquated DOS CRM application current.

The Miami based cruise line has a high volume of clients and nearly 19,000 U.S. travel agents. With hundreds ofcruise lines competing for the same travel agents, all forms of direct marketing, such as telephone, individual and group faxing and email capabilities, are important to Royal Caribbean s ability to compete effectively. Bjorkman also needed reports detailing the productivity of each representative on a weekly basis. At that time, Royal Caribbean's sales representatives handed in weekly paper reports that took approximately an hour for each employee to complete. Multz told Bjorkman of a software solution that could enhance communication and facilitate report generation with less work. That is when TeleMagic entered the conversation.

TeleMagic includes an Internet email system that supports MAPI, POP3 and SMTP, and an activity manager, Multz also explained that he could automate the communication process to all agencies or groups of agencies at the touch of a button. "TeleMagic has cut my workload down," he says. "What used to take me a whole weekend now takes me a couple of hours." The TeleMagic solution proved to be a time saver for Bjorkman's team as well. It is also easy to use, according to Gilda Noal, Manager of Account Marketing Sales. "Our people are sales people, not technical people. We were able to customize the program to our needs, using screens that made sense to us, rather than adapt to whatever a programmer had designed." Ms. Noal praises TeleMagic's reporting capabilities as well.

She said that for the first time she is able to pull sales reports automatically, instead of asking sales reps to submit manual reports on a weekly basis. The reports also help to detect trends, enabling Royal Caribbean to develop new offerings in cooperation with agencies.Emerging Market Technologies, Inc. recommended TeleMagic Enterprise because it offered the flexibility to serve Royal Caribbean's needs today, while still allowing them room for expansion in the future. Royal Caribbean hopes to automate other aspects of their business, such as human resources, inventory management, scheduling, IT and help desk.