WG Travel: how to make friends geymdev and travel?
The idea of creating near-game services for our players has been in the air for a very long time. We have long thought about creating a kind of "concierge service", which will allow our audience to receive services not directly related to the gameplay, but at the same time will make it possible to earn pleasant game bonuses.
Of the many services we have chosen exactly tourism. The logic is simple: every person at least once in their life goes on a journey, be it a vacation or a business trip. In addition, there is a wide range of suppliers on the market, and we wanted to help our players choose the best tour operator quickly and at no extra cost.
Operator selection
The primary pool of applicants for the affiliate program was prepared by colleagues from the logistics department, who organize the travel of our employees. Since the level of service provided by Wargaming to its users in any project or game should be top notch, we carefully studied all the proposed tour operators and made a strict selection of suppliers based on the following criteria:
The best option was the holding UTS Group. The name WGTravel was not long in coming. After all, what could be simpler and clearer for our audience?).
One of the important reasons why we chose the UTS Group, was the fact that they have experience with the White Label . When deciding in favor of working on White Label, we were guided by the relationship between development time and cost. The technological base of the partner company suited us both in terms of functionality and in terms of custom modifications. Thus, during development, most of the time was spent on creating a convenient project design and setting up the interconnection of protocols between companies.
Moreover, given that Wargaming has never dealt with tourism professionally (and will not be engaged), the decision to give the main work of implementing the technical side to partners who have the necessary experience and professionalism was obvious.
Moreover, UTS already has a successful experience of integrating its products into the websites of other companies. For example, their own White label can be found on the Aeroflot website.
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Pitfalls: calculating gold and the formation of technical support
The project development period from idea to launch took a little less than a year. It took us 6 months to work out and draw up agreements with partners and suppliers, about 3.5 months for the technical part (creating and setting up the site), 2 more for testing and launching the first version of WGTravel.
During this time we are faced with a number of difficulties. Among them, the search for an answer to the main question: "How much gold should there be?" The amount of gaming gold accrued for travel is calculated using complex mathematical formulas that take into account a variety of factors, such as supplier conditions, categories of selected service, tariffs, destination, number of days, hotel’s star rating, mode of transport and dozens of other factors . Certain difficulties arose with the calculation of the amount of gold at the stage of the implementation of the air ticket issue. It turned out to be impossible to accurately calculate and show along with the price the amount of gold: the conditions of the airline, on the basis of which the required amount is calculated, come only after making the reservation and the data hit the GDS. So on our website appeared the function of pre-booking air tickets: you first book a ticket, see the amount of game gold you get for the purchase and only then proceed to pay.
However, the most difficult part of launching the project was not even its technical side, not communicating with tour operators, but setting up technical support for users. After all, two support services are engaged in ensuring the smooth operation of the call center: from Wargaming and UTS. It turned out to be quite difficult to “make friends” of them, because in the areas of tourism and game-devils, the technique of working with clients differs from day to night. For example, in tourism it is customary to communicate with clients by phone, and in game devs, via Skype, online applications, mail, etc. It immediately became clear that users would not want to contact different support services and would address the question in the most convenient way for them. without paying attention to "specialization".
The solution, as in all seemingly difficult problems, turned out to be extremely simple. We combined support services via a Skype channel, where company employees could consult with colleagues online and respond quickly to user requests. As a result, the user does not need to spend time thinking about where and how to address his question, and he will receive the answer quickly and in a convenient form.
What's next?
Now the service offers the opportunity to purchase tickets or book hotels worldwide. But we are not going to stop at this.
We are already developing a module for tourist packages, and we are also working out the conditions for the sale of train tickets: the first agreements with Russian Railways have already been established. In the process of refinement is the English version of the site.
There are actually a lot of plans, because you can travel not only on airplanes and trains. Over time, we would like to introduce the possibility of buying sea cruises, ordering excursions, guides, renting transfers, apartments, villas and even the masses of services that help users feel comfortable when traveling to other cities and countries.
3 months have passed since the start of the project. Every day, WGTravel is visited by more than 3 thousand people from various parts of the CIS. On average, our site processes more than 5,000 searches for flights or hotels in various parts of the world per day.
In order to successfully develop this kind of services, you need to think about the audience. The desire to do something useful for customers should prevail over other needs of the company. Only having penetrated into the essence of the real requirements of customers, you can build a service that users can evaluate and use with pleasure.
Of the many services we have chosen exactly tourism. The logic is simple: every person at least once in their life goes on a journey, be it a vacation or a business trip. In addition, there is a wide range of suppliers on the market, and we wanted to help our players choose the best tour operator quickly and at no extra cost.
Operator selection
The primary pool of applicants for the affiliate program was prepared by colleagues from the logistics department, who organize the travel of our employees. Since the level of service provided by Wargaming to its users in any project or game should be top notch, we carefully studied all the proposed tour operators and made a strict selection of suppliers based on the following criteria:
- Reliability tour operator
- Price range
- Coverage of countries and tours
- Manufacturability, etc.
The best option was the holding UTS Group. The name WGTravel was not long in coming. After all, what could be simpler and clearer for our audience?).
One of the important reasons why we chose the UTS Group, was the fact that they have experience with the White Label . When deciding in favor of working on White Label, we were guided by the relationship between development time and cost. The technological base of the partner company suited us both in terms of functionality and in terms of custom modifications. Thus, during development, most of the time was spent on creating a convenient project design and setting up the interconnection of protocols between companies.
Moreover, given that Wargaming has never dealt with tourism professionally (and will not be engaged), the decision to give the main work of implementing the technical side to partners who have the necessary experience and professionalism was obvious.
Moreover, UTS already has a successful experience of integrating its products into the websites of other companies. For example, their own White label can be found on the Aeroflot website.
')
Pitfalls: calculating gold and the formation of technical support
The project development period from idea to launch took a little less than a year. It took us 6 months to work out and draw up agreements with partners and suppliers, about 3.5 months for the technical part (creating and setting up the site), 2 more for testing and launching the first version of WGTravel.
During this time we are faced with a number of difficulties. Among them, the search for an answer to the main question: "How much gold should there be?" The amount of gaming gold accrued for travel is calculated using complex mathematical formulas that take into account a variety of factors, such as supplier conditions, categories of selected service, tariffs, destination, number of days, hotel’s star rating, mode of transport and dozens of other factors . Certain difficulties arose with the calculation of the amount of gold at the stage of the implementation of the air ticket issue. It turned out to be impossible to accurately calculate and show along with the price the amount of gold: the conditions of the airline, on the basis of which the required amount is calculated, come only after making the reservation and the data hit the GDS. So on our website appeared the function of pre-booking air tickets: you first book a ticket, see the amount of game gold you get for the purchase and only then proceed to pay.
However, the most difficult part of launching the project was not even its technical side, not communicating with tour operators, but setting up technical support for users. After all, two support services are engaged in ensuring the smooth operation of the call center: from Wargaming and UTS. It turned out to be quite difficult to “make friends” of them, because in the areas of tourism and game-devils, the technique of working with clients differs from day to night. For example, in tourism it is customary to communicate with clients by phone, and in game devs, via Skype, online applications, mail, etc. It immediately became clear that users would not want to contact different support services and would address the question in the most convenient way for them. without paying attention to "specialization".
The solution, as in all seemingly difficult problems, turned out to be extremely simple. We combined support services via a Skype channel, where company employees could consult with colleagues online and respond quickly to user requests. As a result, the user does not need to spend time thinking about where and how to address his question, and he will receive the answer quickly and in a convenient form.
What's next?
Now the service offers the opportunity to purchase tickets or book hotels worldwide. But we are not going to stop at this.
We are already developing a module for tourist packages, and we are also working out the conditions for the sale of train tickets: the first agreements with Russian Railways have already been established. In the process of refinement is the English version of the site.
There are actually a lot of plans, because you can travel not only on airplanes and trains. Over time, we would like to introduce the possibility of buying sea cruises, ordering excursions, guides, renting transfers, apartments, villas and even the masses of services that help users feel comfortable when traveling to other cities and countries.
3 months have passed since the start of the project. Every day, WGTravel is visited by more than 3 thousand people from various parts of the CIS. On average, our site processes more than 5,000 searches for flights or hotels in various parts of the world per day.
In order to successfully develop this kind of services, you need to think about the audience. The desire to do something useful for customers should prevail over other needs of the company. Only having penetrated into the essence of the real requirements of customers, you can build a service that users can evaluate and use with pleasure.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/294440/
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