What is Zendesk?

Zendesk is a customer support platform that facilitates communication between FareHarbor’s teams and our clients and affiliates. Equipped with features that allow Supporters to receive, analyze, and respond to support requests accurately and efficiently, Zendesk is an important part of FareHarbor’s celebrated 24/7 customer support services. You have already received a full training on Channel Support Zendesk Processes – the following help page are the need to knows for quick reference. You can also read more about Zendesk in this help page here.

FareHarbor Zendesk Login Page

Click on the FareHarbor Zendesk login page to access your account. Make sure to bookmark this in your Internet browser!

Zendesk Signature:

1. Copy the text above by pressing command + C.
2. In Zendesk, click on your profile icon in the top-right corner of the page and click on View Profile.
3. When your profile opens in the left-hand panel, click in the space behind Signature and paste the text you copied earlier by pressing command + V on your keyboard or right-clicking and selecting Paste. Adjust your name and your position.

What is Close?

Close is the CRM (Customer relationship management) system all FareHarbor teams used to communicate with clients or affiliates and to keep track of leads.

Close for Channel Support

Channel Support specifically uses Close to verify contact and Dashboard information from Zendesk. Although Close and Zendesk do talk to each other (via Zaps and API) it is not perfect – especially for affiliates writing in. Close is the “source of truth” so should be used to confirm client or affiliate information.

When working on a ticket in Zendesk, – it is best practice to check that the person you are talking to has access to the Dashboard they are requesting changes on. By copying the name, email address or phone number of the person from Zendesk and pasting it into Close, – you’ll be able to verify if they are on a lead in Close. If so, you can then access their FareHarbor Dashboard to make the requested changes.

Additionally, you can use Close to check:

• Tier
• Client Website
• Who the Account Manager is
• Are they on the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN): Referral Links & API Bookings?
• Are there any other related Dashboards with the same owners as this lead?
• Other contacts and their titles

Lastly, Channel Support uses Close to Submit Live Build Requests to the Live Build Team. Channel Support submits Live Build Requests for tickets that require deep technical knowledge or will be long projects – examples are when we need 70 bookings flows created, there are major rate updates across a Dashboard, new items need to be built for affiliates, etc. Learn more about submitting a build request here.

What is Slack?

Slack is our internal communication platform that we use internally at FareHarbor. To customize your Slack sidebar theme check this page here.

Slack Profile

Your Slack profile should have:

• A picture of yourself
• Display Name: Your name
• Phone Number: Your number
• Email address: your@fareharbor.com
• City of office you are based out of
• Title: Your Position Title

Airtable is a project management software that can store information in a spreadsheet that’s visually appealing and easy-to-use, but it’s also powerful enough to act as a database. Channel Support uses it as a project management software and database software. Our team Airtable lives here: Channel Support Team Airtable

Channel Support is often the go-to team for all things affiliate related. We get questions from account managers, onboarders, builders, salespeople and other teams about affiliate setups, rates, invoicing, etc. In order to better track the time spent on specific clients and account for our use of time, we are introducing a ticket tag “internal affiliate consult” to be used for cases like the following.

What’s considered an Internal Affiliate Consultation?

This is defined as a Slack message or huddle regarding a specific client, that takes longer than 15 minutes and where you either have to do work on the Dashboard, explain how to do something on the Dashboard, or explain the general Affiliate features/functions.

What’s expected from you?

If a Slack message or call with another Fareharbor Employee becomes longer than 15 minutes, create a new ticket in Zendesk under the organization you are working on. Add internal notes to the ticket, summarizing the tasks you are doing or the topics you are discussing. Each time the conversation continues, please update the internal notes. You can either keep it open or submit it as pending.

Submit the ticket as Solved once the issues are resolved, and you are no longer consulting for this client.

What is Self Service?

Self Service is an initiative to provide Tier 0 and 1 clients or affiliates the resources to complete updates on their Dashboard instead of making the updates for them. This helps us reduce our ticket volume and empowers our clients to learn their Dashboard. Resources include help pages, phone calls, screen recordings or screenshots of the action that the client can complete on their own.

List of self-service actions and their help pages:

Process

1. Review the request from Tier 0 or 1 or an affiliate and determine what actions need to be taken on the Dashboard.
2. Check those actions on the table above. If the actions are on the list above, go to step 3. If they are not on the sheet, handle the ticket normally. Remember to check the Dashboard for non-self service features like resources, price schedules and API connections. Does the client want to add a customer type which will affect resources? That means it’s no self-service action because creating/updating resources is not on the list of self-service actions.
3. Send client help material, a screen recording, or give them a call to walk them through it. Do not make the update for the client.
4. Solve the ticket with the ‘Self-Service’ Channel ticket category.
   • If the client refuses, use the language below to try to convince them to make the update themselves. If they refuse after you counter their pushback, submit the ticket through the Self service feedback workflow and make the update. We’ll review these companies to see if they are repeat offenders. If you face situations where clients can’t complete the updates because the help page doesn’t suffice or when a client makes a mistake after using the materials, please submit the ticket through the Self service feedback workflow as well! This might mean the help pages need to be updated, which is very important feedback.

Overcoming objections

General points:

• We’re here to help whenever you need it, but this is something that is really simple for you to do on your Dashboard, and you won’t need to reach out to make this update. I don’t want you waiting on us during your busy season to do something as easy as this. It only takes a couple of minutes, can I show you how to do it?
• This is a really simple update and I feel bad you have to call us for it, can I walk you through how to make this update, so we can save you a phone call for next time?
• This is a very simple update, and I’m sure you got this, let me walk you through it right away. Learning this will save you so much time calling in!

“You always used to do this for me”

• Call the client and offer to walk them through the instructions.
• Maintain positive language and say the help pages are really helpful and include every step of the process.
• We love talking with you, but you could make this update in half the time it takes to give us a call/email. Want to walk through it right now?
• We’re here to help whenever you need it, but this is something that is really simple for you to do on your Dashboard, and sometimes we might not be able to help you out right away if we’re really busy. I don’t want you waiting on us during your busy season to do something as easy as this. It only takes a couple of minutes, can I show you how to do it?

“I’m not in front of my computer”

• I totally understand you’re running around and can’t make the update. We offer free trainings on the dash where one of my colleagues can show you how to do all of this. Is there a time in the next week or two where you or someone on your team wants to learn how to do this? We just don’t want you to have to call in for an update like this one.
• When will you be in front of your computer?
• Can you put your phone on speaker and I can walk you through doing this on the app?
• I can make this update for you now, but I think it’d be really helpful to book you for training because this stuff really is quick to learn. Are you free next week at X time?
• Offer to record a video on how to do it, and they can make the update when they have time.

“I don’t understand how the Dashboard works” or “I’m afraid I’ll mess something up”

• That’s what we’re here for! I’m happy to walk through every step with you and can even check your work when you are finished.
• Let’s do the first one together, then you can do the rest of them yourself.
• I’ll record a video on your Dashboard, so you know exactly what to do, make sure to save the video somewhere, so you can always access it later on.

“I pay you guys to make these changes for me” or “I was promised you would be able to do this for me”

• The Dashboard can be really complex, and we’re here to help you use the software, but these are really quick and easy updates. Next time you won’t need to call/email

What’s considered a Project?

A project is defined as a sequence of tasks that must be completed to attain a certain outcome. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the term Project refers to any temporary endeavor with a definite beginning and end”. In Channel Support, we are the first and last resource when it comes to affiliate updates, so we often have tickets that take longer to solve.

If you receive a ticket that contains one of the following requests, and you identify that it’s going to take you longer than 2 Hours to complete the updates on the Dashboard, or it has already taken more than 2 Hours, this is considered a project. Projects can also be training that you are creating for our team or other teams, or Onboarding projects for new companies going live on FareHarbor (with manager approval)

Generated from a ticket

• Rate Update
• Creating price schedules
• Customer Type Build for API’s
• Large quantity of Affiliate Dashboard logins (20+)
• Large quantity of QR codes or ASN’s or Promo Codes (20+)
• Reprice Past Bookings in Reports (When less than 200)
• Dashboard cleanup – Archiving price sheets, removing affiliates, etc

Training Materials + Help Pages, CS Improvements

• Training other teams or our team members
• Creating new material for the team
• Updating current help pages

Onboarding

• Generated from the OB to CS slack room or Big Waves

What’s expected from you

Whenever you have a request for a project, make sure you follow these steps, so your manager can track your progress on it:

1. Answer the ticket setting expectations for time solved /submit as open (See example here)
2. Tracking Time while you’re working
   Make sure the time tracking feature is saving logs while you’re working on it or when you get back to it. (See instructions here)
3. Add the Project to Airtable as “In Progress”
   In our Project’s tab, make sure you fill all the fields and add a time-line on the dates and status of the project. (See instructions here)
4. When finished, switch it to “Completed”
   When your project is completed, make sure you set it as completed in the Airtable and add the total hours you spent working on it along with the end date. (This is important for your managers to acknowledge your work on these complex and/or long requests)
5. Answer the ticket, and ask the charter to check your update
   We are here to help, but ultimately, the client is responsible for their own Dashboard and making sure the updates we make are correct. So we want to make sure that we ask them to check our work as a call to action at the end of the ticket.

Go Live Checks

The goal of a live check is to ensure that newly onboarded clients have their affiliates built out correctly in the system, as well as inform them of the affiliate booking features. Live checks come through Zendesk via an automation. The automation is triggered when a lead becomes a live customer of Fareharbor in Close (our CRM software). These checks provide a Lead ID, so that agents can copy and paste it into the search bar in Close.

1. Once on the lead, you will search for the Custom Activity called “Dashboard Creation Requested” which is where the onboarding document lives.

2. Click on the onboarding document link and navigate to the ‘AFFILIATE’ tab.

3. We want to make sure the correct affiliates are added to the charter Dashboard with the proper total & invoice sheets and following the best practices For example, we want to make sure connected invoice sheets are used whenever possible and that sheet names are clear, concise and price sheet notes are used whenever something is out of the ordinary. Naming of the sheets should follow best practices as well. For example, an invoice sheet named Viator that could be used by other affiliates, should be named Billing -x%.

4. If there are notes next to an affiliate about special pricing/custom fields/customer types, etc., please make sure they are correct on the assigned total/invoice sheets.

5. If something is not built out correctly, reach out in the company’s Slack channel (found under OB-Slack Room custom field) to the dashboard builder (OB-02 Dashboard Builder custom field) who set everything up and advise them to make the changes needed.

6. When everything is checked & and any work has been completed by the onboard builder, use the ‘Pre-Live Affiliate Check’ macro on the Zendesk ticket as an internal note and answer the questions. If the client is T2 or above, send them the “Affiliate Features” macro on a new ticket by pulling the POC email from Close.

Admin notes provide an easily-accessible, centralized place for FareHarbor Admins to keep important information about a company’s Dashboard or setup – users/clients will not be able to see Admin Notes. The goal is to keep the notes concise and clear.

Admin notes can be created by typing Shift + ? and the template will auto-populate for you. By default, if admin notes have been added to a company, the notes overlay will automatically open when switching to that company.

Best Practices

Admin notes should be used for important updates. Things like major rate updates, special circumstances that affect the way this Dashboard operates, or anything we should know related to their affiliate setup, without needing to go back and forth with the client.

• When creating admin notes, make sure you are always flagging the company so that the notes become highlighted in orange (and easier for us to catch)

  

• When updating any admin note, write your initials & the date you made the change ie. E.G 10/27/20

• Keep things professional. Ask yourself: Would this make FareHarbor look bad if the client accidentally saw it on a screen share?
• Use markdown when you can!

1. Run a booking source report for the last two years and group by Total Sheet and Invoice Sheet.
2. Duplicate the tab and open to the price sheets page. This is where you will begin archiving the sheets. Any sheets that have been used in the last two years (comparing to the report) should not be archived. Check the names of the sheets carefully to make sure you are not archiving an active sheet.
   • If the sheet is still attached to an affiliate (as the only sheet used by the affiliate) you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ARCHIVE.
   • If the sheet is still attached to a schedule and hasn’t been used/is not relevant anymore (ex: dates assigned have passed) remove the sheet from the schedule and then archive the sheet.

For more information about archiving price sheets and schedules, look here.

Some FareHarbor Tour Operators have been around for a while – we love that. However, many have unused affiliates on their Dashboard, making it difficult or tedious for us to make mass rate updates or changes. WE ALWAYS ASK THE CHARTER’Ss Permission to delete affiliates from their Dashboard based on the criteria of: They have not been tagged on a booking in the last Three (3) Years and they were not added to the Dashboard in the last year. You will first run a booking source report for the last three years of bookings for affiliates. Please use this Google Sheet and directions with example to easily determine which affiliates can be deleted from a Dashboard.

Previously: When a client asked for a list of affiliates, or an affiliate asked for a list of tour operators in their area, Channel Support would generate a list from Close, and send it to them. Channel Support will no longer do this for clients or affiliates.

Why: We can use this opportunity to entice more affiliates and clients to join the FHDN (Bookings & instead of having them create their own partnerships.

What we will do instead: Use the following Macros to respond according to who is asking:

• Affiliate Asks for Tour Operator List: Channel Specialist::FHDN::Affiliate Asking for Client List (Macro in Zendesk to reply to the affiliate).
• Client Asks for an Affiliates List: Channel Specialist::FHDN::Client asking for Affiliate List If you get pushback from clients – you can explain that the process has recently changed, and we are happy to discuss the FHDN: Referral Links & API Bookings or regular API partnerships over the phone.

If you get pushback from clients – you can explain that the process has recently changed, and we are happy to discuss the FHDN: Referral Links & API Bookings or regular API partnerships over the phone.

Occasionally, an affiliate may request that we change the name of their business. To make these changes, we must first consider if the changes are appropriate, or if they are actually requesting something different, like an ownership change.

If a Support agent (or any FareHarbor employee) receives request to change business name and edits, before making any updates, consider:

• Is it branding only (business name, logo, etc)?
• Is it a legal name change?
• Is the request to update all company details, including the URL/shortname viewed by customers?

Depending upon the request, there are a number of Dashboard updates and internal updates (Zendesk/Close) that need to be addressed. Please try to discourage a Shortname change. They can change their Dashboard name and keep the same Shortname.

If an affiliate insists on changing their shortname. There are several steps we must take.

1. Are they part of the FHDN (Referral Links or API Bookings) or an API Partner? (Check in Close under Documents Custom Fields)
   • If Yes – forward the ticket to Strategic Partnerships
   • If No move to step two
2. Do they have any ASN links on their website?
   • If yes, they will need to reintegrate all links so that they can get credit for future bookings made through those links with the new shortname.
3. Change the Shortname
   • In FareHarbor – Change the Dashboard shortname and Dashboard name (if applicable).
   • In Close – change the FH URL Custom field and the FH Shortname Custom field to the updated shortname
   • In Close – Change, the name of the company at the top lefthand corner.
   • In Close – If the Affiliate’s website URL has also changed – update the affiliate’s website URL.
4. Provide the Affiliate with the New Shortname and Login URL – the user will be the same, but the Login URL has changed.
5. Create them any ASN buttons they had, using the new shortname – they will need to reintegrate these buttons onto their website in order to get credit for bookings.
6. Change the Organization name in Zendesk (if they have an organization).

Occasionally, a former customer may request to become a reseller on FareHarbor. They no longer operate their own tours, but they want to resell other FareHarbor clients. You can tell that they are former customers by going to their close lead and looking under the “Current Status” custom field. Where it would normally say “Live Customer” it would instead say “Former Customer”. Additionally, their FareHarbor Shortname would be shortname-closed.

In this case, we will always want to create them a new Dashboard for their new reselling business – even if it’s the same name, and create them a new close lead.

Look here for Creating a New Affiliate Company in FareHarbor

Look here for Submitting a New Affiliate Lead

In the context of FareHarbor data management, new affiliate dashboards can be created, but they must have unique names. However, there have been cases where multiple affiliate dashboards were unintentionally created with very similar names, differing by just one letter or character. This is mostly due to clients asking us to add affiliates and providing different names than the actual business name. This has resulted in duplicate entries in our database, such as “casamae-eur,” “casamae-euro,” or “cmae-euro.”

When an affiliate becomes an API partner, the Strategic Partnerships team conducts research in our database to check for duplicates and verify the accuracy of the shortname before proceeding with the integration process. For their purposes, having one dashboard of each currency is best for reporting and to give API Key access. If multiple dashboards of the same currency exist, the standard procedure is to provide API keys to the dashboard with the highest number of bookings.

If duplicates are discovered during this review, the Strategic Partnerships team contacts Channel Support via Zendesk and requests a “dashboard merge” to resolve the issue.

Steps completing the dashboard merge:

In Zendesk:

• Use this macro informing clients that we’ll adjust the affiliate in our database due to the API integration and wait 48 hours for their denial.
• If no reply, proceed to the next steps.
• If negative reply, escalate to their AM via their workflow.

In the dashboard:

Check the Switching Affiliates in a Booking section for more details.

If a booking was initially made through one affiliate but the charter decides to switch to another, you would need to update the affiliate information included in the booking to ensure that the correct affiliate receives credit for the sale. This is important for tracking sales and commissions. There are various reasons why an affiliate should be switched to another one in an existing booking, e.g. charter selected the wrong affiliate, or the Strategic Partnerships team is merging multiple affiliate dashboards because this affiliate will turn into an API Partner.

Steps

1. Generate a Booking Source Report from this month’s availability and future, to check how many bookings have been made tagging this affiliate.
2. Open all bookings, and one by one make a full refund to the wrong affiliate that is tagged. If you try switching before refunding, you’ll get an error message. (This is applicable for billing affiliates, for referral, you’ll be able to switch it and never want to refund.)

3. After the refund, switch the affiliate to the correct one and add payment again, selecting “Collected by New Affiliate added.
4. Delete the affiliate WITHOUT bookings from each charter dashboard as you added the correct one to each charter dashboard.
5. Change the name of the affiliate dashboard that will not be used anymore to (Affiliate Dashboard Name) – DO NOT USE!

Oftentimes, bookings created by an affiliate or by the charters on behalf of their affiliates will need rate adjustments. This can be for a number of reasons: the invoice price doesn’t reflect correctly, the tax is calculated wrong, or the total price is incorrect. When the price is changed on a price sheet, it doesn’t automatically update on existing bookings. It’s the job of Channel Support to adjust past or future bookings pricing in accordance with the client’s needs.

Adjusting affiliate booking prices is different from adjusting an online booking because the payment relationship with the affiliate is what will guide us in the steps. Channel Support can only completely fix bookings that the affiliate collected the payment themselves. To fix bookings where a card was charged in FareHarbor, we can reprice the booking but we will never charge or refund a credit card. It will be up to the charter to charge or refund the credit card for the difference.

Before making any updates, it’s important to check that the bookings you’ll reprice are not included in an invoice. (You can generate a Booking Source Report with the detailed filter “invoiced?” to find out.) If the booking is included in an invoice that’s not yet paid or if it’s in an invoice that’s already paid, always contact the charter informing what actions you’ll take and what has to be done before making updates. Get written approval to fix the bookings and invoices and make sure you Include in the email: The invoice number, all booking IDs that should be updated and what’s the expected result from this update.

The steps to adjust rates by repricing affiliate bookings will depend on the relationship between the charter and their affiliate. Learn more about the differences and steps to adjust prices on affiliate bookings below.

These are the most common situations when you’ll need to adjust a booking:

Wrong Retail Price

Bookings with Billing setup

These are bookings that the payment was collected by the affiliate, meaning that it was not processed in FareHarbor. Therefore, it’s possible to reprice the booking and add the payment/refund on behalf of the affiliate. (We assume that the affiliate did collect the correct amount in their end). This is a typical issue from bookings originated out of API platforms.

To adjust this type of booking, you’ll need to:

1. Create a new price sheet and/or adjust the rates in the price overview.
2. Switch the sheets in the affiliate settings to the new pricing (if applicable).

3. Reprice the booking using the new price sheet. (This option—located in the Advanced menu next to Booking Actions—lets you recalculate the prices on the booking by changing the price sheet.)

   

   

4. After repricing the booking, the status of the payment will be the difference between the initial value of the booking and the new one applied. This difference will be presented as either “Due” if the amount charged was lower than expected, or “Overpaid by” if the amount charged was higher than the expected.

5. If the status is “Due” you’ll want to add payment to complete the missing amount to the booking total by selecting the option “Add Payment”.

   (Make sure you add payment on behalf of the affiliate by selecting the option with their name.)

   

6. If the status is “Overpaid by” you’ll want to refund the extra amount that was charged by selecting the option “Refund”.

   

   Make sure you select the correct amount to refund in full:

   

Bookings with Referral Setup

These are bookings where the payment was collected by the charter, meaning that a credit card was processed in FareHarbor and the charter collected the full amount stated in the booking directly in their bank account with us. Channel Support can reprice the booking with permission from the tour operator, but the tour operator will need to add payment or issue a refund to account for the price change themselves.

Wrong Invoice Price/Commission

To adjust this booking you’ll need to:

1. Create a new Invoice Sheet and adjust the rates in the price overview.
2. Switch the Invoice Sheet in the affiliate settings.

3. Reprice the booking using the new Invoice Sheet. (This option—located in the Advanced menu next to Booking Actions—lets you recalculate the invoice price on the booking by changing the invoice price sheet.)

   

4. After repricing the booking to the new invoice sheet, the invoice amount will be updated according to the changes you made.

5. If the update is from the invoice sheet Billing to Referral, you’ll notice that not only the amount will change, but the company who will be paid out and the amount that the Affiliate collected previously.

   

   Since we are switching the payment method from Billing (collected by affiliate) to Referral (collected by charter) the total collected by affiliate should be refunded and that total amount of the booking should be collected by the charter, meaning: switch who collected the payment. (See Figure 1 for refund, 2 for add payment to charter, and 3 for final booking overview.)

   Figure 1:

   Figure 2:

   Figure 3:

Adding affiliates as external users helps them to streamline the day-to-day operations of different companies under the same management. The advantage of this approach is that it enables them to easily switch between accounts when booking into different calendars without logging out and logging in. The setup is the same as in the charter dashboard. To enable affiliates as outside users on a Dashboard, go to the advanced company settings (shortcut: Shift + ,), locate the Setup section, and check the box next to “Add outside users to Dashboard”.

On each Dashboard that the affiliate user should have access to, go to Users and Permissions > Outside Users and enter the following:

• The outside user’s affiliate company shortname.
• The outside user’s affiliate username. (This is optional; if you don’t put a specific username, then all users for the company will be given access to the Dashboard.)
• The permission group that the outside user(s) should have when working in the current Dashboard.

Using FareHarbor as an outside user

Once the affiliate is an outside user for another affiliate dashboard dashboard, you’ll have the option to move between Dashboards by clicking the company name in the Dashboard Menu Bar.

Outside users and notifications

Affiliates as outside users do not receive booking notifications for the Dashboard on which they have been added to as an outside user or their own dashboard.

Limitations

Affiliates with multiple currencies can use this feature to switch from one dashboard to another, but they can’t book from one currency to another currency. Example: EUR dashboard login can’t book directly switching to the GBP dashboard as an outside user, they can only see the calendar.

Use cases

This solution is optimal for affiliates who own different companies within the same currency. They are able to toggle between dashboards and books directly, without the need to log off and log in.

SP – Company Type Options – Meaning