Case Study - Ultimate Limousines

The Company

Ultimate Limousines offer the newest and most innovative form of road transport to the chauffeur driven market; having commissioned the build of an amazing £300,000 limousine coach, as never seen before in the UK, word is spreading about the quality and style that it has to offer.

Celebrities and corporate clients alike are realising the importance of this vehicle and the flexibility it offers. Not only can clients work with wireless internet(where service is available), but they are able to entertain guests, move teams around, advertise their company on the outside and freshen up in the deluxe shower room!

Seating up to 15 people, the Ultimate Limousine boasts a plush lounge with 32" LCD screen, stylish boardroom with another 32" LCD screen, kitchen with 2 drinks coolers and shower room with glass hand wash basin.

Background

Ultimate Limousines started trading in Spring 2005.   Enquiries and bookings were initially taken from two seperate offices and being equipped with mobile communications, they could also from the coach itself whilst for example at corporate exhibitions.   Later, it was decided that it bookings and enquiries would also be taken from a number of selected travel agents.

Quite early into the running of the business it was realised that there were problems in relation to taking bookings and enquiries.  Because of the distributed nature in which bookings and enquiries were being taken, each office, the coach and the travel agents had, in-effect, their own form of booking system.

Although both offices had a dial up connection to the internet, and the coach itself had an on-board mobile internet connection, communicating the required information by e-mail was too slow and sporadic to be able to control and organise the bookings correctly.   At times the vehicle was getting double booked and opportunities were sometimes being overlooked.

Because of the 'distributed' nature of the information problems were also being encountered maintaining customer details and account information.  Due to the slow dial-up connections sending e-mail and other literature to existing and potential customers and clients was also proving unreliable.

The Requirements

What was needed was a centralised system that could not only log bookings and enquiries but could be accessed by all the respective parties at the same time.   This central system would also be used to store information pertinent to their existing and new customers, in effect a contacts database.   There were also requirements to run reports, compile mailing lists, use a scheduling facility to monitor both preliminary and confirmed bookings whilst providing an overview of a range of forthcoming events and activities.

With all the required information now held on a central system, it also made sense to automate a number of the processes that were currently being carried out manually.  For example the emailing and printing of confirmation bookings, the sending information following enquiries, report generation and "what if" senarios.

Ultimate Limousines already had their own web site, www.ultimatelimousines.co.uk , which they used for advertising up-and-coming special events and the services they could offer.  Quite often, following advertising campaigns there was a requirement to judge its success not only by the number of telephone calls received, but also to monitor any impact it had on the number of visits (or hits) to the web site.   As well as the number of visits, knowing which pages were receiving the most interest was of particular importance.
In effect, what was required was an intuitive web site reporting facility showing all the activity and movement that was taking place on their own web site.

In order to provide the flexibility and accessibility that was required by all parties it was decided that the system should be web based.   This would enable any number of travel agents and other interested parties to access any required information from their own geographical locations.

By making the system web based it also meant that serious consideration needed to be given to security.   Access rights and security groups would need to be setup to not only allow access to those who needed it, but also to restrict and stop access to those who didn't.

Diagram showing requirements from the user's perspective
Requirements Summary:-
  • Create a centralised multiuser web based database system.
  • Migrate all data from the existing systems.
  • Create views and data entry forms which matched the existing working processes.
  • Create intuitive reports and summary information.
  • Enable bookings to be taken from multiple sites.
  • Enable travel agents to view certain areas of the booking information.
  • Create and schedule various events bookings, preliminary bookings etc.
  • Create security groups and access rights.
  • Color code various event types in order that they be easily identifiable.
  • Upgrade existing dial-up connections to ADSL at both office sites.
  • Implement statistics and reporting facilities for their existing Web Site.

The Realisation

Following agreement of these initial requirements the design team here a VirtualWebs worked closely with Ultimate Limousines involving them at every stage of the development.

A database was created to hold and manage the data requirements specific to the needs of Ultimate Limousines.   New views and data entry forms were designed and implemented to match and complemented the processes and methods that Ultimate Limousines undertook during their normal working day.   Security groups were created and setup to allow restricted access to the travel agents who only needed access to the limousine's availability and did not need to see other information that was pertinent to the business.

Within a few weeks an initial web application was ready for testing.   Existing data and other information such as client details and previous bookings was exported from their existing systems.  This data was then imported and integrated with the contacts, scheduling and new database system.   The testing process revealed a few problems which required only minor change before the system was fully approved and operational.

Finally the Ultimate Limousines web site was modified to record the information necessary to produce the desired reports and statistics.  This data was again integrated into the new system so that details could be easily viewed and analysed.

Conclusion

Ultimate Limousines needed a system with flexibility, expandability and ease of use.   They needed it to integrate with their existing web site, be available whilst 'on the move', from any office, and have parts of it made available to third parties.

By providing a customised web based multi-user system which inherits a majority of its functionality from our core, tried and tested modules, VirtualWebs has been able to supply just this.

The solution has been designed to work with, and complement the methods and procedures already in use by the company and it has been achieved with minimal time and costs.

Comments from Ultimate Limousines

Comments from Mrs Alison Crook, Director of Ultimate Limousines

VirtualWebs have provided us with an excellent personal service and significantly helped us with all aspects of business start-up, including website, internet, tracking, advertising design.

The staff at VirtualWebs offer a knowledgeable, friendly service and go the extra mile to ensure our needs are met.  As with most small businesses, start up costs are always a big outlay and we felt that VirtualWebs have been exceptionally good value for money.

We are delighted that we approached them when we started our business and have no hesitation in recommending them to other companies.