An Interview with Korei

This article was written as a result of my internship at Eguide. As part of my learning process, I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Koen Maes of Korei. During this conversation, we discussed in detail Korei's experience with Eguide and how our services have helped them in their work.

Why did Korei switch to Eguide?

Korei has a volume of activities, which makes things very easy and very quickly cluttered. Previously, people worked exclusively in Outlook and Excel at Korei. There was different information everywhere. "I was looking for a system that put everything that all in one box. And that was also then developed specifically for directory business, such that I didn't have to do all that thinking anymore."

Alternatively, they could have asked some consultant to work something out. But then you have to do all the thinking yourself to come up with results of what processes, steps have to be taken etc.

"And then I discovered in Eguide, a system that can actually be used pretty much ready-made" Together, after many weeks and conversations, we decided to go into business together. Since January, Korei has been implementing Eguide. This month they are still running double.

"I hope we can switch to just Eguide starting in March."

Do you find that Eguide has had a major impact on your internal workflow?

"It's always a bit of a search, but actually by and large Eguide has already been developed on how we work, it's a windfall."

It might also have been a pitfall if you start working with a tool that aligns with business processes. You should be able to work with a tool that aligns with your procedures.

Are there any modifications that would make the tool perfect?

Korei still has some minor requests to further tailor the tool to their workflow. But those are in the pipeline to be addressed in the future. "I think some of our requests could also be of interest to other (potential) customers of Eguide." Feedback can only benefit a product or the tool.

What "feature" do you find most interesting about Eguide?

"That's a tough question. It's a combination of having a lot of features in one place. It's the facilitated communication with the guides that Eguide can do. Billing is also not insignificant. You can also add an overview of the fees you have to pay to guides. So yes, it's several features that make it interesting."

They are going to request a new website in the next step so that everything is going to be even more standardized. In the sense that the customer can make a booking from their website. And that there he already does his own on pack work by leaving his data. That goes directly to the back admin, as we already know Eguide, so that everything flows seamlessly together.

"We are looking forward to the front-end, which is the beautiful website, and the back-end where that we do all the administrative management in."

Do you find that it took you a long time to get used to the tool?

"That's not so bad. I have received very fine support from Onno, who answers my questions very patiently. For the most part, it explains itself.Of course, it would be even better in a next step, that some kind of manual or videos are made of how certain features work. It is sometimes searching, but we are getting there."

Korei thinks the same is true for guides because there are two dashboards. There is an admin version and there is a portal for guides. Most of it works itself out for guides, because they have far fewer features.

How was the initial communication between you and our staff team?

Onno is very approachable. I understand that sometimes that can also be very exhausting. If I have a question, I can ask it. Then I get an answer, so that's very nice of course.

Eguide do it as long as we are small, but should we get bigger we will work even better so there are even fewer questions.

How satisfied are you with the Eguide?

"Onno has a platform where you can post tickets for improvements. Whether it's general improvements or improvements you want to see so the tool is even more tuned to how your organization works."

If all our tickets are gone through and implemented then it is 11/10. Most guide organizations have people who are 65+. They are also different there in such a system.

Would you recommend Eguide within the guide industry?

"Yeah, I think I did my homework pretty well. There's almost no alternative. Either you have to design something yourself for on scratch, then it costs you a lot of thinking time and pennies. The major work is done at Eguide and as a customer it's relatively cheap because you don't have to have anything designed."

"Eguide's model is to offer the software as a service. And if you're going to scale, this is a good investment. For all those guide organizations, which are small organizations with very limited resources, this seems to me to be a very interesting model. Not only nationally, but also internationally."

Has the new tool resulted in any eventual cost savings?

"That's too soon to say that now. It is also very difficult to calculate that, but my gut feeling tells me that we are going to have 25 to 30 percent time savings in terms of administrative work compared to how it was done before."

We hope to put everything into the Eguide system by March 1, 2025 or mid-March so we can release the outlook.

Do you have any other comments?

"I've already said to Onno, it's very nice to work together, to create something. I hope we can continue to do this. There are still some teething problems, I think we both know that. I hope we can continue to work together and create a success story that way."