A Well Done Pre-Trip Email

Seeing that I work in email marketing, it takes a bit more for me to appreciate a well done email. Yesterday evening, I received an email from Britz, the company we hired our campervan through for our upcoming trip.

I get excited when I get emails about our trip – even more excited when I get phone calls (thank you VAustralia for calling me any time our flight changes by a few minutes – I love hearing the accent!). So when I saw an email from Britz, I instantly opened it (relevance is everything!), and I wanted to share it with you. 🙂

The email starts off with my name, thanks to personalization capabilities. This is such a simple thing that helps make an email seem more personable, some might find it creepy, but if it’s coming from a company I do business with, I’m okay with it. Then they ask if I’m getting excited and remind me that our trip kicks off in three weeks – reminding me that it’s coming up. [Note: Excited would be an understatement!].

They provide a link to self check-in, which is convenient, as I assume it’ll reduce the amount of time we’ll need to stand around the office when we pick up the campervan. I can also finish paying off the balance ahead of time, which I’m likely going to do the next time the USD is faring better than the AUD (it seems to alternate daily).

In addition to that, there were some helpful links that I spent some time reviewing:

• “Get me to the branch” – This link provided the branch address, phone number, email, fax, branch hours, directions and taxi cost info from the airport, as well as links to close by hotels, campervan parks, AND the closest grocery stores.  Rock on!

• “Things to bring” – We’ve never done anything like this, so I found the idea to be a great one. The list to be somewhat generic, but it got me thinking about what we should pack vs. what we should pick-up while we’re there.

• “Safety on our roads” – For some reason, I seem to be the only person that’s not worried about us driving in Australia. Josh is nervous about it, so I’ve volunteered to take on the driving duties for day one. I spent 8 months living in Australia, and while I only drove once, I did it, and drove through a roundabout – so I feel like I’ll be okay. Thankfully we’ll be on highways a majority of the time, it should be just fine. In any case, this link has some helpful tips for our drive, a link to current petrol prices, as well as calculations on how far different cities are from another.

I can’t wait until we get there, it’s getting closer!  In just a few weeks, we’ll be driving one of these around Australia:

Image © 2011 Tourism Holdings Ltd

It may be the email geek in me, but have any of you received an email before a trip that you thought was really informative and helpful? If so, I’d love to hear about it (and see it – if you still have a copy of it!)

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