Zeppelin Released Nitrogen - Cloud Based Booking Platform And Content Management System

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Zeppelin developed solution for any business that requires reservations from their guests – Nitrogen a cloud based booking platform and content management system. Nitrogen is an online booking & sales platform for Event Businesses, Activity Rentals, Music Venues, Guided Tours and Food Services. Below is our interview with Chad McNeill, from Zeppelin:

Q: Chad, how would you describe Zeppelin in your own words?

A: Zeppelin is a technology company that specializes in new methods of travel search, exploration, planning and booking.

Using our core proprietary platforms, we provide businesses with essential tools while simultaneously reengaging travelers in a fragmented and fee-ridden marketplace. Our platforms for exploring and booking activities and places to stay give users new ways to realize travel options by searching for destinations, activities, and/or broad sourced travel interests.

Q: Zeppelin recently released Nitrogen. Can you tell us a little more about the platform?

A: Nitrogen is a cloud based booking platform and content management system for any business that requires reservations from their guests. The Nitrogen platform embeds directly into any website allowing businesses of all types to generate bookings without added fees or redirecting their guests to a third party service. In addition to a strong customization suite and embedding directly in the customer’s website, Nitrogen provides robust backend inventory management, payment processing and promotion tools to help users easily manage their online business.

Q: How does Nitrogen Standout from other reservation & booking platforms?

A: It would be impossible in one interview to explain all of the capabilities that we offer but to start, Nitrogen offers two types of reservations – Reservation Requests and Booking Confirmations. A Reservation Request setup allows the business to communicate directly with the guest before confirming the reservation and processing payment while a Booking Confirmation setup will process payment and confirmation directly from the user’s website. Being able to offer this core option to our users was a critical feature so that we could address the needs of boutique and large scale operators.

Unlike a lot of other platforms, Nitrogen is a true availability engine. We have seen far too many offerings that are glorified coupon generators positioning the business to be under constant threat of overbooking. This is always bad for the business and for the guest. With Nitrogen we made sure if an item was marked as available on the user’s website it was actually available. The backend management system is in constant communication with the frontend booking engine to make sure that our users have a seamless booking experience with each of their guests.

Additionally, Nitrogen offers fantastic tools for custom package and promotion creation. This allows our users to be flexible with their marketing and other outreach initiatives as they drive new business and generate new customers.

However, Nitrogen’s best feature is its customization tool set. Features are flexible and can be turned on or off depending on the businesses needs while the entire look and feel of the booking engine can be styled to match any businesses’ branding. We offer two types of visual customization so that regardless of your web and design experience styling Nitrogen is as easy as selecting your colors and fonts or completely diving into the HTML and CSS to match any site’s look and feel.

Q: What was the most challenging part of developing Nitrogen?

A: At Zeppelin, we believe Inventory is inventory. Regardless of booking a bed and breakfast, a rafting trip or just a simple wine tasting excursion the one thing they all have in common is they’re inventory. To the guest the booking experience is relatively the same even if the businesses are completely different.

The challenge that presented itself immediately was how to simplify the entire process for both the user and the guest wile still ensuring that the business’ needs and practices were always taken into account. The online booking world has become unnecessarily fragmented and in order to streamline it we needed to pinpoint what was similar to the B&B and the Rafting Company not what was different.

Our core belief allowed us to have a simplistic view of the process but also forced us to understand the different challenges that each business type faces so that we could address them with a universal platform.

This is a challenge that will never cease, nor should it. Every day we are taking new features into account as we preemptively imagine the needs of our customers. Additionally, our customers often let us know what features would be useful add-ons for them. The challenge to incorporate all of that observation and feedback into a feature set that can be adopted by multiple business types is presented daily. It’s a challenge we had in development and one we welcome in market because it means our customers are engaged.

Q: Could you tell us more about you pricing structure and the decision process to be a strictly subscription based model?

A: Pricing is a key factor in any business decision and that’s why we offer Nitrogen at $29 a month. Nitrogen does not, nor will it, charge any additional fees or hidden processing costs.

We knew right from the start that we didn’t want to charge our customers endless fees. Booking fees passed down to the business, and eventually the customer, have gotten out of control. In many cases, booking platforms charge upwards of 20% while still redirecting the user to their marketplace. That model is akin to a mafia shakedown. The business does all the work, generates their own customers but has to pay an extraordinary set of fees for the privilege of allowing their guests to book online. We find that methodology to be ridiculous and not conducive to long-term customer satisfaction and retention.

Instead of squeezing a business dry with endless fees, we wanted to create something that could be a benefit and not a necessary evil they felt forced to subscribe to. We want long term subscribers and the way to accomplish that is to provide a quality service at a reasonable price. It’s sounds cliché but there aren’t a lot of services that actually live up to that philosophy.

We offer a free, no credit card required, trial because we are confident in the quality of our platform.

Q: What are your plans for the future?

A: All of our products work together in concert. The release of Zeppelin’s Helium platform for places to stay and Nitrogen for things to do is merely the start. As I mentioned the online booking world is fragmented and often not looking out for the best interest of the guest let alone the business. In order to truly revolutionize the booking market, the first step needed to be a reimagining of the tools for the business owner. Our next step is to address the poor customer interfaces that plague the travel market.

Businesses around the world depend on travelers to help sustain and build their communities while travelers depend on these businesses for exceptional experiences during their limited time away. Zeppelin believes that providing necessary tools to both parties helps bridge the fragmented gap and restore travel to a better era.

Our Skyship product is currently in development. Through Skyship, anyone from anywhere in the world will be able to book anything based on seeing an image.

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