Clients

The clients module is a CRM-lite, optimized for safari sales. Every itinerary belongs to a client, and every client has a history of every proposal you've ever sent them.

When to use it

If you already use a separate CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, a spreadsheet), you can largely ignore the clients module and just type a name when creating an itinerary.

If you don't, Ratiba's clients module covers what most operators need: contact info, deal pipeline, follow-up reminders, and lifecycle tracking.

Creating a client

Two ways:

From scratch. Open Clients then New client. Fill in name, email, phone, country, and any notes.
From an itinerary. While creating a new itinerary, the client picker has a + New client option that creates one inline.

Client fields

Name (or family name, like "Smith family").
Email.
Phone or WhatsApp.
Country. Used for default residency category on park fees.
Source. Where they came from (Google Ads, referral, agent, repeat).
Tags. Free-form ("honeymoon", "high-spend", "agent: ABC Travel").
Notes. Anything internal.

Client detail page

Each client has a detail page showing:

All their itineraries (any status).
Total value sold (sum of accepted itineraries).
Last contact date.
Notifications timeline (proposal views, comments, acceptances).

This is the page you'll open before any follow-up call or email.

Pipeline view

Switch the clients view to Pipeline for a Kanban-style board. Stages are based on itinerary statuses:

Enquiry. Client created, no itinerary yet.
Building. Itinerary in draft.
Sent. Proposal published.
Won. Accepted.
Lost. Declined or gone cold.

Drag cards between stages to update status. Stage changes auto-update the underlying itinerary statuses.

Follow-up reminders

Set a reminder on any client to "follow up in 3 days". You'll get an in-app and email reminder. Useful for the well-documented "follow up at least 3 times" rule of safari sales.

If you sell through travel agents, you can mark a client as an Agent in their fields. Then when you create itineraries, you can specify both the agent (the buyer) and the end traveler (the family).

This is also useful for commission tracking. Add the agent's commission percent to their record, and Ratiba can flag it on proposals.