Can my staff make a booking on the portal for a customer who has phoned in?

Yes, your staff can make a booking for a customer who has phoned in, using the same portal your customers use online. Most white label portals come with a staff login, sometimes called an agent or back office login, that opens the same search and booking screens with a few extra powers. Your agent searches while the customer is on the line, reads the options out to them, and completes the booking in the passenger's name.

The useful part is what that staff login adds on top. Your agent can usually see the net rate as well as the selling rate, adjust or remove the markup on that one booking if you allow it, and type the passenger details in by hand. Payment is where portals differ. Some let staff take a card over the phone, some let them mark the booking as paid by cash or bank transfer against your agency account, and some do both. Which of these you get depends on your plan and on what your payment provider permits for telephone orders.

It is worth being honest about the risk on cards taken over the phone, because a charge made without the cardholder present is easier for them to dispute later. Many agencies avoid that by sending the caller a secure payment link from the booking, so the customer types their own card details and the booking only confirms once the money is in. Whether that link is available to you depends on the payment gateway your portal is connected to.

Before you promise phone bookings to your customers, ask to see the staff login in a demo and watch a booking made from start to finish, and check with your payment provider which telephone or link payments they will accept on your account.