Getting the right booking decisions often comes down to having the right booking technology
Booking tools are the engines that run successful business travel programs. And the reason for any business travel program is the travelers. Positioning is the key to influencing buyer behavior. The same is true of your travelers as they consider their booking decisions.
Because of that, Gabe Rizzi, president of Travel Leaders Corporate and chief sales officer of Travel Leaders Group, says he would encourage any travel manager to seriously consider how easy their booking tools are to use.
“People who are booking business travel – whether an experienced travel manager, an administrative assistant, or the travelers themselves – are keeping a lot of balls in the air,” he says. “The last thing they need to do is spend time figuring out how to use the booking tool. An easy, clean, intuitive tool should be the top consideration on the list.”
Less is more, according to Michael Strauss, CEO of PASS Consulting Corp., and head of business unit travel worldwide of the PASS Group. And TMCs should be giving their clients less options.
“Provide them with reasonable trips, not only the cheapest ones,” he says. “These trips should be based on company and traveler preference. If a traveler still wants other options, give them more, but at least ask why their preferred choice is missing and capture that data. They may have a valid reason and eventually you can improve your tool.”
When shopping for booking tools, Genevieve Holmes, senior manager of strategic communications at Upside Business Travel, Washington, DC, notes that companies should look for a dedicated tool that services the end-to-end business travel experience and understands the unique needs – and challenges – business travelers face.
Rich Miller, general manager North America for Serko, which provides online travel booking and expense management, says it’s important to consider what data needs to be captured, how configurable the tool is so
a company can be sure they have compliance, and how easy the tool is for the travelers to use. “They need to have a good experience and be able to use the tool, which is more important today than in the past when it was more about cost savings,” he says.
As travel managers evaluate a booking solution, Jean Noel Lau Keng Lun, senior director of product and solutions marketing for Egencia, says there are three main things to look at in order of priority – first, that the booking tool will add a new data source for online bookings and, second, the booking tool will be used, ideally without having to spend political capital to mandate or force employees to use a clunky system.
"Finally, in today’s world, unfortunate things happen. Travel has become riskier even in geographies which were considered safe in the past,” he says. “When unexpected events occur, you will need traveler information and projected location very quickly. You don’t want to spend time with that pivot table reconciling online and offline. With companies being held to a duty of care to employees traveling on business, if you don’t have a comprehensive travel risk management system, you could be looking at a human and financial crisis for your company.”
Vital Tools in 2018For business travelers, end-to-end booking is considered a solution that eliminates steps, simplifying the booking process and ensuring a smooth trip. In this context, fully integrated tools mean pre-trip (plan, shop and book), on-trip and post-trip.
Fully integrated tools are important to most customers and so most TMCs today offer these end-to-end services on their platforms, with two of the most common examples being the combination of booking tool and expenses, as well the booking tool and risk management (duty of care).
“Having a 360-degree view of your true traveler behavior from the point of booking to the resulting expenses and associated travel policy guidelines can help companies identify cost avoidance opportunities and areas to improve the traveler experience at the same time,” Rizzi says. “Also with the heightened focus on traveler security, linking world events to their travelers’ itineraries is critical from both a liability and trip interruption remediation standpoint. Without an end-to-end view, tracking expenses accurately and keeping employees safe would be highly manual and on the verge of impossible.”
Bob Neveu, CEO of Certify, notes the cloud-based travel and expense report management company recently acquired an online booking tool from NuTravel. Their new service, called Certify Enterprise Travel, will complement the standard Certify Travel booking application for small business with features ideal for both large and midsize companies and their travel management partners.
Let’s Make a DealThe secret to procuring the best deal, Strauss notes, is data. “If you know your company’s pattern and what you really need – not what the TMC or booking tool provider wants you to think you need – you really can negotiate with the supplier what you need,” he says. “For some this may be the cheapest fare, for others it may be flexibility like no change fee or even a name change allowance. Who decided that anything is off-limits?”
Corporations get the best deal when they take a step back and consider the big picture, says Mike Koetting, EVP of supplier and TMC service for SAP Concur. “Regardless of brand, the booking tool is almost always the least expensive technology component of a travel management program. But it is has the potential to have the greatest economic impact on a company’s travel spend, safety and security and traveler satisfaction,” he says. “Consider the opportunity to extend the online booking tool's return on investment by driving additional value in expense management, platform connections, duty of care and other specifics. When considered in this light, a ‘free’ OBT is often the most expensive.”
Sometimes you get what you pay for so the “best deal” might not be the cheapest. The real best deal is working with a travel management company that provides outstanding service, understands your business, and can customize their offerings for what you need.
The Preferred Choice At Serko, Miller says the strategy for emphasizing preferred suppliers is pretty straightforward as they are usually the first option that shows up. Even in cases where the tool displays the lowest fares first so preferred suppliers are not at the top, they are highlighted in some way.
Working with travel providers who are partners, and not just vendors, can ensure greater savings, efficiency and traveler satisfaction, Holmes advises. “Preferred suppliers should be trusted allies you depend upon to deliver better prices and services than competitors, and to help you develop a smooth-running travel program for your colleagues,” he says. “While price is key, be sure to put equal emphasis on the services that vendors provide, such as whether they are flexible with bookings, accommodate sudden changes, offer 24/7 support, and waive fees for cancellations.”
At Egencia, some enterprise customers negotiate rates directly with suppliers, and the company incorporates those rates into the offering. “We can also offer them a comparative display for spot deals that can be transitionally better than their own,” Lau Keng Lun says. “Small- to medium-sized companies can find negotiating on their own behalf to be less cost effective. In that case, TMC volume negotiated rates can really bring costs down and increase compliance.”
A Client’s Influence While the travel management company buys the tool to fit client needs, the client’s strategy certainly carries weight in the decision-making process. Although TMCs can recommend, ultimately it’s a client’s choice to implement. That’s why Rizzi says it’s the job of the travel management company to truly understand the corporate culture and appetite for innovation to put the right change management plan in place.
“Our position on travel tech is to act as a guardian of their travel program by being a technology integrator that vets the best suppliers of specific use cases,” he says. For example, Travel Leaders’ Simple Meeting’s Optimizer is one tool that gives companies more control and effectiveness in hosting and executing simple meetings which represent over 80 percent of the meetings spend for companies.
“Any TMC that doesn’t listen to their clients will find themselves swiftly out of business,” Rizzi says. “What we find is that our clients are very sophisticated in their industries, but many don’t understand the complexities of business travel. What they want is a business travel expert to guide them. They’re not necessarily concerned with what the tool is, but how it helps them.”
The TMC has reseller agreements with booking tools. However, this is not a must, and Strauss believes the travel manager needs to take back control. “We have a financial institution that completely took back control and purchased their own individual tailor-made booking tool where they can create their own rules by themselves. No need for them to schedule a meeting and ‘vote’ for a feature,” he says. “If they want a feature, they can simply order it. They get pure unfiltered data. They can react within hours. They have all they need to negotiate with their suppliers. This close relationship between seller and buyer enables them to know first-hand if a provider leaves a certain channel.”
Driven to Compliance?When Rizzi hears about travelers who aren’t in compliance, he says they generally fall into two categories: Those who don’t know how to use the tools available to them, and those who just don’t want to. “In the first category, education is a must, but also looking at your business travel tools to see if they are just not what your travelers need,” he says. “For those who don’t want to, it’s helpful to offer ways to keep them in compliance.”
Neveu explains, “One of the challenges for any business traveler is there are a lot of different ways that content providers are trying to connect with the traveler. Airlines, hotels and rental cars all have their own mobile apps. The challenge as a tech provider is we have to make sure we have as frictionless a transaction as possible. We need to provide solutions to TMCs who can augment them.”
Egencia believes that compliance should happen naturally, and without mandates. “When you focus on solving for the business traveler, provide them ample choice, guide them to efficient decisions and stand by them when they need help, then compliance becomes a simple thing,” Lau Keng Lun says. “What you should do is eliminate friction everywhere you can. If you need to ‘drive compliance,’ then it is probable that you are dealing with a clunky system.”
Moreover, he says, when one communicates strongly about travel risk management, most travelers are aware that when they book in system, their travel manager will know how to reach them in case of need – something that would be harder to do if they booked outside the system.
A travel policy is the backbone of a company’s travel and expense management program and a gateway to greater cost efficiency, safety and productivity for employees who go away on business. But unless employees comply with its restrictions and parameters, it’s more like a GPS that drivers choose to ignore at their own – and their company’s – peril.
That’s why Holmes has three suggestions to ensure compliance: know your policy, know your traveler and balance savings and satisfaction. “To ensure compliance, clarity and awareness are key. Without clear, well-known guidelines, your employees are likely to follow their own behavioral patterns rather than your travel policy, and replace official procedures with personal preferences,” he says.
“Before you can improve the travel experience, you need to get a clear read on what employee expectations, likes and dislikes are when it comes to business travel. Use a free online survey tool like Survey Monkey to gather employee input, or assemble employee focus groups where travelers can dialogue about experience and preferences in person,” he advises. “Solicit feedback on the policy itself too.”
As his third point, Holmes notes while important, cost savings shouldn’t come at the expense of traveler satisfaction or efficiency. A travel policy that enshrines cost-savings as the sole priority cheapens the company’s relationship with the traveling employee.