Linking travel tools can break down silos but the perfect whole-trip solution is still elusive
A seamless experience for business travelers? Not long ago, that might have seemed as likely as the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. But wait! Maybe the impossible can come true. At least that seems to be the thinking of providers of travel solutions, as they keep bringing new features to market that are making life better for all concerned. From trip shopping and booking to day-of-travel expenses, reporting and payments, the trend is toward linking solutions to create a more seamless experience for the traveler. While true convergence may not be here yet, things seem well on their way.
The trend only makes sense, according to Oliver Quayle, vice president of product marketing and innovation for American Express Global Business Travel. “Intuitively linking solutions makes it simpler and more efficient for business travelers to manage all aspects of their trip in one place,” he says. “This type of linked, elevated experience is what travelers and all consumers expect from any tech-enabled service.” Business travel shouldn’t be any different, he adds, with travelers expecting and deserving a seamless experience that keeps them productive and gets them home safely.
In fact the need to meet changing expectations has been the impetus for advances across the board. “With innovations from how airline tickets are being sold as bundles, new choices being made available like home and ridesharing, and mobile and cloud computing, the business travel landscape has changed dramatically,” says Doug Anderson, senior vice president of travel at Concur.
For his company, this has included making significant investments in recent years such as acquiring TripIt in 2011, launching Trip Link & the Concur App Center in 2013 and today offering a fully-integrated travel, expense and invoice management ecosystem.
Maximizing travel savings while extending traveler comfort and care has become both a priority and a possibility for corporate buyers, according to Mike Boult, vice president of business travel resources for Travel Leaders. He points out that leading companies – using valuable insights provided by their travel management providers – have come to realize that business travel is not the end, but the means to an end.
“Sure, it’s possible to squeeze every nickel out of the cost of a business trip by mandating connecting flights, back of the bus seating, low quality accommodations and punitive expense reclaim processes,” he says. “But at what cost to the mission of the business?”
While B2B travel solutions have historically lagged their B2C counterparts in both user experience and innovation, Boult and others point to growing evidence that integrated, end-to-end services for travelers can and will become mainstream. Developments in mobile services may be most significant, with providers working to provide both the program discipline demanded by buyers and multichannel, on-demand traveler support. This year will bring widespread adoption of “mobile first” platforms that provide shopping, confirmation, journey and expense management, Boult predicts.
Mobile has quickly become the center of the traveler experience, Quayle says, and it’s important that corporate travel catch up quickly. “To develop a flawless traveler experience from end to end, the focus now needs to be on filling in the gaps that cause the most friction.” He notes that 2017 will be a big year for mobile at GBT, as the company unveils new innovations for full digital engagement of travelers during all phases of trips.
CarlsonWagonlit’s CWT To Go app consolidates itineraries in one place, allowing the development of context-based recommendations to help travelers while keeping them within policy guidelines. The app also allows travelers to see hotel recommendations and reviews from other colleagues in their company, book hotels or Uber, search airport maps and store all of their loyalty program information in a single location.
“We’re always asking ourselves how we can make things easier for our travelers,” says Ben Scott, vice president, global product marketing. “And a happy business traveler makes for greater program compliance, which translates to savings for our clients.”
Not as Easy as It LooksSince the introduction of the term ‘end to end’ a couple of years ago, solutions have become more mature if not standardized, says Florian Tinnus, vice president of Sabre’s traveler experience business division. “Every tech provider remains to have their own definition based on their own expertise,” he explains. “Some are stronger in travel, some in expense and this is what the customer gets at the end.”
The main challenge is creating an architecture that is both seamless and flexible. “It comes down to managing data flows across a complex supply chain plus building consumer-grade user interfaces that on top are fully mobile-enabled,” Tinnus says. “This requires experience and investment on a global scale.”
When it comes to advances in trip shopping and booking technology, Scott points to personalization as a major development. “You see it whenever you shop online and receive targeted product recommendations based on your browsing or purchasing history,” he says. “This has become such a common thing that consumers now expect it in all aspects of their buying experience, whether they’re looking to update their Netflix queue or are shopping for paper towels.”
Recognizing the growing prevalence of such expectations, CWT and others are exploring ways to increase the amount of personalization offered in their products. Such efforts include both social elements and team travel features that foster planning and collaboration among team members traveling together.
“We’re seeing the consumer travel industry continually innovate and provide new, improved user experiences,” Anderson says. “This consumerization means travelers are expecting that same quality experiences in the enterprise, so we’re investing in our solutions to make them simple to use and reach our customers where they are.”
Last year, Concur added a feature that enabled users to book a hotel based on their or their co-workers previous stays. The acquisition of Hipmunk was another move to provide consumer-grade experiences to corporate customers.
Another trend is travel managers increasing their focus on out-of-channel hotel spend. To address this, CWT is offering more content, choice, recommendations, reviews and mobile options to help travel programs successfully bring those hotel bookings back into the managed space.
At Travel Leaders, a number of new solutions are being tested. They include a completely new booking interface for travel agents, point solutions that continually shop for both air and hotel rates, and SMS/chat solutions for business travelers looking for alternatives to voice and laptop messaging.
Tinnus notes that cutting edge advancements include more intelligence and contextual content into the process such as traveler preferences and recommendations, with the trend toward platforms a major development.
Real Time TrackingImprovements in real-time tracking and managing of expenses continue. Mobile solutions such as Concur Mobile and TripIt give travelers the ability to record expenses throughout a trip quickly and effortlessly.
“E-receipts flow in automatically and pre-populate expense report entries, reducing the hassle,” Anderson says. “This not only simplifies the expense reporting process, but allows for faster reimbursement and gives travel managers visibility into real-time spend.”
Managing expenses incurred outside of company booking tools also opens up another important avenue for savings. Adding outside partners helps capture spend travelers are logging on third-party channels. “This allows companies to still apply their policies, keep track of where those employees are in a crisis, and receive valuable data that impacts spend management,” Anderson says.
Many of the better EMS providers have integrated OCR into their mobile solution to support on-the-go, real-time expense capture, according to Boult. While the technology still has a way to go, he foresees a time in the near future when it seems likely travelers will be able to use their smartphones to capture all receipts. The information will then be processed into an almost pristine expense report that comes pre-filled with relevant transactions arranged before the trip began.
“The growing level of virtual payment adoption adds a new beneficial dimension given the ability to capture much more data than historical forms of payment,” he concludes.
One recently introduced example is CWT’S AnalytIQs, which tracks transactions made around the world in real-time and includes rule-based, targeted and custom messaging to travelers. “We are often finding that the bulk of out-of-channel and out-of-policy spend can be corrected with our targeted messaging capabilities,” Scott says. “We can also help travel managers pin-point problem areas so changes can be easily implemented.”
The most critical area may be the payment piece. “Having a solid payment process in place provides the highest accuracy in real-time data,” Tinnus says.
The Traveler’s Vote“Business travel can be difficult and full of uncertainty,” Quayle cautions. “Away from their day-to-day lives, business travelers often have to give up a lot to drive business forward and their experience should be of paramount importance to their employers.”
Companies risk low employee satisfaction and poor retention when they ignore the user experience of their employees. Today’s modern business travelers have certain expectations and if they are not met, the wear and tear of the road can reduce productivity and lead to burnout. “Business travel executives should pay close attention to the experience of the solutions they offer, gather traveler feedback and deliver a user experience that’s in line with traveler needs and wants,” Quayle says.
Boult advises buyers to ask existing travel management partners to present their short- and long-term vision of how they’re going to deploy innovative solutions that enhance program success while maximizing traveler productivity.
“If they are unable or unwilling to address the issue adequately, it’s probably a signal that you need to find a new provider,” he says. He adds that Millennials will increasingly expect travel services that meet their social media-driven expectations or they will seek their own alternatives.
“Look at your data,” Scott says, noting to make data actionable requires careful analysis. “For customers who have never explored air booking behaviors, for example, there may be historical patterns of non-compliance that yield bigger opportunities than originally thought.”
It’s important to consider the overall value technology can and should deliver for your business, Tinnus maintains. “Ask the right questions about what does it do for cost efficiency, policy compliance and user experience,” he says. “User experience becomes a non-deniable mega trend which has a huge impact on the workplace experience.”
Finally, a willingness not only to accept change, but to engage with it and leverage it, seems to be the order of the day. “Continue to embrace the headwinds of change and encourage an open flow of data,” Anderson says. He notes that Concur saw growth of nearly 230 percent in Uber transactions during 2015, so its partnership with Uber for Business was a key to managing this shift in business travel behavior.
“Now our customers have access to rideshare expense data that helps them manage that area of spend and drive savings, while also providing a streamlined experience for business travelers,” he says. “Integrations with major suppliers and industry disrupters will continue to benefit the industry at large.”
This is the year to evolve the entire traveler experience from door to destination and back again, driven by progressive travel management practices and native technologies that simplify the trip and keep the traveler at the center. As Quayle puts it, “Soon we will see the seamless blending of technology and service to deliver exactly what the traveler needs, when they need it, via the communication channel they prefer to use.”