Welcome to the first quarterly edition of BCD Travel’s Online Channel. In this issue we pose the question, “Does your online tool support your travel policy and vendor strategy?” This edition will discuss the best practices for applying these strategies within your online program.

Helping You Achieve Your Program Goals

Does Your Online Tool Support Your Travel Policy and Vendor Strategy? 
BCD Travel asked its customers in our 2007 Client Benchmark Survey, “If your travel policy changed in 2007, what changes were made?” Respondents said:

• Mandate Policy Compliance (15%)
• Enforce Preferred Vendor Policies (12%)
• Mandate Corporate Card (10%)
• Mandate Hotel Program (9%)
• Require Trip Approval (8%)
• Implement or Enforce Daily Per Diem Rates (3%)

Additionally, when asked to identify major challenges in managing their company’s travel program, 32% ranked their biggest challenge as travel policy compliance. In compiling these results, one thing became obvious: all of these items can be heavily influenced in online booking tools.

With many of these same customers achieving such high online adoption, we had to ask ourselves if they were taking advantage of all that could be customized from a policy and vendor management perspective in their online booking technology. In many cases, the answer was no. While customers review hundreds of policy scenarios when procuring an online booking tool, when implementing the tool they are more reluctant to limit or lock down their travelers’ abilities for fear their travelers may not trust the information if these filters or limits are put in place. We also saw cases where customers roll out an online tool and apply preferred vendor and policy triggers only to see the policy, preferred vendors or travel management change and the tool become out of sync with corporate goals and objectives. Lastly, and equally important, are new features. Online vendors have listened to the voice of their customers and have developed new features to enhance corporate compliance that should be reviewed and implemented in line with your strategy.

So how can corporate customers ensure they are supporting their travel policy and vendor strategies online? Let’s take a look at some of our online vendors’ capabilities and customers’ best practices related to vendor preferencing.

The first and most basic way to promote preferred vendors is to use the online systems’ rating capabilities to ensure your top suppliers are noted. Whether it is dots, check marks, gold diamonds, stoplight color coding or contract symbols, all tools offer this user-friendly preferencing. Many even offer customization of these symbols to provide opportunities to upload company logos or other more appealing preference indicators. Ensuring corporate contracts are visible and referenced with preference within your online system for air, car and hotel vendors is basic policy that all corporations need to apply to have successful influence on their travelers’ spend.

Further enhancements can be applied to dictate lane, market or promotion of one vendor over another in general terms. One vs. three dots, checks or diamonds show that one vendor is more preferred than others. The ability to customize text in or around these graphical displays is also an option. Relating preference of one hotel property over another based on length of stay, complimentary services offered or by applying messaging to non-preferred vendors to ensure travelers are directed back to the previously noted preferred partners are all great examples of the custom-text application. Additionally, loading customer or office locations for ease of use with online mapping to note preference or convenience to these facilities is very effective.

In specific air scenarios, the promotion of a single carrier or vendor in a specific market can and will ensure market-share commitments are met. One BCD Travel customer, Cathy Winter, travel director for Weyerhaeuser, confesses this isn’t an easy feat.

“We are in constant review of our online policy ensuring it is in perfect harmony with our corporate objectives and that may shift month to month, ” she said. “Certainly on a general level we dictate first-, second- and third-level preferred suppliers, but when it comes to market-by-market scenarios and adhering to the hurdles or commitments in place with supplies, there is need for constant review, and it has paid off.”

Good analytics and a steadfast commitment are essential, but for corporate customers like Weyerhaeuser that are not in major hubs, education of travelers and directing traffic is required to keep their bottom line in check. These capabilities in the online tool are a necessity to get the job done.

Let’s now shift and take a look at travel policy and best practice scenarios. One common practice is asking travelers “why?” If preferred suppliers are noted with precision, as mentioned above, then why are they not being selected?

“The [online booking] tool lists preferred properties, low to high,” said Tom Barrett, Trane global strategic sourcing director. “If travelers do not select one when booking an air reservation, the system may tell them that their reservation is not compliant, or it may generate an e-mail to their managers.”

A list of valid reasons in line with corporate policy is made available to travelers in these cases, but each exception is monitored and not all past muster. This logic is not just applied to air, but can equally be applied to car and hotel vendors, and is a basic function of all the big market players in the online arena. Questions about why a traveler didn’t book a hotel when he or she booked an overnight air reservation are also common. In addition to the actual property selected, the channel in which a traveler chooses to use to book their overnight lodging can impact the preferred supplier program. Noticing a traveler is not using the online tool for hotel reservations, prompting them to explain why, and explaining the concern of their well-being from a safety and security prospective if booking outside of the preferred mechanisms, can go a long way.

Policy is also commonly driven via cost triggers. For example, companies should question not only whether travelers are using the preferred carriers, but whether they doing so at the least cost or lowest logical fare. Least-cost logic varies company to company, but dollar thresholds need to be set asking why these fares are not selected. If preferred vendors are not satisfying low-fare initiatives, it may be time to re-evaluate these vendors. These triggers can build the case needed when talking to suppliers.

According to the 2007 BCD Travel Client Benchmark Survey, 8% applied some form of travel approval. Approval can be incorporated into the non-use of preferred vendors if air, car or hotel costs exceed policy or per-diem limits for a subset of travelers or for all travelers. With procurement at the helm of many corporate travel programs, trip approval has made a resurgence. If strategically applied, it can certainly drive compliance success. It can, however, cause adverse effects when trying to achieve a fully automated or touchless online process so balance in the set-up of this feature is critical.

Lastly, policy compliance wouldn’t be complete without ensuring travelers have knowledge of unused ticket credits. The online vendors have recently made it possible to convert these credits from our TripSource: Ticket Tracker to visual reminders throughout the online booking process. One success story lies within a quote from Brenda Miller, purchasing manager-Travel Services, for Nestle’ Business Services-North America.

“Our non-refundable ticket liability balance has gone down 17% in just 3 short months,” she said. “What a great cost recovery process and the value back to Nestle’ for this process is invaluable. These are very real and proven results for enhancement initiatives!”

How Can We Help?
Online customers using tools through BCD Travel’s reseller program are encouraged to attend our online release discussions. In tandem with our online partners’ product release cycle, BCD Travel offers its customers opportunities to discuss overviews of new features and how they can be best utilized. Many of these new features are policy and control oriented. These sessions are offered internally as well, ensuring our account managers and online system administrators are armed with the same information to act quickly.  Please ask your BCD Travel account manager today if your are interested. Education is key!

Thought for Action

New Policy and Preferencing Trends 
So what, if any, are the new emerging policy and preferencing trends?

One such trend is asking travelers the nature of their trip prior to displaying traveler options. In this scenario, pre-defined trip types are aligned with specific travel policies. For example, you may want to allow billable travel liberties that would not be granted on trips that are non-billable or overhead expenses. We frequently see these layers built according to job title within an organization, but dictating policy by trip type has a whole new set of advantages.

Another trend is the previously mentioned “targeted messaging.” With recent technology, this messaging can be presented to travelers at key junctures in their shopping process with heavy influence. This messaging can be offered to describe included amenities at hotels, in concert with policy to better explain logic and parameters or to emphasize cities where your organization has video conferencing options questioning travel necessity. We have also seen a green trend, with targeted messaging aimed at educating travelers with regards to anticipated emissions or their carbon footprint. Further to this trend, we have seen green supplier designation options, allowing your travelers to see “Green Partners” when perusing trip options.

Lastly, as we see new online capabilities emerging after tickets are issued, so are the abilities to drive policy in post-ticket scenarios. Can your traveler change their ticket if the cost to the organization exceeds a given threshold? Do you require justification when changing a ticket and/or notify a traveler’s manager. Trip approval is not a viable option once a ticketed itinerary is changed, as the change itself is at a cost, but travel managers can still invoke policy and communicate bad habits higher up.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Corporate Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.