Corporate travel isn’t always smooth sailing. But there are ways to reduce the stress of managing business travel. Read how.
Consolidation is much easier than it sounds
When you’re making major changes in your company, often it’s because you're looking for ways to be more efficient, save money or make work-life easier. When it comes to business travel, one of the big changes you can make to advance your travel program is to consolidate your travel through a single travel management provider.
Consolidation is one of the first and most effective changes you can make to evolve your program for the long term. With the right travel partner by your side, your business has the potential to save thousands of dollars annually, win back time and generate more value from your spend. Here's how...
1. Partner with a travel provider that specialises in SME business travel
The mark of a great travel management company is one that specialises in managing travel for small to mid-sized enterprises (SME) and that has a proven track record in delivering wins for customers in your industry. When you partner with Corporate Traveller, you’re partnering with Australia’s #1 SME business travel provider – by marketshare and demonstrated results.
An experienced TMC like Corporate Traveller will bring you all the benefits of consolidation that we covered here. Plus, as you begin to consolidate your travel program, you’ll see how better business travel delivers more value to your decision makers, your travel bookers and your travellers.
2. Get to know your TMC and their onboarding process
Get to know your new travel provider and their team. Familiarise yourself with the products and services they can offer your business, and the different ways they can help you. Some TMCs like Corporate Traveller, have an established onboarding process that will help to set your business up with their services. You’ll be appointed with an onboarding manager, who will guide you through each step of the onboarding process and make consolidating with our team easy.
3. Put a plan together
Our team will work with you to create a personalised implementation plan that builds a solid foundation for a tailored and consolidated business travel program.
This is where you’ll talk to your travel provider about what you’d like to see in your company travel policy, how your payment and expense processes need to work and the kinds of travel reports your business would like to receive. If you’re not sure on any of these points your new team will ask you a series of questions to help your business tailor a travel program.
4. Your expectations and timeframes
When you consolidate with Corporate Traveller, we’ll take time to understand your needs, key dates and company requirements to ensure savings opportunities, best practice strategies are in place and new products or technology are optimised.
5. Set up your online booking tool (a key piece of tech needed for consolidation!)
An online booking tool makes life easy for everyone. It brings all your booking and spend data together within a single platform for consolidated reporting. Your travellers can book their own travel quickly and within policy, while any office manager or travel booker will save time and stress from having a single online booking platform.
The right technology can be customised to suit your policy, ensures all flight and hotel are within policy, traveller profiles and preferences are maintained, and that you can access a robust suite of reports to keep on top of company-wide spend an activity.
Corporate Traveller’s Your.CT hub is more than just a booking platform however, it’s a traveller-tracking, report-generating, travel-policy keeping, software powerhouse that provides visibility over your entire travel program. We’d love to give you a quick demo!
6. Communicate to your travellers
Once all the technical details are out of the way and your online booking tool has been set up, make sure your travellers are aware of who your new travel company is. Do they have contact details, tech log in details and know what number to call in an emergency or for out of hours travel requests? Once all of these initial steps have been taken, you’re all set to start travelling.
7. Review your progress
Streamlining your travel into a consolidated travel program is not a set and forget activity. Your Corporate Traveller team will check in with your business every few months to review your progress and see how your travel policy and processes are working. Using travel reporting that draws on your consolidated booking data via the online booking tool, you’ll be able to see where you’ve been performing well and where there are more opportunities to save.
Shifting all your travel to a single travel provider may take a few meetings and tech training sessions initially, but the work will most certainly pay off for your business, your people and your travellers in the long run. Want to know more? Contact our team today.
Ready to make every trip count?
Corporate Traveller has a proven track record of helping SMEs make it count. Your travel matters and we’re committed to your success. We know that it starts with centralising your program so that you have everything in one place. Let’s get going.