OUTSOURCE YOUR TRAVEL AND SAVE

It’s not until you start working with a travel management company that you realise just how much you can save throughout the business travel booking process … if you have the right technology. Saving on business travel is not just about negotiating corporate rates for your hotel and car hire or getting airfare discounts on your peak routes.

You can also save tens of thousands of dollars with smart technology like a good online booking tool (OBT).

Companies using an OBT have the power to drive time and cost efficiencies every time they make a booking. Let’s zoom in on the market’s leading online booking tool (OBT) – Savi and explain more.

Savi was designed to help SMEs book quickly and easily. If we look at Savi’s top 5 features – you’ll see how these features save you either time, money or both.

Customer friendly user experience

No other OBT has a cleaner, more consumer-friendly user experience (UX) than Savi.  With little, or no training required, travellers or travel bookers can get started making a booking immediately.

Savi has unique ‘modules’ or in-platform user experiences that are based on who is using the tool to optimise the booking experience. 

How this benefits travellers

Savi provides a highly customised experience for individual travellers by remembering your preferences and past bookings. The tool’s artificial intelligence capabilities (AI) mean bookings don’t take as long as the searching and booking process is both intuitive and personalised.

AI and machine-driven learning capabilities are now a critical element for driving time efficiencies in travel management for customers. Savi’s AI capability learns how you use the tool, what you typically book and what your preferences are and sets them for you by default. This means that each time you use the OBT you’re booking as efficiently as possible. And we all know time = $$

How this helps travel bookers

Savi’s exclusive travel booker module includes special functionality to address any requests that ask for ‘a quote of available options first’.  It allows bookers/arrangers to suggest appropriate travel segments (and alternatives) and send through to travellers. Best of all, once the traveller makes their selection, the booker can convert the quote to a booking and have those selections pre-selected in the results screen. This booking process can be as quick as 20-30 seconds. Usually, this process is done via a lengthy back-and-forth of screenshots, emails and putting together itinerary PDFs for travellers to review. And then once chosen, the trip is manually booked. Savi’s functionality totally busts this pain point!

How this benefits businesses

Savi drives policy compliance by flagging any booking choice that’s non-compliant. It also has a traffic light system to manage air travel credits, which means your business never loses money on expired tickets – as they all get allocated before expiration. Savi’s unique credits on hold functionality has the potential to save your business thousands of dollars. The ability to see and use both offline and online credits easily in the OBT removes a huge amount of stress because you don’t have to manually manage the use of tickets and you can see which tickets need to be used as a priority due to their expiration date.

Why self-booking via the OBT is important

The more bookings your business makes via the OBT, the more you save on booking fees as online fees are lower. Customers can book domestic, trans-Tasman or international flights through Savi, with the booking flow easy to follow, fast and policy driven.

Other savings considerations

When you’re partnered with a TMC their job is to configure your travel technology so that your business can capture every opportunity to save. Aside from the OBT’s functionality there’s also a few other ways that technology supports a best practice travel program, which translates into soft and hard dollar savings.

Here’s a few other points to consider:

Make sure your OBT is configured to suit your travel policy. This means that your OBT will help to drive your policy and can indicate to travellers at point of booking if they have chosen an out-of-policy fare or rate and by how much it’s out of policy. An OBT will also ask the traveller to explain why they have chosen a non-compliant option.
Implementing a pre-trip approval process to ensure no bookings are being made that shouldn’t be.
Ask your TMC to check that all your negotiated rates and preferred suppliers are loaded into your online booking tool correctly and are visible to travellers.
Sophisticated TMC software will search out special promotional prices and best ‘on the day’ rates. Some systems will automatically cancel and rebook tickets when a cheaper alternative in the same location is available.
By consolidating all your business travel bookings via your TMC’s online booking tool your business will have more visibility of spend and booking volume, which is essential for being able to negotiate with suppliers for volume-based discounts.

And finally, a TMC will help you choose how to pay for travel, either by individual credit cards, consolidated electronic invoicing, cost centre or project code to make online and in-platform processing simpler and quicker for you. An integrated expense management system will help to create process efficiencies when reconciling expenses.

The upshot of all this? Travel technology is an essential enabler for businesses to save on travel. From the booking and buying process to reporting and supplier negotiations. Just remember though, the savings journey all starts with a great OBT.