3 Reasons You’ll Love BPO for Travel
Corporate travelers love a seamless, easy-to-use booking experience. Their options range from going to someone within their company, to online self-booking tools, to a travel management app. However, travel managers are tasked with making so many decisions for a successful, profitable, and enjoyable trip.
For some companies, getaways must be approved by a financial manager and an executive. By adding in more people to the process, the time from trip request to booking is immensely slowed down. That’s where business process outsourcing (BPO) comes in.
By outsourcing travel management to a company with this specialty, these lofty decisions are alleviated and the process is streamlined. Here are four reasons to consider outsourcing this critical function.
1. You Can Lean on Experts
With so many complex, moving parts, booking a trip requires a deep understanding of the business’ needs, budget, and nuances. For companies that use an in-house employee for this, the question of shared responsibility arises. Someone from finance must approve the spend, but it can be confusing for him to truly grasp the intricate language of travel while simultaneously prioritizing business needs.
The beautiful thing about travel management companies (TMCs) is that they take this stressful responsibility off employees’ shoulders. A TMC’s sole purpose is to understand each of their clients’ businesses for a better reservation process. The use of TMCs continues to grow, meaning less in-house employees need to have the expertise or ability to negotiate with vendors for competitive rates.
It’s easy for a travel manager to hop on to a popular online booking tool to bundle and reserve hotels and flights. The risk the travel manager runs by booking the traditional way is missed deals, and therefore, lost savings. A travel representative is responsible for knowing industry-leading rates to deliver fair pricing. No longer do travel managers have to waste time staying on top of when the best rates are available.
2. It’s Cost Effective
It might sound fun to set up your own internal booking system, but this task is more daunting than it sounds. Stop trying to learn and establish a new technology when a TMC has already mastered this process. A TMC continuously improves their systems, ensuring you, their client, has the best experience possible. This also means you’ll spend less time making phone calls or tirelessly surfing the web for the best rates.
Because TMCs offer a fixed cost, its clients won’t be charged additionally for having more travelers added to the mix. This results in a cost savings for the time and labor your in-house employee would have spent constructing a compliant itinerary. You also won’t have to spend time training other employees to learn the new technology, freeing up both of your time to do what’s most important.
3. Travelers Are Supported Around the Clock
While your travelers are abroad, they may face risks and delays that threaten their itinerary. Oftentimes, they must make financial decisions on the company’s dime. By working with a TMC, they’ll have constant access to a travel representative who can help them make better informed decisions.
What’s better is that a travel management app can provide extended support through a virtual assistant. When a traveler converses with a chat bot, the technology remembers the conversations and uses them to later make tailored travel recommendations to the user. The more a traveler interacts with the chat bot, the smoother his experience will be, and the better the chat bot can answer his questions.
If you’re ready to save money, reduce stress, and provide unlimited support to your travelers, it’s time to outsource your travel management. Let Adelman Travel be your go-to for travel management. We’ve been in the travel industry for over three decades, helping clients of all sizes with a wide range of budgets. Give us a call today at 800-248-5562 to get started on planning your next corporate trip.