U.S. Agency Adopts ISO Regs

<B> U.S. Agency Adopts ISO Regs</B>

By Sarah Welt

<I>Englewood, Colo.</I> - In a nascent trend that just might reawaken an interest in formal quality programs among U.S. travel agencies, Corporate Travel Services, a $40 million air-volume travel agency based here, last month became the first U.S. agency to gain certification by the International Organization of Standardization.

Following closely on its heels is Carlson Wagonlit Travel, the nation's second-largest corporate agency, which recently began the process of applying for ISO certification for Siemens Corp. at its Dallas reservation center, and reports interest by other corporate customers as well.

Headquartered in Switzerland, ISO offers a quality standard used in 100 countries, similar to the Total Quality Management process that swept the travel agency community in the United States about five years ago.

Certification by ISO is an ongoing quality process designed to improve service levels by setting and rigorously following strict standards. It already has been adopted by many industries, leading corporations that have attained ISO certification of their own to also seek vendors--including, it seems, travel agencies--that are similarly involved in quality standards.

"The travel industry absolutely has to build quality into the process, and it's really good news that an agency has done this," said Earl Foster, president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and director of global travel at Joseph E. Seagram & Sons in New York. "Corporate Travel Services is a small agency, so you'll get some lip service out of it, but if Carlson goes and does this, it is going to force the other big ones to do it too."

Independent travel management consultant Jack Islin agreed that such a certification program for travel agencies is "long overdue." Not many agencies have yet applied for the certification, he said, because they "haven't wanted to take the time to go through all the procedural aspects of it." Unlike in Europe, here in the United States "the focus has been on the turbulence of the travel agency industry and on keeping agencies profitable," leading agencies to "put aside additional costs that don't have an immediate payoff," he said.

Corporate Travel Services, which doubled its size in the past 18 months, saw the pursuit of ISO certification as the best way to ensure adherence by all employees to company-wide quality standards, said president and CEO Brenda Rivers.

"As a result of our rapid growth, we opened branches in California and Chicago, and a second location in Colorado. We knew we had to do some housecleaning--to standardize and streamline our processes--and I thought, if we are going to do this, why not do it to an international standard and make it one that has to be audited?" Rivers said. "With the fee-based environment we are in today, and certainly with commissions going down, we are charging fees. And we need to be more and more accountable to our client as far as delivering what we say we are going to deliver."

To begin the process, the agency hired Andre Jenkins, director of quality for A. Jenkins & Associates in Sunnyvale, Calif., and long known as an advocate of measurable quality standards in the industry. For Corporate Travel Services, Jenkins developed a quality manual and a procedures manual, handled all documentation, and carried out the initial training. He then passed the baton to Judith Albright, Corporate Travel's vice president of business development.

Albright is now the agency's quality representative, responsible for making sure the quality system is followed, documentation is completed, quality principals are understood and employees are trained.

As part of the ISO 9002 certification, any time an agency changes its policy or procedures, it must follow a rigorous corrective action process. But once the agency is certfiied, Rivers said, "maintaining it won't be nearly as difficult. At least the bible is there."

Still, she noted, "we are already finding that getting people to keep following through on the corrective action is requiring some reward system and incentivizing."

While Corporate Travel sought ISO certification of its own accord, Carlson Wagonlit is pursuing the standard at the request of clients. So far, two of its Fortune 500 companies have requested that the agency apply for ISO certification for the reservation centers that service their business.

Leading the initiative is Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Hanna Murphy, manager of corporate travel and fleet agreements for Seimens Corp., who is working with Carlson "to concentrate on making the Dallas center the flagship for Seimens."

Additionally, a Carlson call center in St. Louis went through a standards process defined by Jenkins in 1995 that was considered by many in the industry to be much like ISO, though less stringent.

"What we did a couple of years ago when we first started handling Seimens business is what I call ISO 9000 lite," said John Pifer, Carlson's vice president and general manager for the southern United States.

Murphy said Jenkins was planning to implement that same standard for the Dallas site until Corporate Travel Services completed the ISO 9002 process.

"We then asked Carlson Wagonlit to implement ISO in Dallas and they said, 'Fine, let's go for it.' They were absolutely willing," said Murphy.

Even with the reduced standards it was using, implementing a strict quality process in St. Louis caused Carlson service levels "to go sky high," she said.

Carlson Wagonlit to date has completed its initial assessments and expects to have the center ISO-certified by next fall. Pifer said the assessment has shown that many of the agency's quality control processes are already in order.

Another Carlson client, whom Pifer declined to identify at this point, has asked the agency to have its reservation center ISO-certified before it moves its account there, but Pifer said the Dallas center will be its first priority. "Maybe in six months we'll start number two," he said.

While the ISO standard is new to Carlson Wagonlit in the United States, some of its overseas operations already have been certified or are in the process of obtaining the certification. "We have offices that are working toward certification in France; we have an office in the United Kingdom that is certified already, I think for at least a year; and an office in Germany is working toward certification as well," Pifer said.

In the United States, Pifer personally is heading up ISO projects in his geographic region--but "as this goes through, all general managers will take a look at what we are doing," he said.

Corporate Travel Services, meanwhile, has found the process to offer both benefits and challenges.

"The biggest challenge is accountability," Rivers said. "It was somewhat hard on the organization--everyone's drawers had to be opened and we've had some turnover as a result."

She acknowledged that the agency lost some employees who had been able to hide the fact they weren't doing as complete a job as the ISO dictates. "Now, with this process in place," she said, "it is easy to monitor who is not doing the job they are supposed to be doing.