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Chauffeured cars can be a significant amount of spend for some companies. Lower costs and higher traveler comfort and security make a well-structured ground transportation program worthwhile. The market continues to develop rapidly: consolidation among established providers, growth of on-demand providers like Uber and Lyft, and near-demand and on-demand apps from traditional providers. Others, like Blacklane and GroundLink, have platforms that access multiple providers. Considerations when negotiating with chauffeured transportation companies.
I. Gather Data
- Sources.
- All car service companies can and should provide expense data for the prior year. If you allow personal rides that the company does not pay for, it will boost your volume.
- Corporate card data should be crossed-referenced with the preferred supplier's data to show leakage. This data also provides car services charges via merchant category codes, though some card suppliers lump car services with rentals and taxis. Many car service companies have a parent company with a different name.
- Corporate accounting may provide the percentage of T&E spent on each taxis, parking reimbursement and chauffeured services.
- Expense systems can specify a chauffeur category. Some let you mandate that travelers include supplier names. Expense reporting technology also should provide granular detail, such as pickup and dropoff info.
- Booking technology companies like GroundSpan and Deem can provide competitive bidding data either through an RFI or an RFP.
- Combine meetings and events data with transient data for greater negotiating leverage.
- Gather information on overall use and frequent routes.
- A typical trip contains, at minimum, four ground transportation opportunities: to and from the arrival airport and to and from the destination airport.
- Include frequent high-use destinations, your company's offices and international locations and frequented airports.
- Include the reporting you need, cost center or case number data and whether to use direct billing versus credit card billing.
- Average trip length.
- Vehicle volume and transaction, broken down by pickup and dropoff points and use by individuals and groups.
- Point out special events that would require chauffeured volume.
- Service requirements like Wi-Fi, refreshments, vehicle types and C-suite needs.
- Historical reservation method by percentage: phone, supplier direct, online booking tool, dedicated phone number, dedicated email and bridge technology.
- Average cancellation time and charges incurred.