Debra Goldmann, Verizon (5Q Interview)

Speaking last week at a Business Travel Media Group conference here, Verizon Communications senior specialist for travel services Debra Goldmann said the company is "still really in the mode of tightening our belts," resulting in such cost-saving initiatives as moving travel support functions to India and disallowing personal vehicle use for longer trips. With domestic U.S. bookings accounting for about 90 percent of all travel, Verizon claims an online booking adoption rate of about 93 percent. In fielding questions during a panel discussion, Goldmann discussed pre-trip approvals, travel alternatives, outsourcing and a "travel mailbox" to collect traveler feedback.

What service quality measures do you have in place today?

One thing that makes us somewhat unique is that we have three agencies, so we combine all of the data and take a look at it across the board, but we also look at contract adherence. What percentage of our travel is actually under contract? That is very important. As far as measurement, that's about all that we do. As far as quality and response from our travelers, our travel agencies do issue some questionnaires. The other tool that we have is what we call the travel mailbox and that has been in existence for about three years and has really taken off. We get about 150 inquiries per month. They could be questions, problems or compliments, and it's really opened the door to communication with the travelers. Whenever we have a new policy in place, we do send out an email and we do put it on our intranet site, but the travel mailbox is something that has been really helpful. As far as monitoring policies, typically when we are going to institute something, while we are introducing it, in the background we design a way to run reports so we can truly test. What we are looking to do now is ask our travelers to rent a car as opposed to using their own personal car for any trip more than 125 miles per day. We think that there can be significant savings. So, we will measure that. We will always measure a general group, and if we find that there are specific offenders, then we will zero in, but typically we just look at the whole population first. We also can drill down through our booking tool and really identify who the person is and who their supervisor is. We did that about six years ago with the online booking tool, that ability to report and really let folks know: "We saw that you went to Dallas from Newark last week and you didn't take the lowest logical airfare. Please do not do that going forward." We had run a report that was probably 20 pages, and the next time we ran a report the following month, it was a page and a half. We found that once we let travelers know we have the ability to know what they are doing and we have the ability to track them, they really become much more obedient.

Can you share more information on your new car rental policy?

We are going to start communication December 15. We are implementing Jan. 1. Essentially, we have taken all the data on everyone who rented a car in 2009 and worked with one of our rental car companies to develop the break-even point. We have taken into account what we pay, what the average fees are, where people live, what it would take to have the [rental] car brought to the person or the person brought to the car. We think it will save us a minimum of $3 million a year [compared to personal car costs and allowances based on IRS reimbursement rates]. It seems to be a good model. We have done some focus groups in which people complained, "I want to be able to get in my car and go," and we also found some people who thought they were being indulgent by renting a car rather than using their personal car.

How did your program objectives change during the recent economic downturn and how, if at all, did that impact the individual travelers in terms of service?

The pre-trip approval process was really something that took some getting used to. We use somewhat of a manual process, the same approval process that you would go through if you were buying office supplies. I didn't think it would work, but frankly it works. Initially, it was across the board. That was about a year and a half ago, and it went very smoothly. Now our sales people are exempt from the process so we've really started leaning on a natural demand-management flow of travel: "You need to go out and sell, you need to go out and do business for Verizon to support your clients, etc., go." If it's something that you can do internally, when you log onto our booking tool the first question you are asked is: "Is this travel really necessary?" There is a selection of four items [asking] "why are you going? Is it an internal client meeting? Is it an overall staff meeting? Can this be done internally? If the answer is yes, click here and you can schedule a telepresence meeting." We also track our telepresence meetings and videoconferences. We report to the VPs and we share across the board what the percentages look like so they all see where they all stand, which has become really a nice, healthy competition. The other thing is that American Express launched for us a fair marketshare reporter, which shows you your overall volume and where you are spending your money, and it's encouraged us to look at the lower-cost carriers like JetBlue. Is there a niche market where they really make sense for us? In a lot of cases, it's true that they do.

Are there any things that you are doing within travel services to better serve the needs of the company and be sure you retain your [travel management] employees, as well as ensuring a proper work-life balance for travelers?

We don't have any in-house [agents]. We use all agency-supported agents. We are outsourcing a lot of our support functions now, like the travel mailbox, which is completely handled by the India [business process outsourced company employees] at this point. So that is a very different situation and in that situation there is a lot more turnover. You have to find other ways culturally, and one of the things is to really make them feel a part of the team. You have to accept that even though they are on the other side of the world, they are going to offer you things that you haven't thought of. They have a different perspective, and we are all in this for the same reason, which is to service the traveler. So it's a different approach as far as being an outsourced situation, but it's about making people all feel like valued members of the team, which they are. With regard to the work-life balance, it is difficult. We do work within policy and it's hard to imagine that lower-cost isn't going to always be on the top of the list, but we do always try to negotiate some of the soft-dollar aspects from our suppliers. Can we make them elite status? Can we get them some access to some of the club rooms so that they can log on while they are there? Or take a shower when they get there? It's difficult with everyone tightening their belts. Talking about the ancillary fees, we are trying to encourage people, "don't take more than one bag," let alone trying to balance your work and your home.

Have you looked at using social media to see if there is an application for your travel program?

We do have something internally, sort of an internal tweet. They do have an opportunity to talk travel but in essence they don't. Once in a while they will come up with something that has never been brought up before and they will put that on there, so then you have to stop everything, address it and take it from there. We think that it's because people want to keep travel private; it is a personal issue especially when they have a problem or something like that. I don't see the travel mailbox going anywhere. It doesn't cost us anything and it gives us an opportunity to deal directly with the person who is raising the issue. We have a support person in India. We have a business process outsourcing company who supports Verizon's sourcing support functions.