Amex Expands Client Consulting And Travel Services
<B> Amex Expands Client Consulting And Travel Services</B>
By Sarah Welt
<I>New York</I> - American Express this month announced that it has expanded its consulting services practice, added a new high-level service tier for travelers and entered the beginning stages of unbundling transactions.
The consulting services organization has increased its staff by over 50 percent over the past several months, to a total of 50 consultants. And the group will continue growing, hopefully by hiring more seasoned staff from large consulting firms. For each of the purchasing teams, an airline background is required.
The focus of the consulting organization has been shifting as well. "In the last year and a half we have focused on customizing services for customers," said Eric Altschul, the group's vice president. It now is working on purchasing hotel, air and car, and helping clients with travel policies. In many cases, corporations want the organization to write their policy for them. Also growing rapidly is the area of hotel program management, Altschul said, to which an entire subgroup has been dedicated.
Consulting services also is focusing on global consolidations, providing benchmarking data and helping companies that have gone through a merger or acquisition with policy and purchasing implementation. Also on the drawing board for many companies is a goal of reducing travel altogether, Altschul said.
On the corporate services side, American Express in about two months will roll out a new high-touch service level tier that will include VIP reservations and booking upgrades.
"Our belief is the biggest risk or opportunity to our brand is the quality of the travel service transaction," said Amex senior vice president of corporate services Jud Linville, noting that clients have been asking for executive level service.
Amex's intent is to make the entire travel reservation process "seamless and smooth, whether it's through the gating process or at the point of making the passenger name record," Linville said. "We see that as an important differentiator going forward."
The company intends to price for it. Linville said that average transactions cost $53 regardless of complexity, but this service will entail an additonal cost.
Because service is currently tied to one cost, though, the company is beginning to unbundle its transaction fees. There is a pilot going on with customers on the West Coast and he said a handful of clients have begun to unbundle. "We're sitting down with a bunch of accounts where it might make sense," Linville said.
In the future, the company would like to create statements on a regular basis for card members and also create central bill statements for clients, but "this is not going to happen overnight," Linville said. The company would like to have statements showing usage in order to "go back and show additional cost savings opportunities every month.