<B>E-Booking Storms Gateway</B>
<I>Third In A Five-Part Series On online Adoption</I>
By Jay Campbell
<I>San Diego - </I>After a year of preparation during which its travel management program matured and established itself in the travelers' collective psyche, Gateway Inc. achieved a remarkable 98 percent usage of E-Travel's online booking tool and eliminated dedicated agents for all domestic travel within a month of its May rollout.
While Gateway awaits a more robust product that will handle the 20 percent of its total travel that is international, the company is just shy of 100 percent usage for domestic travel only because travelers are not allowed to use the system for reservations within 24 hours of departure. Meanwhile, Gateway reduced its dedicated agency positions to zero, from 12, while overall staffing dropped from 15 to four customer service and technical support specialists.
Asked what was the most effective tool in building usage of the software, known internally as Book It In A Box, director of corporate travel services Doreen Baca said it was the trust that she and her team engendered in travelers during a year-long expansion of travel management.
Among other changes, Gateway introduced a common travel policy and a new corporate card that achieved 90 percent adoption within three months. Baca took that momentum and visibility to the reservations process.
"We spent a year in building up the travel program to gain the trust of the travelers that this was a well-managed program," Baca said. "We communicated with the general population on who we are and what we are doing, so when we released Book It In A Box, they were familiar with us and trusted us. We had already shown them that change was okay."
Behind the scenes, Baca was busy working the intra-departmental relationships required for a successful online booking selection and implementation. Project teams, including managers from the human resources, legal, communications and information technology departments, hit the road to benchmark online booking implementations at other companies.
"It's a lot of work," Baca said. "You can't think as a travel manager that you're just going to dabble in it--you need to live, eat and breathe it every single day or it won't happen."
That means addressing the concerns of every traveler, even one on one.
Though the use of Book It In A Box is "required" in Gateway's travel management policy, the company does not mandate anything.
"When someone asks, 'Do I have to use it?' I don't say, 'Yes.' I say, 'Let's talk about why you feel you don't want to.' Our four special services personnel work every day in answering these questions. The answer always is, 'What can we do to help you?' and by the end of the conversation, we have them. If you tell them they 'have to,' then they'll find things wrong with it. People don't want to change if they don't have to."
Getting them to do so paid off for Gateway. The company, which in 2000 spent $10 million on air travel, has shaved its spending on travel agency transactions by about half, largely due to the reduction in headcount but also resulting from a tiered-pricing structure that charges less to traveler corporate cards for touchless reservations.
Gateway now is processing nearly 60 percent of its domestic reservations without any agency intervention. About 38 percent of transactions require some intervention, and thus a higher fee, while about 2 percent involve full service.
"I went after people count because the travel agencies are passing through the salaries for dedicated agents," Baca said. "For that, I had over $1 million on my payroll and we were at a 30 percent growth rate each year, so I envisioned in three years the transaction fee being close to $200. With online, we were able to eliminate all dedicated support and our international travel now is handled through a shared multi-desk at the agency, which also cuts down on the transaction price."
Consultant Norm Rose, president of TravelTechnology.com, praised Baca's initiative, but noted that she benefited from a company culture that likely is more adaptable to change than most.
"Gateway is a computer company, and I'm sure they've done a lot of online employee self-service applications," Rose said. "Still, it comes down to understanding employee behavior and how self-service fits. She sounds like a wonderful travel manager who has all the bases covered."
Going forward, Gateway is seeking to increase the percentage of transactions that require no agency intervention. Baca also anticipates some savings by automating the travel authorization process, potentially avoiding unnecessary trips.
"If the fare was $200, we were sometimes sending four people to do a one-person job, but if it was $4,000, we were not sending anyone," Baca said.
Baca also is working with E-Travel to further develop its capabilities for international booking, group travel and global distribution system bypass.
Asked what she might have done differently, Baca said only that she would have implemented online booking six months sooner.
"We never expected we'd be at 98 percent coming out of the box," Baca said. "We spent a solid year preparing for it, changing our internal processes and getting over some of the barriers that people are talking about. Otherwise, too much change comes too fast.