OP ED: Keep Focus On Service

Everyone in our industry keeps forgetting travel management is not just a technology business. It's a service business. Wouldn't it be great to read a feature story some day about the organizational structure of your travel management firm being simple enough

that it can immediately get to the root of your company's needs, as well as the travelers' logistics? Wouldn't it be great to read about how the agents servicing your business are empowered to make decisions that immediately impact your travel program instead of having to go through layers of bureaucracy to get anything accomplished on your behalf? Wouldn't it be great, for once, to read about travel management firms focusing on keeping their associates happy, as opposed to restructuring and reengineering until there is so much confusion that you don't even know who your point person is any more?<B>

</B>Travel management firms are reaching out to corporations with messages of, "we have agentless technology, expense management technology, lowest-fare technology to solve all of your problems. We partner with the most famous and lucrative companies in the world to bring you the ultimate solution."

Our company almost went further with that message, too, but we realized this isn't the heart of the issue.

Most of our new clients tell us that they changed travel management firms because of the poor service they were receiving. That's because too many businesses are reengineering the wrong way these days-a trend that is plaguing our industry. Even business gurus including Michael Hammer and James Champy, authors of "Reengineering The Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution," have said that their formula for streamlining corporate hierarchy, as many companies still are doing today, overlooked the human element. Many companies are finding a backlash against layoffs, including overwork and constant upheaval from their efforts to embrace new management models. It is said that failed efforts have been a result of decreasing the workforce without also revamping work patterns. <B>

</B>In our industry, suppliers need to rethink their client service from beginning to end, as opposed to just downsizing, in order to really provide value.

Technology-what everyone has been touting these days-is only one element of service. Any service company out there dedicating all of its resources to its technology development should look at the bigger picture. In our industry, corporations require cohesive travel management service around the world. Travel management firms need to live up to commitments made and to provide this seamless service at the lowest possible price. A low price tag, however, does not have to mean a low level of service.

Putting the right solutions into place allows you to focus on providing exceptional service at any time, anywhere in the world. If agencies are spending all their time reorganizing already high-cost infrastructures, how can they have time to come up with best-practice models of travel management service and actually implement them?

When travel management firms are faced with how to continue to provide exceptional service in a highly challenging business environment, <B> </B>they should develop high-level service concepts, at low cost<B>. </B>One solution could be opening low-cost reservation centers in rural areas. Our Network Operations Center manages calls from multiple accounts in the United States without delay through our IntelliCenters. Reservation centers in rural areas prevent geography from being an obstacle to exceptional service, at the lowest cost.

Moreover, travel management firms are having a hard time finding good agents. Many good travel service associates have left the industry scared off by their companies talking incessantly about technology. Technology talk, not the reality, has created a problem as much as it has solved one.<B>

</B>While technology is important, it never will replace good travel service associates. <B> </B>

Training must be an essential part of your company's agenda. It must be attitudinal as well as technical. Agencies must commit to investing in their training resources, both financial and in terms of time.

Technology alone can't solve the challenges of the travel business. Travel management firms need to look at, and develop, low-cost models for providing exceptional service and for delivering on commitments made. Coupling that with hiring associates with great hearts and minds is the solution.

<I>Hal F. Rosenbluth is president and CEO of Rosenbluth International.