Octel Consolidates Travel With BTI
<I>Milpitas, Calif.</I> - Octel Communications Corp. this month consolidated its $5.2 million air volume account with BTI Americas, lured in part by the agency's creativity in recommending travel solutions using its client's voice messaging products.
Indeed, one of the strengths of the BTI Americas proposal was the travel management firm's suggestion to use Octel's own software to survey travelers on the service levels of vendors immediately upon return from a trip.
Now, when travelers arrive back at the office, they will find a voice mail survey asking whether their trip was worthwhile and whether the airline, hotel and car rental reserved were all satisfactory, said Allan Brenneis, programs manager of corporate purchasing for the world's largest provider of voice messaging services. Those who want can even use Octel's latest product to convert voice mail to cc:Mail messages or vice versa.
In the past, Octel surveyed its 800 frequent travelers twice a year, but didn't find the data effective in improving its program or services. Octel's travel executives expect to be able to use the voice messaging surveys to immediately go to vendors providing unsatisfactory services.
Such attention to customer service is crucial, now that Octel has tightened up its travel policy on use of designated agency, card and other preferred vendors, Brenneis said. Taking a big picture look at its travel management, executives determined that they had to make some changes, reflective of the tremendous growth the company has enjoyed in recent years.
After garnering senior management support for all changes, the company went out to bid for a new agency, drafted a new corporate travel policy and even hired a full-time travel manager, Patrick Hall, former manager of travel and fleet for Palo Alto-based Varian Associates Inc. Hall initiated Varian's first agency consolidation, reducing its $12 million annual air bill by over $1 million.
Growing rapidly domestically and internationally since its founding in 1982, Octel needed to find an agency partner that could strategically help manage future growth.
"In going out to bid, we wanted to see what was out there to capture our $19 million in T&E costs and handle as much of our travel, incentives and meetings as possible," Brenneis said. "We needed a company that could clearly lead us into the year 2000 and exhibit the following qualities:" visionary, proactive, program managing and risk sharing.
Octel was evaluating all key suppliers on these points, Brenneis said. The company clearly stated the importance of these qualities in an RFP that was issued last fall to several mega agencies. The company likewise sought specifics on how each agency would deliver these qualities.
"We were pleased with the overall responses," Brenneis said, "because it seemed like the old mentality of agencies simply booking and delivering tickets was gone."
In the end, three agencies vied for the account, with Octel selecting BTI Americas to begin implementation June 1. One of the strengths of BTI's bid, Brenneis said, was that executives really did their homework on Octel's products and business, and made specific recommendations on how to use the products to enhance service. As it happened, BTI Americas uses Octel's products internally and decided to build a bridge between their two voice messaging systems to enhance communications between the companies.
One unusual aspect of Octel's bid process was that after awarding its business earlier this year, executives met with each of the agency candidates and detailed their strengths and weaknesses.
Another unusual aspect of the process was that the selection team "was very clear about their vision and what they wanted the relationship with an agency to look like," said Al Gilbert, manager of business development for BTI Americas, Burlingame, Calif. In his decade in corporate travel sales, Gilbert said, he's found that selection teams often alter the vision during the process.
To make reservations, Octel's 3,000 employees around the world will call into a BTI reservation center in Dallas. BTI program management employees are located at Octel's headquarters in Milpitas.