Profiles In Travel Management: Service Boosts Deloitte - 2007-01-22

Company: Deloitte
Headquarters: New York
2005 U.S. Booked Air Volume: $191 million
Projected 2007 Estimate: $260 million

New York-based accounting firm Deloitte during the past three years has reported significant improvements in traveler satisfaction rates as well as bottom-line savings—and it all started with the simple setting up of a customer-service e-mail account.

Since the mailbox's inception in 2003, traveler satisfaction with Deloitte's agency, BCD Travel, and online booking tool, Travelport, consistently has risen, said Katina Tryforos, Deloitte travel manager of special services and customer support for field operations. Internal data from this past October shows an 81 percent "very good to excellent rating" for BCD and 75 percent "very good to excellent" for Travelport.

Perhaps more important to Deloitte's bottom line, however, was Tryforos' move to use the feedback data during quarterly supplier meetings. The e-mail account, originally created to field questions from travelers and administrative assistants, by late 2004 led to the creation of an internal feedback database, allowing Tryforos to filter customer-service issues based on name, issue type and timeframe.

"We've really applied a lot of procurement practicality to customer service as far as quantifying and categorizing," said Tryforos, who reports to procurement. "We're really trending and tracking things and then categorizing them so that we don't generalize the issues with vendors. We have specifics. We're data-driven now." As an added bonus, BCD Travel, Deloitte's consolidated U.S. agency, has its own system for tracking Deloitte's traveler concerns and gave the company access to that information as well.

As an example, Tryforos would show airlines segmented into categories, such as upgrades and frequent flyer questions. "We're able to tell them, 'You're good in this area, but there are opportunities in these areas for improvement,' " she said.

Tryforos said the data isn't applied to supplier negotiations, but noted that it does help ensure both the vendor and Deloitte fulfill contracts, allowing Deloitte to partner with suppliers to correct issues. "There are reasons people don't fly on airlines," she said. "It could be an issue with service or removing people off flights too much. If there are repetitive service issues, it could be taking away from our ability to deliver our share, so it's just another tool to assist in getting where we want to be."

Sometimes, the customer-service data can result in savings. Tryforos recounted an instance where a carrier was suspending tickets even though travelers were canceling the reservation before departure time. Deloitte asked BCD Travel to to ensure the tickets were reinstated. "Our sales contacts on the airline side escalated our reports, researched it internally and determined that the airline was having a technical problem," she said. "There is a lot of cost savings to be had by following through and finding out what's not working, and the source of all that information is your travelers or the person arranging travel."

Though Tryforos said it's somewhat difficult to measure the exact savings from issues resolved through the customer-service database, she noted, "Sometimes it's that one issue that identifies a problem that no one is aware of. Although we capture the direct compensation when problems are resolved, we know there are many other cost savings and efficiencies gained by acting on feedback."