The University of Colorado is always looking to maximize its software purchases, said chief procurement officer Sandy Hicks. When the university's annual internal travel and expense survey revealed that a subset of travelers were struggling with the Concur Travel and Expense tool, Hicks wanted to understand why and who these travelers were. "We could tell that some people were really happy with Concur, while some were struggling with it," she said.
Digging deeper into the data, Hicks discovered that frequent travelers had no problem with the system. But infrequent travelers, which count more than 7,000 of the university's 16,000 travelers, however, found the Concur tool challenging.
"[Infrequent travelers] are not taking the majority of business trips, but they represented a lot of people struggling with the tool," Hicks said. "So we talked about how we could help them."
Working with the University of Notre Dame, the University of Colorado launched its Infrequent Traveler messaging program in February 2015. When an employee books travel through Concur or the university's travel management company, Christopherson Business Travel, the booking tool searches past trips to determine whether the person has traveled in the last 12 months.
If not, the tool automatically sends an email acknowledging the traveler and lists program tips the traveler should know like applying for a corporate card or renting a car. The information is offered in text format and on the University of Colorado travel site, and both resources are getting traffic. "We know that in 41 percent of the emails, people are actually going into the information," Hicks said.
Five days before a trip, Concur sends a second email addressing additional items, such as help numbers and access to download Concur Mobile or TripIt. On the last day of a traveler's trip, Concur sends a third email with information on filling out an expense report.
"Our travelers tend to be really busy people, Even if we were to offer this face-to-face, they probably wouldn't come, so this is a much better way for them to get trained," Hicks said.
Since February 2015, the University of Colorado has sent 13,000 emails to infrequent travelers. While Hicks hasn't evaluated the full results, she hears it program has really helped. "You don't know how to travel until you travel" Hicks said. "I consider this ‘just-in-time training.'"