To meet the needs of client managers, buyers and travelers themselves, travel management companies must perform a wide variety of tasks. They should find favorable fares and rates, effectively integrate technology, watch for trip disruptions, maintain reliable communication with travelers and truly partner with clients to adapt programs. But they also must get the basics right.
[Please click here to view the digital edition of BTN's Traveler Service Quality Report, featuring all data and downloadable as a pdf.]
According to BTN's latest service quality research, the degrees of importance placed on various service attributes outweighed the degrees of satisfaction measured among buyer and traveler respondents. That may suggest TMCs must do more to meet expectations.
In comparing their sentiments, travel buyers on average and in general placed greater importance than travelers on most TMC service areas covered by the research. There are, however, no generalizations to be made on which group scored TMCs better on their performance.
Generally, criteria related to a TMC's staff were of greater importance than other areas, for both travel buyers and travelers themselves. Those findings reinforce the familiar notion that corporate travel management, while increasingly about automation and self-service, remains a people-oriented business.
Travelers rated two components of this area in their top four among all 13 importance measures (which were rated on an ascending scale of one to six). Buyers rated three TMC staff areas in their top four among all 20 of the importance measures they were asked to assess, including "responsive staff," which had the highest aggregate importance rating for any TMC evaluation criteria. Buyers also generally and comparatively expressed satisfaction with their primary TMC's performance in this area. Though the level of importance buyers placed on "professional/polite staff" specifically was not as high as other TMC staff assessments, it was there that TMCs earned their overall highest average satisfaction score.
Based on surveyed buyer sentiments, TMCs fell down a bit in the key category of finding the lowest possible fares and rates, with a nearly one-point gap between the level of importance and satisfaction with performance. The buyer satisfaction rating for TMCs' performance in guaranteeing fare accuracy also was notably lower than the importance rating.
Technology
In terms of technology, travelers on average assigned a 4.96 importance score for their TMCs' provision of "effective online booking support," and TMCs nearly lived up to expectations, with travelers' aggregate satisfaction score in that area only marginally lower.
Among buyers, TMCs also performed comparatively well on technology issues. Two of the few outperformances in the survey (where satisfaction scores beat importance scores) were calculated in this area: for providing or reselling a self-booking product and for providing remote conferencing tools (though the latter was deemed by buyers as the least important among TMC survey attributes).
In terms of supporting mobile applications, buyers ranked their satisfaction with TMC performance within two-tenths of a point of the importance score. That area, of course, is of growing interest for travelers.
"Mobile has forced all of us to think about what really is essential," said Egencia CTO Sravana Kumar Karnati, speaking this month at The Beat Live conference in New Orleans. "For us, mobile-first is the paradigm we use. Business travelers are expecting the same kind of experience that they are used to elsewhere—whether leisure travel, or any other application in any other domain."
Also speaking at The Beat Live, BCD Travel director of strategic marketing Miriam Moscovici suggested that TMCs must establish better links between reservations centers and client travelers on the road. "There's an automated message that reminds a traveler to check in, but there are cases where the agent needs to speak with the human and get an approval or get them to do something," she said. "We need to leverage that same technology."
KDS CEO Dean Forbes agreed, contending that the pursuit of end-to-end solutions must come from TMCs. "They are the only ones who can interweave technology and people in a just-in-time fashion," he said.
Staying In Touch And Keeping Watch
Travel technology generally and the mobile experience specifically can address communication needs. In some of those areas, TMC services are particularly important and TMC performance is fairly good, according to survey respondents.
For example, the two attributes garnering the highest importance scores from travelers were providing timely information on itinerary and changes and providing accurate, timely ticketing/documents. In both cases, the average performance scores from travelers were less than 0.2 points lower.
Providing such routine documents and notifications is one thing, but being positioned to effectively assist during emergencies is another. TMC performance in providing timely travel alerts during emergencies earned one of the highest buyer satisfaction scores across the entire TMC category.
In actually providing 24-hour emergency services, however, TMCs don't do nearly as well, according to buyers, with a satisfaction score 0.9 points below the importance score, the second-largest such deficit in the TMC category. Travelers, too, weren't overly thrilled with TMC performance in this area, assigning an average score that was among the lowest in the TMC section of the survey.
It's an area that many don't think about until someone actually is in a bind. "When they are stuck on the other side of the world, travelers want that person on the other end of the phone to know who they are, and really care whether or not they get home," according to one travel buyer speaking during The BTN Group's Innovate conference in September.
Ironically, the area in which TMCs most noticeably outperformed expectations was for an element not related to business travel: arranging employees' leisure travel. Perhaps that's because both buyers and travelers on average placed that attribute at the bottom of the list in terms of importance (with the average buyer level of importance particularly low, at 2.78).
The Bottom Line
When looking at whether TMCs provide high-quality service to travelers, buyers on average assigned an importance score, interestingly, well above the aggregate score from travelers. Buyers also were, on average, more satisfied than travelers with that service. When assessing the importance of TMCs providing "good overall value for the price," the average buyer ranking was 5.55, versus an average performance score in that area of 4.72.
TMCs make a habit of trumpeting their client retention rates, but when such rates routinely are 95 percent or above for all TMCs who self-report such figures, it's hard to know what they mean. But BTN's survey provides some corroboration: 90 percent of traveler respondents said they would recommend their primary agency to another business traveler. That's a higher percentage than for any other supplier segment covered by this report.
"A long time ago many said travel management companies were going to go away," said Atlas Travel & Technology Group COO Lea Cahill, also speaking at The Beat Live. "Yet here we are, and we continue to redefine ourselves and our niche in the market."
According to general travel buyer sentiments, TMCs can maintain and extend their value by becoming strategic partners that can provide meaningful consultation as travel management practices evolve.
Other Recent Research
The Global Business Travel Association in partnership with Carlson Wagonlit Travel also recently issued results of a travel manager survey on satisfaction with TMCs. Of the roughly 200 North American travel managers polled in May and June of this year, 43 percent indicated they were satisfied with their primary TMC and another 30 percent indicated they were very satisfied. One in 10 were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.
"The key driver that contributes the most to satisfaction with services is composed of call center services and traveler satisfaction measurement," according to the GBTA/CWT survey.
Asked about specific types of services, respondents rated TMCs highest for their "ability to work with preferred providers," with 80 percent of North American respondents indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied. That was followed by "traveler services" (73 percent) and program management (69 percent). Lowest on that list was "global services," for which 49 percent of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied. "Innovation" also came in toward the bottom (54 percent).
Researchers also found that 71 percent of surveyed travel managers were satisfied or very satisfied with the accountability of account managers, and 69 percent said as much regarding a single point of contact provided for issue resolution.
This report originally appeared in the Oct. 27, 2014, edition of Business Travel News.