Understanding the needs of a Corporate client's Travel Business
It's never a one size fits all kind of business when you are dealing with corporate clients. Every company runs their corporate businesses differently.
It's always important to understand the needs of your client. Here are some of what I do to understand my prospects business.
1. Take the time to find out how they process their ravel and what their needs are.
2. Look at how I can improve this for them.
3. Give ideas and asistance to implement new procedures, eventually creating a seamless process.
4. Check if they do have an existing travel policy in place or assist to create one for them.
5. Ask if they require reporting and if they do, then what sort of reporting, like is it based on travel spend or destination report etc. Some companies prefer to manage that in-house.
6. Ask about the airlines, hotel and suppliers they currently use and their annual spend. Help them to identify egotiation opportunities to help them save the company money.
7. If it's a small account, to let them know that i have access to corporate products, which means for them there are no individual hurdles or commitments to meet.
8. Look at their air travel. There may be opportunities for airline deals, example the Virgin Austraian Accelerate Programme or the Qantas Business Rewards Programme. If they have a large volume of travel on a specific airline, private fares may also be an option.
9. The same applies to hotels. Check how they currently book and secure hotels rates and if they can be renegotiated or if i can offer them a better deal or even perhaps offer value added amenities to take the standard a notch higher.
10. Listen to their needs and challenges and offer the best travel solutions.
11. Basically offering them choice.
12. Best fare delivery. Compare the various fares within the market place ( i.e corporate fares, published fares including specials) and provide them with 3 options.
13. Work out a service level agrement ( SLA) if at all this is important to them. So for example, all enquiries to be responded to within 3 hours?
The main idea if to ensure that the company's business travel is seamless and follows a process that they require it to be.
It's not about me providing them my style and have them fit in. My priority is to listen to them and work around their needs.