Planning a business trip can be a difficult and stressful task. It almost feels like there’s an endless list of things to consider.
Thankfully though, businesses can use a corporate travel management agency to handle the whole process for them. Unless you’ve got a professional within the organisation, there’s no shame in approaching a corporate travel management agency to plan your trip for you.
It’s said that travel & expenses costs are the second highest annual controllable expensive for businesses. This puts it second to benefit and salary costs! These costs however can be cut dramatically through thoughtful planning and the correct decisions.
Experienced corporate travel management agencies are able to reduce these costs significantly. That’s why making sure you chose the right travel management agency is a serious decision. It’s key to pick a firm which not only has large amounts of past experience, but offers competitive prices (to help keep costs down) and is able to provide completely unbiased advice and opinions.
What kind of services to travel management agencies offer?
One of the key aspects of any agency is relationship management. This involves aspects such as agreeing on a set level of service which is then consistently maintained throughout the entire process. It’s also important that the agency keeps you up-to-date with the latest supplier developments from the travel industry, including changes in travel technology, reward schemes, new routes and promotions.
Spend analysis is also a key area – the agency should monitor your travel spend from start to finish so that they can point out any deals which could result in making your money go further. Finally it’s important that they treat you as an individual. Many corporate travel firms out there fail to offer a bespoke service to their clients; by regularly assessing your spending patterns and through constant contact the agency should be able to tailor their service to you.
Do I get emergency support?
It’s true, travel plans can change at any moment. That’s why it’s absolutely vital that you pick an agency which has a support line open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The importance of this really becomes apparent when travelling abroad, due to the time-differences. Be sure to look for emergency support as a standard feature for any agency which you use – need new tickets, or some travel plans altering? Your agency should only be a single call away from sorting this out for you.
Overall, picking the right agency for you can make all the difference for your business trip.
