Today’s road warrior is not your average business-traveler Joe. Milking the company’s funds by raiding the minibar, ordering twenty-dollar juices, or booking expensive plane seats ‘just because you can?’ Not the road warrior’s style. In fact, contemporary business travelers are often more frugal and environmentally conscious than their employers. They will go the extra mile for you, both literally and figuratively. But they demand one thing in return: simplicity.
Seamless travel experience, please!
The rise of the world wide web and mobile devices has enabled a seamless leisure travel experience, affecting business travelers’ expectations. Clunky tools are a major turnoff to them. They prefer intuitive, easy-to-use online and self-service channels.
The root of a potential clash: a corporate policy that dictates employees should use some online booking tool, even though it results in an unnecessarily costly and dragging process. As a result of IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC), corporate travel agencies may no longer have the best fares or ancillary offers. This means direct bookings may be more economical – and today’s road warriors will point that out to you. Here’s what might surprise you, though: they don’t do it because they’re self-centered troublemakers. Their pushing back won’t just make their own lives easier, it is also in the company’s best interest. Business travelers want to save rather than waste your money. How’s that for a change?
The key to compliance (in one word)
In the background, there’s the ever-lurking issue of compliance. How do you make sure employees will adhere to your rules? Well, I’ve got one word for you (followed by a few more): empowerment. If business travelers are strongly self-reliant and trustworthy, who needs intricate compliance mechanisms? That’s right: no one. The key to getting there is a clearly defined corporate culture, which helps to encourage prudence.
Steve Clagg, travel technology manager at Roadmap’s client Microsoft, explains that within the software giant’s walls “it has been important to foster a culture where everyone is in it for themselves and for the company.” So, you may want to implement internal campaigns such as ‘Act like an entrepreneur’ or ‘spend money as if it’s your own.’
How to wave complexity (and discussions) goodbye
Briefly put, you need to decrease complexity. More often than not, off-the-shelf solutions, which tend to be revenue driven, don’t do the trick. Roadmap, on the other hand, helps you streamline the traveler journey by curating the information you need – nothing more, nothing less. How? By creating simple checklists and preventing third-party suppliers from pushing their own agendas (no extra-seat or flight-class-upgrade offers here!). This helps you, the travel manager, eliminate complexity. Not only during, but also after a business trip – imagine the lack of discussions about an already purchased extra seat which is not included in the budget!
Next in this brand-new, five-part blog series: share insights. Stay tuned!
Are you intrigued by the idea of putting simplicity at the heart of business travel? Download our whitepaper and discover the 5 benefits.
Markus Emmer
Co-founder of Roadmap
