Corporate travel buyers can be really demanding. Whether it’s renewing their contract or fishing around for potential new providers, they want to see what’s new and how the TMC can make life easier for the travel buyer. Not forgetting lowering the cost of travel and making the travel buying process more transparent.
I had the good fortune to be with one of our TMC partner’s sales and account management teams recently to present our product roadmap and get feedback on how they wanted our services to support them in retaining and winning new corporate travel business.
One of the most interesting conversations was about the desire to find an antidote to the usual “death by PowerPoint” presentations that corporate travel buyers get from TMCs and have seen a thousand times. Its such a turn off for the client to see a parade of TMCs saying very similar things with more or less the same PowerPoint slides with different TMC branding on them. Whilst it does help procurement tick boxes it doesn’t really get across what its like working with a TMC.
One engaging comment was “it would be great if we could time travel into the future so we could show them [the client] what its really like to work with us” Digging into this, the ideal solution was all about showing real data, PNR’s, profile, policy being used to deliver travel services with compliance in a real time, interactive way, without the client having to commit and the TMC do all the heavy lifting of onboarding a new client
Mantic Point has not yet found a way to break the laws of the universe or use any weird quantum mechanics but we do have travel account management and new business sales tools that vividly demonstrate the benefits of working with the TMC and the service it can deliver to their clients. It goes beyond clever PowerPoint and transports the client into what their future TMC relationship could look like.
The account management and new business sales tools are live, interactive online resources that encompass all the client contact tools a travel buyer and traveller would experience including;
Document Delivery
The prospective client can see how their itineraries are configured to personalize their email and online confirmations. Access to the content management system lets the account manager instantly change the service the client will receive.
Document Delivery email editor
Travel Itinerary Apps
Show how you can configure the mobile apps to include client specific information in real time as well as configure the look and feel of their personalized service.
Client content management for mobile
Travel Risk Management
Simulate the service experience for the client travel or risk manager so they can experience the support they’ll get for their travelling employees.
Client traveller tracking
Customized client alerts
Every client has specific needs the TMC has to accommodate in order to win or retain their business. The sales support tools let the account manager set up those alerts and demonstrate the service to the client whilst sitting in front of them.
Client alert configuration
So the good news for the travel sales people I met is that they can now really differentiate their service propositions by showing it working rather than rely on pretty slides (I’m sure they’ll use them too) It all provides support for that vital re-sign or new business win.
Find out more about the benefits of travel apps and mobile for TMCs in particular in our free guide.
