Consolidating on-site travel teams
Evolving with our client’s needs to provide the best service
A global e-commerce retailer was operating their travel program through two on-site CWT travel teams in their Bangalore and Hyderabad offices.
They believed that the face-to-face, consultant-driven offering provided their employees with better support. At the same time, they recognised the challenge that the in-person service created: difficulty in tracking Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and productivity of the consultants, as well as lengthier call waiting times as consultants were often busy servicing walk-in travellers.
The Solution
Together with our client, we worked to carve out a plan that would better support their business moving forward. As part of the strategy, we would consolidate both on-site teams to one team located inside CWT offices. The new service configuration would primarily utilize telephone services, supported with the Online Booking Tool (OBT) for simple transactions.
The benefit of the consolidation was two-fold: greater efficiencies with better tracking of traveller cases and 24/7 support, as well as increased cost savings.
Being located inside CWT offices meant that our travel agents had quicker access to our systems, thus improving the overall SLA, and the consolidation of teams resulted in a more efficient way of monitoring the booking process. Cost savings were achieved in the form of lower transaction fees and a reduction in operating costs. The savings continued, even when this was switched to a 24/7 always-on support system.
Overall, the new strategy and centralisation of our travel service solution provided a number of benefits:
- A dedicated team that services travellers every day of the week, thus ensuring that their needs can be fulfilled regardless of where they are
- Implementation of an OBT meant that travellers could make simple point-to-point bookings at their convenience, decreasing their reliance on travel agents
- Providing travellers with access to Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), to help reduce call waiting times, which decreased abandoned calls, and improved the overall SLA
- Rigorous training to ensure that our appointed agents are up-to-date with and are able to enforce the client’s travel policy
- Implementing a new process that utilises our non-dedicated agents in the event of peak travel periods
The Results
Within the first year of implementing the new plan, we helped our client with hard cost savings of US$44,000 just from the lowered transaction fees. This savings increased to US$61,000 in the second year (2018).
Adoption of the OBT is higher than average, at 75% in 2017. This figure increased by almost 10% to 84% in 2018. Increased use of OBTs also translated to savings and better traveller experience.
We also exceeded our key performance metrics for telephone service, with almost all calls answered within 20 seconds. This further drives home the success of the new strategy and consolidation plan of the service provided.
