Corporate travel booking is one of the processes that impact business travel experiences and business travel costs at the same time. Business travelers feel stressed and demotivated when they lack the option to book their choice of travel.
Likewise, they escalate the average business trip costs by booking flights, accommodations, car rentals, and other business travel products at market rates. Your company or startup can streamline the crucial step in corporate travel management by implementing a corporate booking tool.
The specialized tech solution will enable your employees to book their preferred travel products by accessing a diverse travel inventory. Also, it will create opportunities for them to save money on business travel booking.
Your company can automate booking process by implementing many corporate travel booking solutions. But you must compare the software using several parameters to choose the one that meets your long-term and short-term business needs.
11 Things You Must Consider to Choose the Right Corporate Booking Tool
1. User-Friendly Interface
Your employees can complete business travel booking in minutes only when they can use the self-booking tool without putting in extra time and effort. Hence, you should use user-friendliness as a key parameter while shortlisting corporate booking software. Also, you need to ensure that the tool enables employees to book travel products directly without visiting the websites of vendors and suppliers.
2. Mobile User Experience
Employees often find it convenient to book business trips after office hours. They access the business travel booking solution using smartphones or tablets instead of computers. You can boost their travel booking experience by opting for a tool optimized for mobile devices. You should prioritize tech solutions that are available as mobile apps.
3. Travel Policy Configuration
You cannot control costs only by defining and communicating travel and expense policies. You need to ensure that employees do not violate preset policies while booking expensive business travel products.
It becomes easier for you to ensure travel policy compliance when the booking tool shows only in-policy travel products to each employee. Hence, you need to choose a tool that allows you to configure granular travel policies and send notifications each time an employee violates preset policies.
4. Travel Inventory
Work travelers these days want options to choose from a wide range of business travel products. For instance, some employees book direct flights to reduce stress and carbon footprint simultaneously. Likewise, younger employees prefer homestays to hotels to experience the local culture. Hence, you need a corporate booking that enables your employees to access an extensive, diverse, and customized travel inventory.
5. Off-Market Rates
You can control the average business trip cost by creating opportunities for money on business travel booking. Hence, you should choose a software that helps your employees save money by discovering the best deals and offers.
At the same time, you should prioritize tools that help your organization get corporate fares in airlines and corporate hotel rates. Hence, you should assess the extent of the provider’s partnership and network with multiple travel suppliers.
6. Integration
You can automate one of the important steps in corporate travel booking by implementing a corporate booking tool. You can do this by automating multiple steps such as integrating the software with expense management software, accounting software, and HRM system. Hence, you should prioritize software that can be integrated seamlessly with your existing business tools.
7. Travel Experience Personalization
Personalization is currently one of the hottest business travel trends. Like leisure travelers, work travelers love to receive personalized recommendations at the time of business travel booking. New-age corporate booking softwares personalize travel booking experiences using intelligence technologies.
They use artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to choose and recommend the right business travel products to an employee according to her travel choices and booking history. You can boost employees’ experience by opting for a corporate booking solution that makes personalized recommendations.
8. Real-Time Alerts
Employees can remain stress-free before a business trip only by knowing the real-time flight status. They need real-time information to manage minor business travel risks like flight delays and cancellations. You can keep employees stress-free by implementing a corporate booking tool that conveys real-time flight status in the form of mobile alerts.
9. Travel Booking Management
Business travel often takes place under unpredictable circumstances. Work travelers frequently cancel reservations and reschedule bookings at the last minute. They can manage a travel booking effortlessly when the travel booking solutions support booking management. While shortlisting booking tools, you should prioritize software that enables your employees to cancel and reschedule bookings directly without visiting third-party websites.
10. Tech Support
There are always chances that employees will face issues and problems while using the software. You can make it easier for them to use the software by choosing a provider that offers 24/7 support. At the same time, you need to ensure that users can interact with a support executive directly by making a phone call or sending an instant message.
11. Pricing
Corporate booking tools differ from each other in the category of corporate hotel rates. Your organization can use cloud-based solutions based on a pay-as-you-use pricing model. But some providers charge you based on the number of transactions.
Hence, you should consider the cost of implementation and usage while comparing corporate booking solutions. It is always important to implement a tool that can be customized and implemented without paying a hefty fee.
Conclusion
The right corporate booking tool will help your employees save time and cost when they make business travel arrangements. But you increase the ROI of business travel by automating consistently only by automating the complex process.
Leading travel and expense management solutions come with built-in corporate booking tools. In addition to saving business travel booking time and cost, they help you control costs by streamlining travel expense management and leveraging real-time travel expense data.
Hence, you should consider widely-used travel management solutions while automating corporate booking. It is also advisable to consider the software provided by travel management companies to avoid investment in the duty of care resources.
You can use your preferred corporate booking tool to also help in picking a greener travel plan. For more information on how you can make environmentally conscious choices for your corporate travel, please see the resource below.
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