When domestic travel increased, R&M/Book brought the savings home.

When business growth resulted in a spike in ‘commuter’ travel from Scotland to London for a law firm, we were quick off the mark in search of new ways to increase savings.

Working closely with the clients’ Head of Travel, we conducted analysis on the savings that could be achieved by changing traveller behaviour. The analysis revealed that by changing the arrival point in London and the type of carrier for the 3000 ‘commuter’ flights leaving Scotland, there were serious savings to be made.

Sounds simple, but we knew that to make a move from City to Stanstead and from legacy to low cost, the savings and booking experience would have to stack up.

A MATURE APPROACH

The law firm boasts one of the most mature online travel programmes within their sector with over 90% adoption for domestic and European travel. With an expert on site team and an experienced hands on travel manager, their programme was already performing well.

At Reed & Mackay we are always looking for ways to drive down cost while maintaining a positive traveller experience, even for high performing programmes. When analysis revealed that we could bring down the average ticket value on the Scotland to London route by 37.5%, we jumped into action exploring how R&M/Book could support the transition.

A TOTAL SUCCESS

To be absolutely sure that we were reducing total trip cost and that we weren’t negatively impacting productivity as a result, we compared every aspect of the total trip. This included the duration and cost of the last leg of the journey, from airport to office.

CONTROL = FLEXIBILITY

R&M/Book marries control, such as reference field validation, matter feed uploads and an agile policy engine, that makes the complex simple with an unbeatable user experience.

• To support the change in traveller behaviour we included visual indicators within R&M/ Book which made it clear to see that legacy flights to and from London City airport were out of policy.
• Knowing that instant pay for low cost carriers had hindered adoption in the past, we implemented a virtual card. This ensured that the travellers didn’t end up temporarily out of pocket.

The change was so successful, low cost carrier adoption jumped from 17% to 31%.

KEEPING PACE WITH CHANGE

With an ever changing distribution landscape even the most mature of online travel programmes can see an increase in savings with the right expertise and technology behind them. The combination of on-site specialists and R&M/Book is proving a success across our client base.