There are several benefits to using a TMC, especially one like Christopherson that provides both exceptional customer service and cutting-edge technology. Here are seven ways your organization will thrive with a partnership with us.
Christopherson provides clients with an expert support team available 24/7, 365 days a year. For travel managers, this means streamlined program management and up-to-date solutions in an ever-evolving industry. For business travelers, it ensures a seamless travel experience, allowing them to focus on their work while receiving personalized attention.
Benefits for the travel manager: As a travel manager, you are responsible for creating and maintaining an evolving, complex program. Working with a dedicated support team to help manage your program has many benefits. This includes leaning on a team of experts.
Whether you’re creating a new travel program or looking to improve your current one, Christopherson can make recommendations to help you meet your goals. Our travel management experts average more than 25 years of experience in business travel. We have helped more than 1,000 organizations overcome the challenges of business travel and achieve a variety of goals. Not only do we recommend adjustments our clients can make to their programs, but we also specifically point out how we can help them get there.
Another benefit of having a dedicated support team is that travel managers can rely on experts to provide best practices, industry updates, and seasoned expertise. When a business travel program is outdated, corporate travelers become frustrated. In a dynamic industry that changes rapidly, it’s important for travel managers to stay informed about current and emerging trends.
Benefits for the business traveler: Depending on your booking and service needs, company travelers might have access to a dedicated travel advisor team, a certified online support team, or a combination of the two. By partnering with a TMC, your business travelers can feel confident knowing they always have trusted experts to turn to 24/7, 365 days a year.
Having a dedicated support team to assist with travel challenges—like delayed flights or overbooked hotels—significantly improves the overall traveler experience. A travel management company also considers traveler preferences and loyalty information when helping them book travel within policy. At Christopherson, your travelers can access a small, dedicated team of travel advisors, so they always know who to contact for support.
Some TMCs offer support via a call center, which can be frustrating. Call center agents won’t be familiar with your travel preferences or policies, and travelers often don’t receive the level of customer service they deserve. At Christopherson, you always have a dedicated team that offers you personalized service and relationships you can count on.
Another benefit of having an expert support team is providing VIP services for your executive travelers. At Christopherson, priority response time, requesting special accommodations, and frequent traveler enrollment assistance are just a few of the VIP services we provide.
Christopherson helps businesses cut travel expenses through strategic cost-saving measures. By leveraging our substantial booking volume, we secure lower rates and reduce travel leakage. Our technology also aids in managing unused tickets, making budgeting more predictable and ensuring quality accommodations while saving money.
Benefits for the travel manager: Corporate travel management companies help businesses save money by securing the lowest possible rates on travel. Consider the following hypothetical scenario: You reach out to a large hotel chain to negotiate a corporate rate for your business. You attempt to use your predicted number of reservations of 150 nights as leverage for a lower rate. The hotel can offer you a discounted rate of $160 a night.
Now imagine that your corporate travel management company reaches out to the same hotel chain. Instead of 150 nights, your TMC is leveraging the 15,000 nights they anticipate booking among 75 different accounts. It probably comes as no surprise that the hotel can offer your TMC an even lower rate of $140 a night. This example illustrates how working with a TMC increases your buying power and, ultimately, saves you money. Also, by consolidating your hotel spend, a TMC can continue to negotiate lower rates on your behalf year after year.
When it comes to your travel policy, corporate travel management companies make compliance effortless through integrated technology. You can find more details about this below, but one of the reasons travel policies exist is to help manage costs. If your travelers are booking outside of your policy, chances are they are paying more than you would like because they’re not accessing your negotiated rates.
Next, let’s consider unused airline ticket funds. It’s inevitable that business travelers will have to cancel trips due to scheduling changes, which can potentially leave money on the table. Nearly 10% of all business travel airline tickets go unused. As a travel manager, how do you ensure these unused ticket funds aren’t impacting your bottom line? A TMC can monitor these funds, helping ensure they are used before they expire.
Christopherson’s travel management platform helps manage unused airline tickets. It captures those funds in a centralized database and then prompts travelers to reuse them during their next booking. Our travel technology’s transparency encourages active participation in the reuse of the ticket. This helps prevent loss of funds, cut costs, and eliminate waste. Managers can also access real-time status updates and reports on those unused tickets and the subsequent available funds.
Lastly, when partnering with a corporate travel management company that charges fair and transparent fees, travel managers can more accurately budget for their travel program costs. Christopherson’s all-inclusive pricing structure includes all account management, technology, integrated reporting systems, and tools. Some TMCs operate on an “a la carte” model which can quickly become costly and unpredictable making it more difficult to budget.
Benefits for the business traveler: By negotiating lower rates, travelers are often able to choose from higher-end hotels than they would be offered without the purchasing power of a TMC. This improves their overall travel experience and makes for happy travelers.
Without Christopherson’s travel management platform, it is easy for travelers to forget about the unused airline tickets they have at their disposal. By providing travelers with money-saving travel tech tools, travelers can easily cash in on those tickets whether booking online or with an advisor.
Christopherson provides robust risk management support, benefiting both travel managers and business travelers. Our travel tech platform equips travel managers with real-time tracking tools and alerts for potential threats, offering peace of mind for everyone in your organization.
Benefits for the travel manager: Businesses have a legal and moral responsibility to keep their travelers safe from threats while they are on the road. Threats can range from something as serious as an outbreak of an infectious disease to losing a passport. Regardless of the circumstance, it’s important that travel managers are aware of threats as soon as possible and have a process in place to keep their travelers safe.
Assistance with risk management is a huge benefit of working with a corporate travel management company. In a GBTA study, only half of the travel managers surveyed felt confident that they could locate their travelers within two hours of an emergency. When working with a TMC, travel managers often have access to risk management tools that make them more efficient and effective in times of crisis.
Christopherson’s travel management platform provides travel managers real-time information regarding which of their team members are currently traveling and where those travelers are. Our travel tech allows you to quickly see if your travelers are in or will be in an affected area. Alerts inform travel managers of events that could impact employee travel or compromise their safety, and platform tools verify traveler safety.
Benefits for the business traveler: When business travelers are on the road, it can be hard staying up to date with breaking news. By partnering with a TMC like Christopherson, business travelers can have peace of mind knowing that their safety is a priority. Our platform ensures that travelers are well-informed of potential risks, and with real-time updates and alerts about potential danger, travelers can trust that their employer is actively working to manage challenges that may arise.
Christopherson Business Travel offers cutting-edge technology and tools designed to enhance the travel experience for both travel managers and business travelers. Our platform automates tasks, integrates travel policies, and customizes reporting, while also incorporating loyalty programs and traveler preferences.
Benefits for the travel manager: Without updated technology, travel managers are left to manage their travel programs manually using spreadsheets and emails, which can be time intensive. Integrating best-in-class technology into your travel program is a sure way to save you time and money.
Corporate travel management partners streamline your processes for requesting travel, approving travel plans, and expense reporting. Christopherson’s proprietary platform has your negotiated vendor contracts, travel policy, and travel approval system built-in, ensuring compliant travel booking. All reservations filter into your custom reports and align with your managed travel program. Our platform can be integrated with valuable benchmarking tools, preferred booking tools, and your HR feed. These technologies make your program efficient and integrated.
When working with a corporate travel management partner like Christopherson, you will also have access to financial tools that streamline the payment process. Our tools eliminate faxing credit card information to hotels by creating single-use credit cards for each hotel booking. The unique card is then sent to the hotel for booking payment. This process helps eliminate traveler reimbursements, improve billing accuracy, and consolidate hotel spend.
Benefits for the business traveler: With access to a robust set of tools and technology, travelers are more organized, efficient, and satisfied with their travel program. Booking compliant travel, reimbursing expenses, and locating travel plans becomes a breeze. Traveler profiles ensure that loyalty programs and preferences are always considered at the time of booking.
At Christopherson, you’ll have access to our Andavo traveler mobile app. Andavo powers new and streamlined features to provide travel managers with powerful tools and data so they can effortlessly control and measure cost savings, all while supporting traveler safety and increasing traveler satisfaction.
With Andavo, travelers can manage their air, car, and hotel itineraries all in one place. They’ll track flights and get notified about delays, terminal and gate changes, estimated arrival times, and baggage claim info—in real time.
Christopherson provides advanced reporting tools that deliver real-time insights and data visualization. This helps travel track expenses and make informed decisions. For business travelers, the insights gained from these reports streamline and simplify their travel experience.
Benefits for the travel manager: One of the most important aspects of a successful travel program is the ability to access, aggregate, and visualize the data to inform decisions. Christopherson offers reporting tools that allow you to view your entire travel program in one location.
Our integrated business intelligence and data visualization platform delivers real-time insights that help you take action and manage a smarter travel program. By aligning metrics that matter to you in one centralized location, you can start to visualize the story your data creates.
With complete visibility into your travel program, you can quickly identify the departments that spend the most on travel or which hotels are booked the most. This allows you to draw meaningful conclusions that help you improve processes and save money.
With Christopherson’s proprietary technology, travel managers can also assess the ROI of our partnership. Customizable reports show exactly how and where we’re saving our clients money.
Benefits for the business traveler: While travelers don’t necessarily need access to the full range of reporting options that travel managers need, data from these reports is essential to your travelers’ ability to book within policy, reconcile credit cards, monitor unused tickets, and identify when their profile information needs to be updated. Good data also makes life easier for travelers in the long run.
In today's globalized business world, corporate travel is essential for many companies, whether it's for attending conferences, meeting clients, or exploring new markets. However, without a proper travel policy, businesses face many challenges and unnecessary expenses. Corporate travel programs are policies designed to manage employee travel by regulating bookings, expenses, and safety. These programs streamline travel processes, control costs, ensure compliance, and improve employee satisfaction.
Benefits for the travel manager: When creating or updating a policy, it’s helpful to have experts consult with you on current best practices in your industry. A travel policy should be a living concept and evolve with the industry. Corporate travel management companies help ensure your travel policy is up to date and integrated throughout your booking tools, benchmarking tools, and HR feed.
Key benefits of a company travel policy include cost control, improved compliance, enhanced employee satisfaction, and fulfilling duty of care by addressing safety and emergency protocols. To create a business travel policy, companies should assess their needs, set objectives, establish expense guidelines, define approval processes, and communicate the policy effectively.
Partnering with a travel management company like Christopherson Business Travel provides expertise, cost savings through supplier relationships, 24/7 support, and technology solutions for booking and reporting. This allows businesses to focus on core operations while optimizing their travel programs.
Benefits for the business traveler: Keeping your travel policy current is a great way to keep your travelers happy. And with policy integration, travelers can be confident their bookings are always compliant, and they know what to expect.
In today’s global business environment, corporate travel is crucial for attending conferences, meeting clients, and exploring new markets. However, without a well-defined travel policy, businesses can face numerous challenges and unnecessary costs. A corporate travel policy regulates bookings, expenses, and safety, streamlining travel processes, controlling costs, ensuring compliance, and enhancing employee satisfaction.
Benefits for the travel manager: Streamlined and integrated travel programs save travel managers time by keeping them organized and efficient. Whether you’re managing the ins and outs of a large global travel program or have a small team of road warriors, working with a TMC makes your day-to-day efforts easier by helping you implement the processes and plans that will help you reach your goals and support your travelers.
Benefits for the business traveler: Centralized, integrated travel programs save travelers time by simplifying the booking process, making it easy to get travel approved, providing the resources and service needed to make their actual trip a breeze. Gone are the days of frantic inbox searches for flight plans, not knowing whether your booking falls within policy or where your frequent flyer number is. Travelers can spend time actually doing what they were hired to do rather than wasting time weighing the costs of different flight options or figuring out logistics of an upcoming trip. A travel management company has the expertise they can rely on.
Partnering with an experienced TMC like Christopherson Business Travel offers numerous advantages. From cost-saving strategies and cutting-edge travel technology to robust risk management and dedicated support teams, a travel management company becomes an invaluable ally in optimizing your corporate travel program.
Whether you’re a travel manager aiming to streamline processes or a business traveler seeking efficient, stress-free trips, Christopherson’s expertise and technology-driven solutions can help your company excel in today’s global business environment.
Want to learn more? Request a demo to see how Christopherson can help optimize your travel program.
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