THE KNOWLEDGE 1 Corporate case study
The Traveller Management Survival Guide, BCD Travel HOW TO… HOODWINK YOUR TRAVELLERS!
BCD Travel has published a White Paper entitled The Traveller Management Survival Guide. It’s designed to help those buyers with mature travel programmes who have exhausted all savings opportunities and who are now looking for smarter ways to manipulate bookers and travellers to make the right buying decisions
as behavioural economics, this innovative programme helps buyers better understand the psychology behind how people make buying decisions. “The more you understand about how your
I
travellers think and make decisions, the better you can guide decisions to support the goals of your travel programme and company,” explains Tony McGetrick, sales and marketing director at BCD Travel. “There’s some really clever stuff on the
screen that allows buyers to manipulate travellers and bookers while still allowing them to do what they want to do,” he adds. Read on to discover a selection of the key
behavioural economic concepts from the company's White Paper and learn how they can be implemented.
STEP 1
Eliminate comparison shopping Travellers will use the first price they see as their benchmark for how much they should pay in the future. By setting anchors as programme-specific benchmarks from your own spend data – and presenting them before shopping results appear on the screen – you can guide travellers to purchase options within policy and eliminate comparison shopping. It helps manage their expectations and signals the amount you think is reasonable to pay. For additional reinforcement, pre- populate the anchor prices into expense reports after manager authorization.
STEP 2
Exploit decisions by default Travellers will often keep the status quo,
t will not be long before the prerequisites for any good TMC account manager will include being fully conversant in behavioural psychology. Also known
resisting change and doing what they’ve always done; making these default options very powerful forces. Give travellers access to their own data and let them create or pre-select their own personalised defaults for travel. Keep options to those most often used by frequent travellers and based on traveller’s preferences.
STEP 3
Focus on loss rather than gain Aversion to loss is stronger than attraction to gain, making travellers more motivated when they might avoid something undesirable, such as flight delay, rather than making savings. This bias affects choice of routes, modes of travel and so on, so it’s best to focus on what the traveller stands to lose by acting outside policy rather than touting financial savings. For example, dangle the perks, rewards and
status that travellers will lose by not booking preferred suppliers, and remind them what they stand to lose if they don’t reserve all components of their trip far enough in advance – eg, first choice of room, flight or seat.
STEP 4
Presentation is everything It is critical to present policy compliance as something rewarding, otherwise employees may view policy as a loss of personal choice. With preferred hotels, for example, post high satisfaction ratings of preferred properties by other travellers. Frame the impact of poor decisions as a
loss of resources for the company and the employee’s cost centre.
Have your CEO publicly recognise travellers
who regularly help the company increase compliance. Include traveller’s programme compliance in annual reviews.
“Aversion to loss is stronger than attraction to gain, which can make your travellers more motivated when they might avoid something undesirable, such as flight delay, rather than interested in making savings”
STEP 5
The power of ‘free’ People prefer something that’s free rather than an item that’s deeply discounted. Hotel compliance is typically the weak link in a travel programme so use the power of ‘free’ to enhance the perceived value of your preferred suppliers you want travellers to use by positioning some of the hotel services as free. For example, free high-speed internet access, free extended check-in and check-out times, free breakfast.
STEP 6 Use decoy pricing
If you want your
travellers to choose the less expensive four-star hotel option then add a
decoy price position – which is dissimilar – and this will draw your travellers to the in-policy
option as the best relative option. For
example, list two four-star hotels, one more expensive than the other, plus a decoy third, three-star property (that you don’t intend to use) that is the lowest price and the majority of travellers will gravitate towards the mid- priced four-star option.
6 THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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