travellers are generally disengaged with cor- porate travel programmes, and companies need to be thinking about “fishing where the fish are”. “The travellers are on mobile and there’s a corporate disconnect,” he says. “The biggest change happening in corporates is the move to the trust and ownership culture.” He adds that while much of the existing
mobile technology does what it claims to do, employee engagement is not high.
POST-APP ERA? So, as policies begin to put the traveller at the centre, then some of the pressure from developments in the consumer world should disappear. Hefferan says we’re not there yet in terms
of her ideal and in many ways, because of the pace of change, we’ll never be there. However, she adds that companies are much
else which works for them. “The market might partly be reflecting that there’s some work to do in terms of the user-experience to get people to want to use these tools,” he says. Given the existing complexities of getting
the best of the mobile channel for corporate travellers, it’s perhaps premature to think about where the next trend might be. However, when you look at how fast new
technology is adopted today – more than 116 million downloads of the Uber app in the past year – can travel managers afford not to have one eye on trends? Recent research from Gartner says that
mobile devices are moving to a ‘post-app’ era with digital assistants recognising cus- tomers through voices and faces by 2018, and by 2020, smart agents on hand to serve consumers the data they need. It’s not that hard to imagine this progression with recent
“The biggest change in corporates is the move to the trust and ownership culture”
more aware of the customer experience and the employee experience. Kelly says MTT often gets feedback indi-
cating that people want an effective tool, which means that if the user experience isn’t good, they’ll simply turn to something
CASE STUDY: Q&A
CRAIG CHERRY, procurement director at global media group Dentsu Aegis Network
What is currently on offer in terms of mobile for corporate travellers? Mobile is used in various formats – a mix of B2B and B2C apps – and now we have consolidated our travel procurement into American Express, the objective is to develop a clearly defined mobile strategy with them.
What is lacking? There is a lack of cohesion around what our mobile strategy looks like at the moment, but the first phase of the Amex project was to ensure our travel booking community is having its expectations met via the online platform and offline services. It was always our intention to
70 BBT November/December 2016
then initiate ‘project mobile’ [the next phase of integration with Amex Global Business Travel products and services]. This will look at all aspects of the process, from search, to booking, to paying, to customer service and duty-of-care. It is an end-to-end solution that we will also be able to use to analyse our travel via some very intuitive and sophisticated data visualisation developed specifically for mobile.
What do you see as the
challenges to further development of the mobile channel? We have some challenges around data compliance and use of personal data. There are also IT security issues, but we have a pragmatic outlook that, as mobile usage in corporate travelling becomes normalised, the apprehension will dissipate.
How we move travellers
from tried-and-trusted B2C sites and applications into a standardised corporate environment is another issue, and collaboration is crucial. We could have a best-in-class suite of apps for both bookers and travellers, but if we haven’t collaborated with the actual users to understand why there may be a hesitance to change, then we will be on the back foot from the off.
Are apps helping compliance? Ground transportation is a great example where the use of mobile applications can massively improve compliance to travel policy. If we have a large amount of legitimate travel that is spread across a plethora of non-nominated vendors, then capturing this within the couple who are
helps us close the loop. This is a model we would like to recreate in other areas of our travel programme.
What is the ‘holy grail’ of mobile and corporate travel? We are an agile, pioneering business that has put the digital economy at the heart of everything we do and, in turn, for our clients. We need to embrace partners and products that correlate perfectly with and help us deliver that vision.
T&E [travel and expenses] will always be an emotive area and one that needs to be managed effectively, efficiently, commercially and within a compliant framework. Having a mobile, corporate travel procurement strategy that allows us to flourish within these parameters is crucial.
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
developments such as the Google Trips mobile planning app or Facebook Messenger enabling companies to keep all interactions with customers in one thread. Amazon Echo is another example whereby users can use voice search to
find flights through companies including metasearch specialist Skyscanner. And, Google is also launching mes-
saging app Allo and its Assistant service enabling a two-way conversation, which many call its answer to Siri and Cortana. Theoretically, the services will learn user preferences as they go along and use context to improve results. For example, if a user entered the word ‘business’ in the context of flights, Google Assistant would know he or she was referring to business class flights. Admittedly, there is much hype around chatbots and similar services, with compa- nies potentially adding to the complexity and fragmentation by rushing to develop their own. FCM, for example, unveiled Sam (Smart Assistant for Mobile) in the US in the summer. The app aims to offer the best of both worlds with a chatbot to assist with elements such as gate changes and driving instructions, or restaurant recommenda- tions, combined with the ability to call or text a travel expert. Inevitably some of these trends and devel- opments will stick and it is conceivable that by the time an all-in-one mobile travel app comes to market, it will already be overtaken by something better, faster and more user- friendly. We just don’t know what yet...
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