Guide to Choosing the Right Corporate Travel Agency

Travel has been an essential part of doing business for decades — and many companies lean heavily on a corporate travel agency to help them save money and mitigate risk while getting team members where they need to go with minimal disruption.

But choosing a corporate travel agency isn’t simple. It should be a process that includes a great deal of research, many internal conversations, as well as an RFP process.

What should a company look for in a corporate travel agency? Every business is unique and will need its own unique business travel solution. But make sure you consider the following 5 factors when searching for the right corporate travel agency for your business.

1. Know Your Business Objectives

Business travel is an investment, one that you expect to deliver a return. As you search for the right travel agency, focus on specific business objectives that your company wants to achieve related to travel. To make sure you’re landing on the right objectives, talk to as many key stakeholders as possible, including travel managers and team members who frequently travel.

For example, you may want a corporate travel agency that helps:

• Reduce overall travel spend

• Minimize trip disruptions and wasted travel time

• Implement better duty of care and risk management policies

• Offers solutions for better travel policy compliance

No matter what’s driving your search for a corporate travel agency, focus on your objectives as you create an RFP document and as you speak with potential service providers.

• If you want to reduce travel spend, look for a corporate travel agency that offers a proven track record of creating savings with cost management and cost avoidance strategies.
• If you want to minimize disruptions and wasted time, look for a corporate travel agency that provides real-time support to both travel managers and travelers themselves — including flexible booking options, easy-to-use reporting tools, 24-7 monitoring and more.
• If you want to implement better duty of care and risk management policies, look for a corporate travel agency that can advise in those areas.

Agencies may focus on specific roles, such as travel planner or travel tracker or travel advisor. Or, a company may promote itself as a comprehensive solution. Just make sure that the travel agency you ultimately choose is the one that can best help you achieve your objectives.

2. Look at Travel Agency Footprint

Consider how often your team members travel and where they go on trips. You can find corporate travel agencies that specialize in foreign trips, domestic trips or even regional travel.

If your team members are traveling only in a single state or region, you’ll want a travel agency that lives and breathes that location and that can provide specialized services. Conversely, if your team members are traveling all over the world, you need a corporate travel agency that can provide around-the-clock service and support around the globe.

Keep in mind that some smaller corporate travel agencies are a part of larger networks. For example, a small agency that focused on domestic travel may be part of a larger network that can step in and provide support when your team members travel internationally. This is perfectly acceptable, as long as the level of customer service and support you receive is consistent across the network.

3. Consider Specialization

Travelers in different industries may have different and specialized needs. For that reason, some corporate travel agencies provide focused service for organizations in specific sectors.

For example, you can look at corporate travel agencies and find options that specialize in travel by non-profits, law firms, oil and gas firms, finance companies, sales teams, etc. If you operate in a sector where specialized travel support is available, choosing a specialized agency might be a good idea. You may also be able to find larger corporate travel agencies that have departments that specialize in your sector.

More than anything, look for a corporate travel agency that specializes in partnership. You want an agency that can serve as an extension of your in-house team and resources — one that is flexible enough to fit your existing culture while serving your unique needs.

More than anything, look for a corporate travel agency that specializes in partnership. You want an agency that can serve as an extension of your in-house team and resources — one that is flexible enough to fit your existing culture while serving your unique needs.

4. Set Service Excellence Expectations

Naturally, a corporate travel agency will do its best to secure your business. Just make sure that communication and the focus on service excellence doesn’t stop after the contract is signed.

Before you make things official with a corporate travel agency, be sure that expectations are perfectly clear. You should have in place a plan for regular communication and reviews, and you should also have in place specific metrics tied to your business objectives. These expectations should be outlined in the service agreement.

Regular communication and specific metrics give you a chance to track and monitor the performance of your corporate travel agency. Over time, you can partner to make adjustments aimed at performance improvement. And, if no improvement occurs, you can look for a new corporate travel agency.

5. Demand Leading-Edge Technology

The right corporate travel agency is the one that saves you both time and money. And it’s hard to do that without leading-edge technology.

New business travel technologies should make it easier to:

• Book trips that are both affordable and convenient

• Find ways to take advantage of unused tickets

• Analyze your travel spend to minimize waste

• Automate expense reports

• So much more

In the 20^th century, business travel was an analog process. Companies called travel agencies, who then mailed tickets and itineraries. Travelers kept up with receipts and filed paper expense reports. Reimbursement was made with live checks.

Business travel in the 21^st century should be digitized, automated and streamlined. Find the corporate travel agency that helps you step fully into the 21^st century so that you can take advantage of technology’s many benefits.

6. Look for ROI and Value

Saving the most important thing for last: Any company wants to get value and a solid return out of its investment in business travel. That’s why companies need to find the corporate travel agency that can help deliver that value and ROI.

Corporate travel agencies can deliver value in several ways including:

• Negotiating rates with vendors

• Providing technology that helps save time and money

• Offering a fair fee schedule that fits your budget

Make sure you ask each of your travel agency options specific questions about how they create value for their clients. You may want to ask about:

• Duty of care systems

• Levels of support

• Approaches to minimizing hidden travel costs

• Proven strategies for lowering travel spend

• Cost monitoring and reporting procedures

And you’ll likely have other questions that are specific to your company. Don’t be afraid to ask. Choosing a corporate travel agency is a huge decision, and you need to arm yourself with as much information as possible before making that decision.

Get a Common Sense Approach to Business Travel

At JTB Business Travel, we are a comprehensive corporate travel agency that helps companies save money while providing support to its team members. Behind everything we do is a common sense approach to business travel.

Get in touch to learn how we can help your business maximize its investment in travel.