Overview

The client is a large trade union in the UK with an annual travel spend of £700,000.

Most of its members work in the UK government and other public bodies and require travel to the union’s conferences and events around the country.

Objectives

The main objective was to improve the efficiency of the client’s travel programme with increased online adoption and offline support for conference and events travel.

The key objectives were to:

• Reduce costs through an online solution
• Improve traveller security
• Reduce booking errors
• Implement a strict travel policy

Challenges

As the client’s travellers were employees of various companies, many of the bookers already had profiles with CTM that were associated with different accounts.

This meant that for the client’s large-scale conferences, travel for a high number of delegates had to be booked on an individual basis, which allowed countless room for error.

Solutions

Online booking tool for smaller group travel – The client’s regular travel was feasible for an online booking solution, so CTM implemented the Lightning OBT. The tool’s intuitive design meant that the transition was seamless, however training was also provided to iron out any creases.

New travel policy for user profiles – Given that many bookers had existing user profiles from their current jobs, strict guidelines had to be put in place to ensure that bookings were made using the correct channel. It was decided that only personal emails were to be used for the union-specific travel, so an approval process was set up for bookers to only allow bookings made from personal email addresses.

Offline booking form for large conferences and events – For large events with up to 900 attendees (such as the client’s Annual Conference in Brighton), an offline booking form was provided to delegates who emailed or posted back on completion. This offline method enabled CTM to book individual travel without constant back and forth and minimised room for error, with an offline team available to assist 24/7.

Results

Online adoption reached 95%

Since partnering with CTM, the client’s online adoption has increased from almost no online adoption at all (0%) to 95%, with an average of 80% over the past year.

Cost per mile reduced to £0.41, nearly 25% lower than the corporate average

£383,215 saved in total from travel policy configurations

£343,689 was due to changing buyer behaviour to book rail in advance and choosing off-peak tickets