How to Prevent Corporate Travelers from Being Inconvenienced — and Going Rogue

In this ever-expanding global economy, corporate travel continues to support the growth of organizations big and small. By helping facilitate the in-person connections that build and strengthen the most important business relationships, corporate travel helps lay the foundation for future company growth.

In addition, these out-of-office adventures can also greatly benefit individual travelers, motivating many to feel more engaged and happier in the workplace. There’s no denying the plethora of personal perks — 90% of road warriors see business travel as a benefit, delivering opportunities to explore new places, indulge in unique culinary treats, rack up loyalty points, and most importantly, advance their professional careers.

While this all might sound like sunshine and rainbows, it’s important to remember there are potentially ominous dark clouds that can threaten the success of a seamless business trip, frustrating road warriors and throwing the whole experience off-course. By becoming aware of these inconveniences, however, you can proactively work to nip them in the bud before they derail your travelers.

Below, we outline three business travel inconveniences that can derail road warriors, along with tips on how to solve for them to keep your travelers excited about the end-to-end experience you deliver:

• Clunky Booking Tools: The first contender on this business travel pain point parade is the painfully slow process of booking a business trip on legacy tools, which can take upwards of an hour on clunky out-dated corporate travel solutions. Used to booking personal travel through user-friendly, inventory-rich sites such as Kayak, travelers get frustrated when forced to rely on these sub-par tools for their work trips. While 91% of travelers would rather close a deal in person — even if it means getting on a plane to do so — they want to easily book their preferred flights, hotels, and ground transportation, not be forced to search through endless irrelevant search results.
• Flights Gone Awry: Another inconvenience that makes business travelers groan is having to deal with delayed or cancelled flights. While obviously common, these disruptions aggravate seasoned and unseasoned travelers alike. What’s especially irksome is that sometimes, due to too-strict policies, the delayed or cancelled flight wasn’t what the road warrior wanted to book in the first place. The best way to solve for this is two-fold: firstly, implement a solution that can provide proactive live human support 24/7/365 to rebook the road warrior before he or she is even aware a disruptive delay or cancellation has occurred. And secondly, allow for flexibility in the booking experience so your travelers can choose the options that best suit their preferences (redeye vs. first thing in the a.m., for instance).
• Stranded Between Flights: Another inconvenience that can derail travelers is missing a connecting flight — and then having to deal with the fallout alone. Nothing sucks the excitement out of a business trip like being stranded in an airport for seemingly endless stretches of time…except maybe being kept on hold with an uninformed corporate travel agent while trying to rebook the next available flight. Your travelers could get stranded anywhere in the world, so it’s important to improve the experience by providing a 24/7/365 global support network that can get them back on track as quickly and painlessly as possible.

In large part because of these corporate travel booking and management inconveniences, 50% of road warriors end up going rogue and booking outside of their organization's preferred solution. This can bring about a boatload of problems, as companies lose visibility into where their travelers are going, how much they’re spending, and what they’re booking. But this less-than-ideal situation can be avoided by implementing a more user-friendly travel solution.

Download our ebook Feeling Stressed and Going Rogue: How to Keep Work Trips From Derailing Business Travelers to discover how to leave infuriating inconveniences in the dust for good, encourage more traveler happiness and trust, and drive adoption of your corporate travel management program.