And how to make life easy for them
Staying away from family, Eating out, sacrificing your exercise regime.
Missing out on important family events or just not being able to take care of your general health are often a few of the problems faced by frequent business travellers.
Then there is also the stress of an important pitch that you are about to deliver or your 1st impression on an important client.
Now imagine amidst all this having to deal with your travel related issues as well like a missed flight, rescheduled meeting, lost baggage.
All this could significantly impact a person's potential on his business trip.
And it does not end here as the travel expense invoicing becomes another overhead for the employee.
Thus more and more companies are investing in technology and innovation to make business travel management easy to use and user friendly.
Travel policies and compliances are being looked at from an employee 1st point of view.
All information, bookings etc can be made available to the employee from one platform itself. The advancement in travel technology now saves a lot of time and effort of the employer and the employee as well. It gives the employee easy access to all information related to his travel easily.
Does this mean that technology is the backbone to service our clients better?
The latest in tech can save a traveller from all his woes?
Probably yes till he is faced with an issue that he needs to address immediately.
This is where the human connection comes in.
You could say that we now have AI in customer support and chatbots also provide answers to common issues faced by customers.
But many times travel problems are too complex or unique for automated solutions. Sometimes your customer might not be in the state of mind to engage on his own. Imagine you are stuck in traffic on your way to the airport and there is no way you think you will catch your flight. You are disturbed and want to make alternative arrangements as soon as possible. Do you then want to browse online and start from scratch or want someone else to handle this situation and give you a plan B.
It could also be that your customer has a complaint. Would he rather just state his complaint to a bot or have a human at the other end who is empathetic to what he wants to say.
How you handle a customer's complaint can be the tipping point for your future business relationship. Prompt and personal customer service can turn an angry and anxious customer into a loyal and relaxed one.
For simple tasks like checking trip details and expense reports business travellers were comfortable with an automated service
The key to winning over your clients is understanding when automation would be more comfortable to use and when they would require to speak to another fellow human.