Angelina:          Hi, thanks Jessica. I’m Angelina. I’m head of product at TravelBank. My background is in statistics, but most recently I was in a product role at TripAdvisor. Probably the most interesting bit about my background was that I was notoriously bad at staying compliant to travel and expense policies. In my prior role, I traveled a lot to Australia because my develop team was located there, but it was really hard to find my travel policies. So, I oftentimes had to submit expenses multiple times and went through that pain point personally. It only made sense that I was so drawn to TravelBank and I really think we are solving a common and needed problem. I’m really excited to be here today. My co-presenter today is travel expert Corey.

Corey:              Thank you, Angelina. So, there are a few of you on listening right now and you may know me, but for those who don’t, again I’m Corey. I’m the customer success manager here at TravelBank. Just to give you a little bit about me, a little bit of background about me, I’ve spent my entire professional career being client facing. Travel has always been a passion of mine, and I was quite thrilled whenever I was given the opportunity to break into the travel industry. So, the very first travel job I had was with a travel management company called Corporate Traveler. Some of you may have heard of them.

Corey:              There I was a travel manager. I was fulfilling and managing clients’ travel and expense policies. From there, [inaudible 00:02:49] gave me the insight to the pain points for many of the travelers, many of the managers of those travelers who were approving travel. I started thinking that there had to be a better way to do this, and I actually was introduced to TravelBank by a friend of mine. Now at TravelBank, again, I’m the customer success manager and I help implement and construct travel and expense policies throughout the entire company.

Angelina:          Cool. Thanks for your thoughtful intro, Corey. Let’s dig into our presentation. Today, we’re going to explain step by step how to create a flexible policy that’s good for your employees and your business. I think the keywords here is that it’s good for your employees too. A lot of the times, the employees aspects gets left out, and sometimes we can see a little bit of pain points there. At the end of this webinar, I’ll be sharing a checklist that lists five scenarios your travel policy might overlook like Airbnb and Uber, and things like that. These recommendations will help modernize your travel policy so it’s more relevant to your current travelers.

Angelina:          The three steps we’re going to review today are step one, tailor a perfect fit, and step two, compliance is king, and step three, if you write it they won’t come. So the first step, tailor a perfect fit. Here’s what usually happens when companies roll out a travel policy in the past. Someone from finance department realizes that they need to set a travel policy, and starts downloading one of those documents online that has predefined lines with words like, “Employees will be reimbursed for reasonable and necessary expenses during their travel.” I mean, I really never understood what that meant, and it seemed like if I needed it on the trip, it seemed reasonable and expensable. Because this travel policy was trying to be this one single policy for everyone, no one in my company really understood what that was for, and I think that’s where I had a lot of the pain points, personal experience, in my past.

Angelina:          So we want to talk about this as in a framework. The stakeholder needs. Stakeholders would be travelers like me, or finance department like we just talked about. Plus considering your business needs for what you need to achieve as an organization, and then considering that holistically can yield you a successful policy. So, let’s focus on a stakeholder piece first. Our product team considers this complex ecosystem of personas when building a future for travel policy. It’s kind of like Disney Land. I love Disney Land, but Disney Land has to divide all of those children who come to the park as their main customer, but ultimately as a parent, you are the ones who are paying for these experiences. So, the buyer persona has to be considered pretty significantly there as well.

Angelina:          Satisfying these both parties can be a little bit challenging since they’re really two drastically different parties, and they have probably a big difference in definition of what fun means. Right? The stakeholders for your travel policies are also diverse and have different goals, just like the Disney Land parents and the children scenario. There are of course employees that are primarily planning and doing the traveling, and then really focusing on the goals to closing the deals, or interacting with their dev team like I was. There are also their managers, who enforce travel policies and control spending on behalf of their finance department and their organizations. Then there are these finance teams who are tracking and projecting these travel spend to meet financial goals for your company. Finally, then there’s HR who’s main concern is to keep all of your employees happy, and recruit others to join their team. I think this is a really, really diverse set of stakeholders we need to consider when considering a travel policy.

Corey:              Yeah, Angelina. I find that true a lot of cases. Being the customer success manager, I am pretty much consistently speaking to a lot of these stakeholders that you mentioned. The HR, your finance, and even a lot of the C-suite as well. Each one of them has a goal that they would like to achieve within the company, and it’s not easy blending all these policies that each individual wants to do, into one. A lot of times we find that that’s why we let the people know that it’s not one policy that’s going to work for the entire company, but multiple policies to be considered to incorporate into each chain’s unique needs. A lot of times, for example, I have a couple different clients who actually have completely separate travel policies for whenever their candidates are traveling. Making sure that their candidates actually have the best experience while traveling on the behalf of the company is pertinent.

Corey:              Many times it could be the calls for them to win or actually lose a great talent offered by those candidates who are flying in. A lot of times we see that … [inaudible 00:07:49]. Were you there? That is true, Angelina. As the customer success manager at TravelBank, I’m consistently speaking to a lot of these stakeholders that you spoke of. The HR team, the C-suite, and also the finance team. Each of these have their own individual goals that they want to achieve within a policy, and it’s not easy blending all of these stakeholders’ policies into one policy that’s going to work for the entire company. A lot of times I do let them know, it’s not one policy that’s going to work for your entire company, but we can create multiple policies that we can all incorporate into each team’s unique needs. So, each one would have their own policy that they could abide by as each one is different with their needs.

Corey:              For example, I have a lot of clients that I work with that have actually completely separate candidate policy. So, their HR team actually wants to really consider and make sure that their candidates are taken care of from the moment that they book travel, to the moment that they’re traveling. They want them to have that all-star experience when they’re traveling. A lot of the good candidates they actually consider your company from the moment they step on that plane to the moment they return home, and they expense that policy or they expense that trip back to you. We actually found that GBTA did stats on this, and each of the reports say that three in five candidates say that the corporate travel program was a huge role in why they considered that employer. So, definitely consider this whenever you’re making your policy for your candidates for your recruiting team, that this could be the reason [inaudible 00:09:24] win or you lose that great talent.

Angelina:          That’s so true, Corey, because a similar thing actually happened to me. I took the last job opportunity because it came with opportunity to go to Australia, and I’ve never been. So then it was no brainer for me to have that experience as part of my job, and the recruiting team really did a great job of recruiting me with that as a perk. Corey, what about the C-suite? Have they been different to set travel policies for in the past?

Corey:              Yeah. I mean, a lot of times we find that the C-suite and your road warriors are always going to be special cases, but when it comes down to your C-suite, they always tend to be the loudest and the hardest to cater to. The policy that you create, often the times needs to be separate from your everyday travelers, from your regular employees that you have. You’ll find that the C-suite, they want to stick to their first class in domestic and internationally. Don’t we all, though?

Corey:              They love having that preferred carrier of theirs. So if they’re United loyal, they’re Delta loyal, they want to be able to keep to their preferred carriers. They don’t care about saving $50 bucks, $100 bucks just because they could switch to another carrier. As do I, and I’m not a C-suite but one day maybe. I know that my [inaudible 00:10:34] is going to be big, because I get that extra legroom. As a C-suite, you do want that extra legroom. You also want that early boarding. So a lot of times you could board before everyone else, and you could look back and see that everyone else is still standing in line while you’re already boarding.

Angelina:          That’s true. So, it sounds like the most successful travel policy program we see are flexible enough to be considerate of all of these different stakeholders, as daunting as that sounds. To switch gears a little bit and talk about these business needs now, that we understand the stakeholders a bit better. As a business, you have physical responsibilities and other goals that you need to meet. You need your travel policy to align with these goals and deliver your results. So, the first step is to starting with a benchmark or answers to certain questions that better understand where your current travel spending and policy is. The first question is no brainer. How much is your business currently spending on travel? I mean, I think this is a really key benchmark metric that everyone can start with, and then how much would you like to be spending instead? Because you obviously need to set a goal in order for you to make incremental improvements towards that goal. Why is your team traveling? That’s a really big important question because we ultimately want to enable those organizations to do what they need to do to drive their company to successful.

Angelina:          Tying that value proposition with your travel policy program will drive it to probably more successful place than if you were to just focus on the cost saving portion. Finally, as all projects go, you want to make sure the timelines are in mind. You don’t want a project that goes on forever. So, how quickly do you want to see the impact of the changes to your travel program? It’s something that might get delayed, it might change once you kick off this process, but it’s something that you want to start with in terms of setting your goal, making sure that everyone’s aligning to something. Saying saving money as a goal for travel policy is great place to start, but it is too nebulous and probably not actionable enough for everyone to align on. Starting with these answers and concrete numbers will give you an opportunity to design a travel policy that really can see great results.

Corey:              Yeah, and I think everyone’s ears just perked when you said saving money. I know that we all have the goal in mind of saving money, and definitely your travel policy should help create that environment with your travelers, but a lot of times that’s not the case. So, making sure that your travel policy is actually going to help them save money and not end up costing your company money in the longterm. There’s advanced purchase requirements that airlines actually have out there, so that is actually fair rules that they govern and they say, “If you’re going to purchase X amount of days out from the day of travel, we’re going to help you save more money.” So if you’re actually purchasing a ticket, you know three days out it’s going to cost you more money just because of that advanced purchase requirement that those airlines have.

Corey:              Typically, we’re starting to see that 14 to 21 days out from the date of travel is the best time to book a ticket and actually save the most money. We’re also training your travelers on what an ROI is. So an ROI, for some of you who don’t know, is return on investment. So you need to really talk to your travelers and help them determine that trip cost. Is that trip cost going to help increase the company revenue, or is that meeting that they’re trying to pay for that ticket, that $1,000 ticket to go to, is that meeting going to be better handled remotely? Can they do a Google Hangouts? Can they get on Skype and have that meeting, and save that company that travel budget? Or, do they need to be in person to help increase that revenue by bringing that client onboard?

Corey:              Also, a lot of times we find that the approvals is a big impact to the company. So, making sure that your approvals are actually structured in the right way that fits you and your travelers as well. Approvals that are too strict at times we can find that that can increase the traveler’s frustrations, and also increase cost to your company. As we all know, fares change minute by minute with airlines, and availability on hotels actually change as well. So it’s just, is the availability there at the time they requested the approval? Yes, but is it there at the same time that you’re approving that there’s a chance that that’s going to be gone, and your traveler is going to be really frustrated because they wanted to take that nonstop flight. Now they have to take that connecting flight, or they have to fly two hours later because you said it’s, “With a budget.” So, make sure that you’re actually paying attention and making sure that the approvals work not only for you, but for your travelers as well.

Angelina:          These are some great concrete levers you can pull to impact those incremental improvements that we’re talking about but Corey, who do you see typically find writing a company’s travel policy?

Corey:              That’s actually a really good question. A lot of times right now we’re finding that the finance teams are trying to take on these responsibilities and say, “Yes. We’re going to make you save, save, save.” So, we find that a lot of the finance teams wanted to be more strict. They want to put more guidelines in. They want to make sure that the travelers are saving the most money, and the reason they’re doing this is because a lot of times when they’re traveling, they are. They’re being so frugal that they want to save any time that they can when they’re traveling. They’re flying those basic economy fares, they’re flying with those one star carriers, those low cost carriers to make sure that they can save money, but they’re also only traveling once a month or even once a year. So, a lot of times we’re finding that they’re not traveling as often as these road warriors, these C-suites, everyone else who’s out there in the company.

Corey:              A lot of times what a lot of companies don’t realize is that a lot of these road warriors, a lot of those who are traveling the most often, have a lot of these perks with these carriers. Me being Delta loyal, I actually get free baggage. I get extra legroom for free. So, those perks that the company doesn’t have to save but because I’ve been loyal to one carrier, is a great, great example to help your finance team realize. So, checked baggage nowadays is $50 do $100 with really depending where you’re going. A lot of your business travelers, they’re not checking a bag, but for those who are they’re actually going to these meetings. They’re taking additional luggage because they’re there for a week or two weeks, or they’re actually taking cameras. Whatever they are, wherever your industry is, a lot of times you do need travelers who are checking a bag. That additional perk actually could save you a lot of money in the long run.

Angelina:          That’s a great example, Corey. When there are organizations who write their policies without consulting their travelers and considering all their factors that you’ve mentioned like statuses, time, and comfort, can definitely lead to friction and ultimately can cost more money to the company, which is the exact opposite of what they’re trying to achieve. So, this really wraps up what we are talking about when we say, “Tailoring a perfect fit for your travel policy.” Catering for and understanding the diversity of the needs and motivations of different stakeholders and your benchmarks, and aligning them to your business goals, is going to be the key to success in travel programs. I think the key here is that you can be as flexible as you need to make sure that it fits your company’s culture as well, and really there is no single policy that works for everyone. So, don’t be afraid to do something different. So, let’s move to step two. Compliance is king.

Corey:              Oh, this is going to be fun, Angelina.

Angelina:          Your favorite topic. Now you’ve written your new and improved travel policy. Let’s talk about how you get your travelers to stay compliant to it. I’ve already confessed that I was not one of those people. So, definitely a topic that interests me the most. GBTA has found that nearly 70% of travel buyers report that enforcing travel compliance is among the most challenging aspects of their job. I think this shows us that it’s time to try a new approach and/or taking a look at it a little bit more holistically. Building a considerate policy is hard work, but ultimately without compliance it’s pretty meaningless. So, consider this. When you were a kid growing up trick or treating, your parents will say right before you left the house to collect a candy in your neighborhood, they would probably set a limit. You can have two pieces of candy when you get home, but no more than that tonight. If you were on the road trick or treating with your friends and as you collect them, how many of us snuck a few on the road and ate those candies before you even got home, right?

Angelina:          Then you get home with a bucket full of candy and confess to your parents that you’ve eaten 20 while you were out. Now you’re in trouble, and your parents might take the candy away, saying that you’ve had more than enough for a certain amount of time. I feel like this is similar to how traditional compliance strategy has been, where you’re given this information way early in the process, and then enforcing them is somewhat retroactive. They really controlled the expensing stage where all of the money already has been spent. So, sure. Your travel tool still needs approval flows and auditing capabilities for the accounting teams, but pairing these more traditional compliance features with incentives like rewards can flip this conversation upside down, which I’m really excited about. Rather than getting stuck in an experience built on negative reinforcement after the fact, you’re offering positive reinforcement that can drive better behavior. Like the age old debate of the carrot or the stick.

Corey:              Yeah, this debate. [crosstalk 00:20:24] do a lot of people know where the carrot and the stick is? So what Angelina is really point out here is, do you dangle carrots for your travelers and guide them to choose these better, positive behaviors when traveling or booking their travel? Or, do you take the stick approach and after the fact, but why not both? Why not reward your travelers and give them approvals at the same time? So, the concept of rewards right now is a really hot topic in the industry, but what we want to do is we really want to turn that feeling of a punishment into a perk. So, that’s the big thing that we like to do at TravelBank.

Corey:              So, a lot of the legacy traveler, the travel managers out there, they’re actually going around saying, “Know what? Reward programs are actually just incentivizing your travelers to want to take more trips,” but that’s actually not been the case that I’ve been finding since I’m joining TravelBank. A lot of the companies that I work with are actually seeing their employees want to beat the budget every single time. They’re booking further in advance, and they’re striving for better compliance. Since implementing the reward platform, I’ve seen a spike in adoption throughout most of the companies. A lot of people are speaking about TravelBank, all the rewards that they’ve been given, and it’s just word of mouth. So, your travelers are happier about seeing what they can win, what they can get from it, and they’re really speaking to one another about it. Typically on average, your company, your stakeholders are actually really, really excited too because they’re saving up to 30% in the long run. So, even more savings than what they were originally doing.

Angelina:          That’s pretty cool. I mean, this is really going back to your people and thinking through what motivates them, and what makes them happy. Compliance doesn’t have to be this big, bad thing nowadays. It can accommodate a lot more of what people actually want through a holistic compliance strategy, leveraging things like rewards and tools. So, let’s talk about step three. If you write it, they won’t come. I think if you write your travel policy, it’s definitely not enough. Your employees won’t be actively looking to find it, and they’re not going to be as active and pretty much on top of it as you would be, as someone who’s written the policy.

Corey:              Yeah, and I guess just another old saying that we have, leading a horse to water, but you can force them to drink.

Angelina:          That’s exactly right. The most important thing that will make your policy stick will be how you implement it. Getting your travel policy into the hands of the travelers is going to require you to pick the right technology that can be there for all your stakeholders’ needs. We’ve already discussed how complex that it could be, so having that technology partner with you is going to be crucial. One of the options currently on the market is to choose multiple apps that specializes in travel bookings or expense tracking. They’re lightweight, and they don’t handle entire process. So, there are multiple integrations, multiple points of contact for support, but can create a [inaudible 00:23:18] to the user experience.

Corey:              Yeah. I mean, I definitely agree. There’s the new modern platform versus those legacy providers and actually, I have a lot of time to speak about this and those who don’t have or who have more than just the hour, feel free to approach me offline. Legacy platforms can take six plus weeks to implement, whereas a lot of your new modern platforms are actually taking days. So, it’s a lot quicker and a lot better implementation timeline with a lot of these new providers. That’s definitely something to consider when you’re looking for a new platform. Having worked at both Corporate Traveler and TravelBank, I’ve quickly seen how travelers are looking to use these new tools, and what they’re looking for when they’re looking for a new tool.

Corey:              We actually show that 79% of our travelers are looking for mobile device as well, so not just in travel, but across all platforms. Expenses as well. They want something they could do on the go. They want to be able to make changes. They want to be able to submit requests. They want to be able to make updates at any point in time, and not just sitting at their computer. I’ve heard a lot of our travelers actually say and get to me about the chat function. A lot of our travelers love this chat function, where a lot of the legacy providers don’t have it just currently.

Corey:              So, this allows them to actually sit and get work done while they’re actually doing business. A lot of people are texting underneath the desk while they’re in a business meeting, making changes to their trips, and that way they can actually leave, rush to the airport, and actually make it home in time for dinner. So, a lot of our people are really, really loving this chat, this new platform. I mean, looking for a new travel and expense platform is not that easy. It’s like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You have heavy and complicated tech on one side, and then do I really need to go much further than that?

Angelina:          No, you really don’t Corey. So then, let’s talk about what just right looks like. I think the just right tool really optimizes for employees’ time while making sure that you can control the budget and spending. There are a few key elements to this, and I think it starts with a dynamic budget. I think a lot of employers are really used to having a flat amount as setting your budget, but it can vary depending on what time of the year they’re traveling, and there are a lot of other factors that go into what that budget looks like. So, having a dynamic budget that reflects the market price is really going to make sure that you stay on track and can forecast your spending pretty accurately.

Angelina:          Then there’s of course the approval process, which has to happen before the employees make the final purchase. You can set that approval process as flexibly as you would need. So, if you would like to set approval process for anything that’s over the dynamic budget and just those budgets, then you can do so. You can make sure that anything that’s under budget can seamlessly get booked with no stoppage from anyone. I think grouping those processes in before that whole transaction happens is going to make sure that the finance team also feels comfortable about the budgets and the spending, and then all of everyone else is helping them out with this control aspect of it as well.

Angelina:          Then after you’ve purchased the flights, there’s a seamless way to expense these items, and you can probably stay a little bit lighter touch on your expenses side since all of the approval and the control process has happened before you purchased. The expenses can be a lot more seamless and painless for all of the employees that are returning from their trips, and then filing their expenses now. Of course, if you choose to do so you can put a little bit more robust approval processes on the expenses items if you want an additional layer of control for you, for your company. I think what’s really important for that process is that seamless expenses lead to seamless reimbursement for your employees, and again, this can really greatly improve your employees’ experience within your company, making sure that they are made whole after spending a certain amount of money for business travel as quickly as possible. Of course, this would also make sure that your finance team has a more accurate and a little faster way to get to the accurate records for the spending, which obviously makes them a lot happier.

Corey:              Yeah, and I think that we’re all finding, or at least we’re all thinking, that finding the tool and creating the policy is just half the battle but from there, what do you do? So from there, we actually want to launch the product. We want to launch the product, and we want to drive compliance and better adoption within your company. So, we want your travelers or we want your people to actually pick up this product and use it daily. Use it any time that they need. We want them to actually start using this product, and how are you going to do that? How are you going to go about implementing this product and having your travelers pick it up and want to use it? So, a lot of times I’ve actually, actually done a lot of implementations lately here at TravelBank. I love getting in front of your employees, I love and it excites me to be able to introduce them to a new, shiny tool. That’s the way you should look at it, too.

Corey:              You’ll have some of those travelers and some of those employees who really don’t want to make change. You’re hurting them by having to teach them a new process, but don’t look at it as much as, “Oh, I don’t want to deal with them,” but look at it as a challenge. Look at it as, “I’m going to win you over. This product is going to win you over, and you’re going to find this process much easier than what we were doing before.” That’s a lot of times why you’re implementing this new product, is because it’s so much easier than what you were looking at before, and you’re just looking to make lives easier across the board.

Corey:              For a lot of you, you are like, “Well, what do I do? What do I do? Give me some tips. Corey, tell me. Tell me what to do.” What [crosstalk 00:29:09] to do to make it fun is you do a launch party. So, have a launch party for your employees around the new product that you’re introducing. Make the announcement fun and exciting, make them want to join in, even if they’re not even going to be using the product. Make them want to be there and be part of it. Introduce the policy as a guideline, and not rules and regulations. No one likes rules and regulations. I know I don’t. Did you, Angelina?

Angelina:          Nope. I was never really good at following them.

Corey:              Definitely tell them it’s a guideline and you’re not just forcing them to do something, even though you really are secretly. Also, invite everyone you know is what I say. So friends, family, anyone but not really, but you can if you want, if you want to do a barbecue. Make it fun for your team. Invite everyone that you work with to this launch party, and that way they all get [inaudible 00:29:57] for it and they all at least see what you’re doing and what you’re doing to help support and change your company for the better. A lot of times recently it’s more or less bring your new provider in. Have them share their story themselves. I love getting up there and sharing the story of TravelBank, of who we are, where we’ve come from, from 2015 to today and just really more or less showing them and making them excited about who we are.

Corey:              On the most recent demo or the most recent launch party, I had actually provided one of our preferred vendors along with me. We did a live demo, the turnout was amazing. We had almost 200 pairs of TravelBank socks that we provided out to this employer and their employees, so we just sat around and really just talked to their employees. Got to know what their complaints were with the past one, and made sure that we were able to convince them that we’re doing the right thing by implementing TravelBank.

Angelina:          So, what I’m hearing is when you implement a process like this and have a thoughtful communication plan layered on top of your policy, compliance just becomes intuitive. Of course, if you have Corey as a launch person, it’s way more fun. I guarantee you.

Corey:              I guarantee it.

Angelina:          So, let’s take one step back. Thanks so much for sticking around for all three steps of our establishing your travel policy, and to recap, the three steps are tailor a perfect fit. Don’t settle for one policy fits all. Compliance is king. Ultimately making sure that the compliance is met is going to be what’s going to get you the business results that you need from your travel policy program. Third, if you write it, they won’t come. It’s so true. Writing your travel policy and setting a compliance strategy still is not enough. You still need to have a technology solution or something that can get that right tool into the stakeholders’ hands, to make sure that this circle really gets looped up. Then make sure that everyone knows what the travel policy is, and they’re acting on behalf of that.

Angelina:          I’m confident that you have the tools to do this yourself now, but those of you looking for more guidance, we actually have something exciting for you. Frequently we see companies struggling with their business travel program like we’ve talked about in our session today. There’s a better way, and we want to help you find it. So, today we’re offering you a 30 minute strategy session with our wonderful CSM just like Corey, and you’ve heard all of his stories. He’s going to make it fun, and it’s going to be a great learning and tailoring session for you guys. We’ll look at what your travel policy is currently today, and help you craft a game plan to update your policy to align with your company’s business goals and culture. I’m really excited to do that.

Corey:              Yeah, and I think we’ll just make it fun for you guys. There’s no buy in necessary. If you just want help, the last thing we want to do is see your travelers frustrated or angry at you for the policy that’s created. So, we’re happy to take a look at it, no charge necessary. A lot of people don’t offer that, but we’re willing to help you just because we’re TravelBank and we’re always helpful. So, make sure that you sign up within the link. If you actually sign up and you’re actually looking for a new travel management company, TravelBank is willing to offer you 1% back on all the travel booked through the TravelBank platform.