When it comes to managed travel programs, some companies focus on expanding the range of inventory that employees can book. Others strive to streamline the booking process to create a system that employees actually want to use.
For Darrin Grafton, co-founder and CEO of the Auckland-based business travel and expense management company Serko, the goal is to provide both:
“To be successful, you have to have the content. By overlaying the rules over disparate content sources, we want to bring it all into one place where it’s nice and simple to make a booking.”
For Serko, that effort should get a boost after the company raised NZ$8 million on the New Zealand (Stock) Exchange last month -- funds that it expects to use to increase marketing spend, roll out new products, and expand into the small-to-medium business market.
In 2015, the company processed approximately US$5 billion in corporate travel spend.
Grafton expects the company to close out 2016 with 60% of enterprise businesses in Australia and New Zealand using its system. Few other markets worldwide have a single company grabbing such a large share.
Total revenue for the first half of FY 2016 (March–September 2015) reached NZ$6.4 million, up 34% over the same period, with online bookings up 69%. The company expects to reach total revenue of NZ$13.5 million by the end of the fiscal year and to become profitable by spring 2017.
Some of that growth will no doubt be fueled by the 130-person company’s recent flurry of acquisitions and partnership deals.
Over the last eight months, it has acquired Australian competitor Arnold Travel Technology, signed a reseller agreement with BCD Travel, and announced partnerships with Expedia, (Expedia-owned) Wotif, and Booking.com.
The Expedia deal, in particular, fits Serko’s focus on blending content and design.
The deal will not only allow Serko clients to access Expedia and Wotif’s inventory through Serko Online, the company’s online booking tool, but also allow the company to pair it with Expedia/Wotif’s branding and logos.
Based on Serko’s own A/B testing, such branding can significantly influence traveler behavior, says Grafton, prompting more employees to book in compliance with corporate policy:
“Imagine if you have two boxes on a shelf — one is a brown box, the other is a Nike box. Both have Nike shoes inside and both have the same price. It’s human nature to go for the brand.
If you just display the content [i.e., the brown box], people don’t respond.”
Other recent initiatives are designed to create what Grafton calls “user-awesome” experiences. A bag tracker introduced in September, for example, alerts travelers when their bags are nearby, allowing them to know they’ve been loaded on the plane and when they arrive at baggage claim (avoiding the dreaded ‘carousel chaos’):
“Some people may say it’s gimmicky but the idea is to create an attachment where people who have a problem during their travel journey are actually being heard.”
Then there’s nVision, a system, now in beta testing, that uses insights from previous bookings and other data sources to create predictive itineraries for users.
As an example, Grafton cites a scenario in which an executive opens his phone on a Sunday night, at which point the app knows where he is, what’s on his schedule, and what he’s likely to do based on previous travel patterns.
Knowing, for example, that he has an upcoming board meeting, the app will then analyze his previous travel patterns and suggest an itinerary, incorporating flights, hotel reservations, and other travel needs and preferences.
The result, Grafton admits, can be a little “freaky.” So the app will suggest alternative solutions and allow the user to search, too.
By incorporating both user preferences and corporate-approved options, he says, travelers can make more informed decisions, which, in turn, can influence behavior, improve compliance, and create a better experience for all concerned.
“A lot of people have built awesome applications,” says Grafton. “We’re trying to create awesome user experiences.”