Boost online booking tool adoption

Predicting the success of your online booking tool starts with one simple question: Is it easy to use?

“Simplicity is the most important factor driving corporate online booking tool adoption,” says Juan Perez, vice president of Global Business Solutions for BCD Travel. “It’s important for travel managers to understand their travelers are comparing corporate OBTs to the retail sites they use to book vacations. A corporate site has got to be easy.”

Perez offers a few best practices—and real-world examples—for ensuring your company’s online booking tool meets the standard for simplicity.

Test drive and audit

Travel managers and their teams spend months planning for the implementation of an online booking tool. They also should spend some time using it. If a feature doesn’t seem intuitive, talk to your travel management company about how other clients simplify it for their travelers. Incorporate those good ideas, and then give your OBT another test drive. Conduct an audit every 12 to 18 months—and every time you upgrade technology—to identify bottlenecks and make sure your OBT is keeping up with consumer travel sites’ standards for ease of use.

Create templates

Determine the three to five locations where your employees go most often and create one-click trip templates that include air, hotel, ground transportation—even recommended restaurants. That saves travelers time and ensures their bookings comply with your company travel policy.

Spotlight the savings

“If your company doesn’t have a mandating culture, simply telling employees they must comply with travel policy may not work,” Perez advises. Instead, let them know how much they’ll save by booking online—at the moment they’re booking—which can influence their behavior. “Such point-of-sale information can be very persuasive. Some of our clients have seen online adoption climb as much as 70% after sharing these costs with travelers,” he says. “The key is making it easy for travelers to see the savings.”

Understand travelers’ behavior

Require travelers to give a reason when they book outside the online tool or otherwise step outside of policy. You can make it simple for them by offering a menu of “reason codes” for them to choose from. Use these codes and your travel management company’s data to understand why travelers aren’t booking online. Then address those issues to ramp up adoption.

Address noncompliance

Are areas of your company just not getting with the OBT program? Create reports that clearly show how noncompliance is hurting their bottom line. “For example, if one of your departments isn’t using the tool, give the head of the department easy-to-understand charts that demonstrate how much savings he’s losing—money that could be spent on resources that would benefit his team,” Perez says. “Depending on your company culture, you might generate regular department-by-department reports for your executive team that show the best and worst OBT adopters.”