September 13, 2006 • Chicago - Perhaps not the headache it once was, traveler profile management continues to present both challenges to synchronize systems and opportunities to realize efficiencies. Such technologies as online booking tools--and the self-service milieu they foster--allow travel managers to place responsibility to update profiles in their travelers' hands, and ensure accuracy throughout the reservations process.
Travel managers speaking this summer during a session at the National Business Travel Association conference in Chicago offered an array of solutions for managing profiles, ranging in sophistication from basic global distribution storage to multi-system, bi-directional synchronization.
In many cases, a traveler's profile is born of a human resources data feed. "That feed could be scheduled to happen every so often, or at the touch of a button," said session moderator Grant Caplan of Consulting Strategies. "Some of our clients have it set up for every day, and one client has it set up for every sign-in." That data then is augmented with information supplied by an organization's travel management company and the individual travelers.
From there, strategies vary. At Apple Computer, Inc., for example, profiles are maintained in the company's self-booking tool. "It is the traveler's responsibility to maintain the profile, not the agency's responsibility," said global travel manager Kathleen Ramsay. "There is only one piece of information in the profile that is of value to us, the corporation, and that is the division/department that the traveler belongs to, so we have the ability to run our reports. Because we only care about that, we see no added value in having an agent come in and update these profiles. We like the agents to book reservations and not do this administrative task."
Travelers, keen on ensuring frequent flyer point accrual, therefore are asked to keep all information up to date. Ramsay said that's easy enough within Apple's corporate culture, where payroll, benefits and other human resources information is available to employees online. "It also allows us to standardize profiles worldwide and also addresses data privacy issues within Europe," since travelers are updating their own profiles, Ramsay added. "It also saves us money as we are not paying a third party."
This approach aligns with Apple's configuration as an ARC-accredited Corporate Travel Department. "We also own the GDS contract and the online booking tool contract, so we are in control of this process," Ramsay said. "One of the reasons we are a CTD is to have total control over all these issues," including complications faced by some organizations when switching agencies or booking tools.
At Amgen, profiles also are managed through the online booking tool, stored in a central repository and pushed to the GDS. The system "does have a two-way synchronization, which means the traveler can update it or the agent can update it, and it synchs both ways, from the online booking tool or the GDS, but we decided to do it only one way, and that is to make the traveler responsible," said travel program manager Linda Penner. "We feel the information is more accurate this way and it helps with data privacy issues."
An automated human resources feed is piped in daily to update any changes to an employee's department number or billing information, but also "to create new profiles automatically when people come in and send a signal when people are terminated," Penner explained. Panelists said the risk of fraud can be reduced by diligently deleting profiles of those who had left the organization.
Cindy Morse, corporate travel manager in North America for Shell Oil Companies, described how her company recently changed from a dual-profile setup to a single, separate system. In the previous configuration, Shell's agency managed traveler profiles and travelers themselves also accessed profiles through the online booking tool. "The bad part is they do not talk to each other," Morse said of the systems. "The travelers assume that if they make a change in the online booking tool, it is going to go over on the agency side, but it doesn't always happen."
Having recently changed agencies, Shell now uses a profile database that is separate from both the booking tool and the GDS. When reservations are made through either channel or direct supplier connections, if Shell ever considers such options, "everything is pulled from that one profile," Morse explained. "We do not have to worry about synchronization. It is all right there, and all pushed to suppliers."
Morse acknowledged that the system is "not the cheapest way of doing it," especially for an organization with a small number of travelers. "But if you have the number we have at Shell, it is well worth our time."
Like her co-panelists, Morse said travelers are responsible for updating their own profiles, except hierarchy and billing information from human resources data feeds. "The only other thing the travelers need to put in there to make a reservation is credit card [information]," she said. When the system was first implemented, Shell opted to start fresh with completely new profiles. "Travelers were not happy, but we had 25,000 travelers and 35,000 profiles. We were trying to clean it up," she explained. "We told them that we know it is painful, but they would only have to do it one time."
From the audience, Abbott Laboratories manager of corporate travel and meetings Catherine Tillman said her company had been "exposed to an agency-sponsored profile database and it was not clear that the data was going to be mine if we chose to go that route." Morse replied that such ownership had been specified in Shell's contract.
Consulting Strategies' Caplan said some clients use fully independent profile management tools from one of a few third parties. "That makes the profiles mobile," he said. "They can be easily moved to another agency or another online booking tool." He noted that such an approach can facilitate direct connections by "taking data from the profile and allowing it to properly form fill into the source where you are buying your booking. It is a great place to be heading if your agency can support it." He urged travel managers considering such a scenario to fully test the system, ensure data fields line up and establish a service level agreement with the vendor stipulating "communication patterns" for when the product is updated or not functioning normally.
The panelists offered several other pointers, regardless of the exact methodology a company chooses for profile management: coordinate with human resources on which data fields are required, secure the IT department's involvement as early as possible and consider automated emails to new hires instructing them to complete their profile.
To foster traveler participation in the process, Amgen turned to a more traditional strategy. "We held contests," Penner said. "We told everyone to update their data, and if they did, they were entered to win an airline ticket. That data then was pushed to the GDS and was all correct."
