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SLAs, traveler surveys remain key travel agency service tools.

Article Excerpt
As travelers and travel managers seek services built with a combination of brain and computer power, travel management companies continue to measure the quality of their services for both groups using two major tools: traveler surveys and service level agreements. Each has changed with the emergence of new technology, but both are vital as agencies battle with each other and their own narrow margins. Meanwhile, expectations of both regular and VIP service vary widely around the world.

Profiting from travel management continues to be a challenge partly because of an unstable balance between cost and service that, of late, seems to be tipped more toward commoditization. Indeed, BTNs 2003 Service Quality survey indicated that better fees from a competitor overtook poor service from the incumbent as the number-one reason buyers switch agencies, which happens at exactly the same rate as it did in 1997:25 percent every 12 months.

With that rate of client turnover, agencies appreciate any advantage they can get in terms of knowing the customer sooner and in more detail than the competition--and following through with superior offerings. According to buyers, the most important services they get from agencies are responsive, professional, polite, accessible and knowledgeable staff, and it is because of their staff that agencies garnered high performance scores.

Travelers' agency scores were only slightly lower, but just 69 percent of them versus 81 percent of buyers would recommend their current agency to a peer. Perhaps it's a natural disconnect, since buyers often have more invested in an agency that they helped select. Nevertheless, agencies constantly are working to close the gap, largely by regularly surveying travelers to find out what they need and how they rate....