Serkoseek

SEEK goes online for Travel
Training and ease of use helped speed adoption

Voyager Travel assisted SEEK's adoption of Serko® Online by providing training as required. However, as SEEK Office Manager Aluessi Yates points out, not a lot of training was needed.

"We had a one hour training session for our Melbourne office and we did phone training for our Sydney staff because learning Serko® Online was just so easy. After our training we were booking online by the end of the week."

Within six months, 90 per cent of domestic bookings were being completed online. Another 8 per cent of bookings, while initiated online, require a follow up call to Voyager's helpdesk to make last minute changes or for bookings made late in the day for the following day.

How Serko® Online has helped SEEK meet its goals:

"With all the booking conditions and prices on screen at once, we now have much greater control and transparency around bookings," says Yates.

"Now, when a travel request comes in from a staff member, by going into Serko® Online we know we can get the booking done in two minutes."

Flights are now booked immediately. This allows SEEK to get the best price available, have 100 per cent compliance and negotiate preferred supplier discounts. In addition, transaction costs have been reduced removing additional internal personnel costs. The system allows for future company growth and provides additional functionality, such as expense management, which can be brought on stream as required.

"The success of Serko® Online (for us), just like the success of the SEEK site, is all about being user-friendly, intuitive, fast, and having the ability to do everything in real time," says Yates.

Serkocorporate travel

Serko® Online Corporate Travel Booking Tool
SEEK Limited is the leader in the online employment market in Australia and New Zealand.  Prior to adopting Serko® Online, SEEK's travel booking behaviour was messy and inefficient.

It is Travel Management Company (TMC) independent too, meaning that your investment is protected - you choose the technology knowing that it will serve your needs, even if you change TMC.

As well as the added value that this innovative product can bring to your business, there are three major reasons why you should consider changing to Serko® Online for all your travel needs:

Booking business travel has never been faster, easier or cost you less!

Serko® Online can be used to speed simple and repeat travel bookings, with traveller profiles and other standard information automatically applied to each booking. With minimal training, standard bookings can be done online in two minutes, rather than an hour or more offline. 

Serko® Online is so intuitive that your staff will be creating online bookings in no time, and be supported with user-friendly training and support solutions.

Corporate travellers in your company will be able to book not just flights, but hotels, car hire and other travel needs, all under automated policy controls.

Serko® Online allows your internal costs of booking travel to be slashed dramatically, as well as allowing you to see savings due to increased buying power and associated discounts.

Serkonufarm

ONLINE USAGE GROWS - WITH THE RIGHT TOOL
FOR AUSTRALIAN GLOBAL CORP PROTECTION COMPANY NUFARM, Serko® ONLINE TURNED SELF-BOOKING FROM A HINDRANCE TO A VITAL BUSINESS TOOL.

The Nufarm head office in Melbourne had failed to implement a self-booking tool provided by a global TMC (Travel Management Company) and when its travel management contract expired, it made a locally produced SBT (Self Booking Tool)a key element in its tender, according to Australian Operations Manager, Mick O'Donnell.
Nufarm selected another global Travel Management Company, TQ3, as their TMC a few years back, and immediately saw the benefits of Serko® Online. "Our adoption rate with the previous tool was about 13% and going downward, but when we switched to Serko®, it kicked off at 70% and has continued to rise ever since," O'Donnell says.

ENHANCED SCREEN DISPLAY ACHIEVED 70% ADOPTION ON ONE DAY

The 23 Nufarm bookers responded instantly to the enhanced visibility of airline inventory which they saw as a huge step forward to the previous "cross your fingers and see what you get" process with the global tool.
O'Donnell sees Serko® Online's ability to display Nufarm's choice of airline class and generate instant itineraries as valuable features of the tool. "The ability to see the choices and the costs has been empowering and made a big difference to our travel spend," he points out.

HOW Serko® ONLINE PROVIDED A SEAMLESS TRANSITION WHEN NUFARM SWITCHED TMC's

Nufarm has recently switched from CWT to Voyager Travel Corporation, a process made significantly easier by retaining the same booking tool. "We made sure we Had all our traveller profiles and policy data in place before the switch, so there was almost no disruption," he explains. "Bookers saw a familiar screen when they went in to make bookings, and all of their deals, policies and traveller details were there - the same as before."

The Nufarm team place a lot of emphasis on working with a local technology provider after their experience with a global tool. O'Donnell cites system maintenance as an example. With the global tool, that was sometimes done during peak Australian demand time - at the most convenient for United States users. That, he insists, never happens with Serko® Online.

According to John Challis, Serko® Online's Australian Sales Manager, the Nufarm experience has a number of important lessons. "Firstly, just using an online booking tool is no guarantee of savings," he says. "Using the wrong tool will actually cost you more and add to user frustration."

"A second valuable lesson is to use locally developed tools. Local developers understand local conditions," he says, "and build them into the tools from the ground up. Because we're in the market, we're quick to adapt the market changes," he adds. "The Nufarm experience also demonstrates the when you use the right tool, it's easy to switch travel suppliers. Proprietary tools can lock corporates into a relationship with one TMC, but because Serko® Online is so widely used, customers can pick and choose," he explains.

"Another key message," John Challis says, "is that success in travel management comes from making it all fit together - crafting the right policy, working from a TMC that understands your needs and choosing a SBT that meets the needs of all the parties involved."

A MOVE TO Serko® ONLINE HAS SAVED US HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS

Nufarm, with a travel spend of around $5million p.a., has around 260 travellers who do about 85% of their travel domestically.
O'Donnell says the move to Serko® Online, together with a switch of TMC, user training and some other policy changes, has delivered savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.