SERKO® Online FAQ

Q. How will service from my Travel Management Company (TMC) change if we adopt SERKO Online?

A. Service from your TMC will improve. Rather than being involved in bookings where they can add little value, your TMC can now afford to focus on more complex bookings (especially international).

Furthermore, through SERKO Online, you effectively have the bulk of your TMC’s booking services available to you 24/7, from anywhere in the world.

Q. Won’t the cost of SERKO Online eliminate any savings I might make on my TMC transaction costs?

A. Generally SERKO Online licensing costs are less than the savings you make on TMC transaction fees.

In any case, most of the benefits of SERKO Online accrue in such tangible areas as productivity improvements, improved flight selection behaviour, and more tightly integrated corporate travel expense reporting and intangible areas such as 24/7 booking and better service from your TMC in dealing with more complex bookings.

Q. Do I need any special technology to use SERKO Online?

A. No. All you need is an Internet connection running Microsoft Internet Explorer v6.0 or higher. Based on this simplicity you can make or amend your travel bookings from anywhere in the world, 24/7.

Q. My TMC doesn’t offer SERKO Online. What can I do?

A. You can ask your TMC to become a SERKO Online provider. Alternatively you may choose to change TMC. Note that SERKO Online is both TMC and GDS independent, so when you change TMCs you won’t have to move to different online booking tool.

Some companies that go out to tender for travel services, now specify SERKO Online as their required online self-booking tool.

Q. How is policy compliance enforced?

A. Since policy is applied at a database level, both online and offline bookings have policy rules applied at all times.

For standard bookings only those flights (or accommodation or transport), which comply with policy, are available for selection.

Where a travel booking is requested that does not comply with corporate travel policy, a specific break policy authorisation request is emailed to the traveller’s manager. With one click the manager can approve or decline the travel and an email is automatically returned to the travel booker.

Q. What happens if we lose online access?

A. You can still do your bookings offline, via your TMC, in the traditional way. Any bookings you’ve made offline are automatically integrated with your online bookings. This is facilitated by SERKO’s unique robot service: online and offline bookings are updated and stored in one database unique to each TMC SERKO Online provider.

As well as ongoing access even if without web access, this allows:

  • Reporting from data across both online and offline (TMC) bookings
  • Policy control of offline as well as online bookings
  • Integration into the corporate back office
  • Seamless integration of both online and offline booking documentation

Q. Will we need to replace our existing back office system?

A. No. SERKO Online reporting can be fully integrated into your existing back-office system.

Q. How much work will we have to do on our existing back office system in order to integrate SERKO Online reporting?

A. For most of the more widely used financial systems very little adaptation work will be required. Please confirm this point with your account manager.

Q. What sort of time-saving can I expect for repeat or multiple bookings?

A. SERKO Online uses Clone Booking™ to automate booking of regular trips, rescheduling of entire trips, multiple bookings – even of very large groups - across both web-fares and GDS fares, and covering air, hotel and car bookings.

We have found that bookings such as this, which might take as much as 30 minutes or more to complete manually, can now be accomplished in as little as 30 seconds.

Q. Does SERKO Online cover flights sourced from the web as well as from our TMC?

A. Yes. SERKO Online uses SERKO® Integrator – world-first technology which allows booking across multiple channels and seamless integration into the back office, thus removing duplication of data entry and saving users’ time and money.

Web-based fares from Qantas, Virgin Blue and Air New Zealand are already available via SERKO® Integrator.

Q. Will SERKO Online scale to large organisations?

A. Yes. Already Serko Online is used by some of the largest organisations in Australasia.

In fact, SERKO’s capacity to scale as the organisation grows has been cited as a key reason for buying by a recent client.

Q. What expense information can SERKO deliver to my corporate accounts system?

A. Using SERKO’s EDI Extraction engine on credit card data your TMC can deliver travel related expenses such as air, car and hotel fees booked through the TMC, as well as augmented descriptive data, such as purchase order number, employee ID number or project code.

Furthermore the EDI Extraction engine eliminates service fee processing, delivering additional cost-benefit to your bottom line.

Q. What other organisations are already using SERKO Online?

A:

  • Telstra
  • Fonterra
  • ABB
  • Natural Gas Corporation (case study)
  • New Zealand Defence Force
  • Seek.com.au (case study)
  • New Zealand Trade and Enterprise