Thank you to everyone who joined AmTrav's Self-Serve? Agent Service? Real Talk webinar in May 2025. We were honored to be joined by Mesirow Financial's Jackie Collins, Results Plus Consulting's Louise Miller, and AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee for our discussion.
Webinar transcript
0:02 Shannon Marvin
Hello, everybody! We're really thrilled to be here. Thank you for joining us today for the conversation: self service, agent service, real talk. What actually works in business travel. We're just going to get right to it.
My name is Shannon Marvin, I'm part of the marketing team here at AmTrav, and I'll be moderating today's discussion.
This isn't going to be your typical webinar. We're going to go ahead and skip the sales pitch and PowerPoint slides, except for this one with the intro. Instead, we've invited a fantastic group of experts to have an honest, lively conversation about how travel service is changing, what travelers want, where self-service works, where it doesn't, and how technology, AI, and budget pressure are all reshaping the game.
I'll quickly introduce our panelists. We're going to start with Jackie Collins from Mesirow Financial. Jackie leads Mesirow’s travel program with deep expertise and a sharp eye for both strategy and service. With years of experience managing corporate travel, she's known for building strong partnerships, navigating complex travel needs with ease, and always advocating for a greater traveler experience. We're thrilled to have her critical insights today.
Then we also have Jeff Klee. Jeff is the CEO and co-founder of AmTrav, where he combines decades of travel tech experience with a passion for simplifying business travel. Jeff launched his first travel company from a college dorm room and has since become a recognized thought leader in modernizing the travel experience. Jeff's vision continues to shape how companies book, manage, and think about travel.
Louise Miller will join us as well. Louise is an executive and management consultant who has sold billions in TMC services and helped customers select billions more worth of TMC services as a trusted consultant. Louise currently leads Results Plus Consulting.
We're going to keep this conversation moving through a handful of big topics. But we also want to hear from you, so you can submit questions anytime using the Q&A box, and we'll get to as many as we can towards the end.
I'm going to kick things off with a general question to our panelists. Starting off, we want to talk about how corporate travel services have evolved over the last 30 years. So we'll start with the big question: what’s one thing about corporate travel service from 30 years ago that would surprise today's travelers?
3:07 Jackie Collins
Handwritten tickets. That's the first thing I could think of. I mean, it's incredible how far we've come. I wouldn't even think of a handwritten ticket anymore. That alone, and online booking tools were not as prevalent as they are today. Those two I'd start with.
3:27 Jeff Klee
Yeah, I remember when I first started the company, we were mostly consumer; you know, we were selling to consumers. And this was pre-internet. But we started to get some corporate clients. From a service standpoint, our first corporate clients were production companies here in Los Angeles, and they were working on productions. We were a two-person company. So, I mean, I was doing the servicing. I was using a GDS to book. And everyone at the account would have my phone number. They'd call me, you know, 24/7. They needed to get someone to bill them, as I remember. So it was all human to human.
And I think with booking tools now, obviously, we all aim to be technology companies. And the technology piece of it is the most important. But there are two categories now when we need servicing. There’s the one that we want to eliminate, which is the failed online experience. A lot of times, someone tries to do something online. They want to do it themselves. They'd love to be able to do it themselves, and they can't because the booking tool doesn't work or there's some sort of error or glitch. So those we obviously want to get away from.
But there's still this small but really, really important number of situations where a traveler, for one reason or another, still wants and highly values service. And that could be because something's really complicated, because they're, you know, driving and they don't have time to be on a phone or on a computer. And they just need something taken care of right away. Or it's because they're at the airport and it's a last-minute disruption. So I think that while there are obviously way fewer human interactions than there used to be, the interactions that do exist are really, really important to the traveler.
5:30 Jackie Collins
Yeah. Service never changes. Service will always be in place, and that has never changed. Our travelers definitely want the instant gratification of doing it themselves and working on the tool, they like that, but without the backup that you have and the service, we'd be lost.
5:50 Shannon Marvin
Maybe that's a good place to segue into traveler preferences. So, are there certain kinds of travelers that lean towards DIY bookings, and are there others that still prefer picking up the phone?
6:08 Jackie Collins
So, Mesirow is a prime example of this. I've been with Mesirow for about 10 years, and before that, I was their agent before I came in as their corporate manager. And nobody used a booking tool, nobody. They really wanted just the hands-on service. The admins certainly didn't want to use booking tools. We had them for many years; they certainly didn't want to use booking tools. They felt that it was cumbersome. They wanted to talk to an agent. They didn't want to be a travel agent.
Until recently. In the last couple of years, you know, we've had quite a bit of turnover at Mesirow, and younger people have come in, and even people that came from other companies that are used to booking online. Or it was mandatory for them to book online. We offered everything: you can book, you can email the agents. We really don't care how you book as long as you book through our agency.
But I was shocked because I've been with AmTrav now for one year, and I remember in the negotiations talking and saying, "Well, you know, I got to make sure we have agents because most of our bookings are done with agents." 90% of our bookings were with agents, and I was very concerned. And the first month I was with you, it went to 78% online bookings. You can imagine my shock at that. So it tells you they want to self-serve now. For international and things like that that are more complicated, as we talked about, for sure they're going to go to an agent. But people want the instant gratification of online booking with a good tool that helps and prompts them along the way.
7:41 Jeff Klee
I always think that a good parallel is food delivery. I'm embarrassed how often my family uses DoorDash. The app is so easy, and if I want to order dinner, the thought of having to actually call someone to order dinner is a nightmare; I would never do it.
But, on the other hand, if, you know, the food comes, and they put mayonnaise on my 10-year-old's hamburger, and it's a big crisis. And, you know, he's hysterical about it. You can go through the app, and they'll walk you through these steps, and then they'll eventually offer you, say, a $4 refund. That's not granted. That doesn't do it for me. I want to talk to someone; I want it in the moment. And and even if it's just to hear someone with a little empathy on the other end of the phone.
And again, I'm not acting like this is the worst thing that ever happens to anyone, but when you're traveling, you have much more serious frustrations than that. And you want someone who understands. If you're going through something unusual and disruptive, you want someone who can understand what you're going through, hopefully offer some good, clever advice to get out of it. But just the empathy part is actually really important, I think, when you're in non-routine situations.
9:07 Jackie Collins
You want to know that there's a lifesaver at the end of the line, absolutely.
9:25 Shannon Marvin
So we're talking a little bit about traveler preferences and when travelers would prefer self-service versus agent support. I guess this might be a place, I think Jeff just touched on it, you know, there are sometimes high-stakes booking scenarios where live help is essential. Can we touch on some of those kinds of scenarios? Like, when is live help essential to the customer experience? Experience.
9:52 Jackie Collins
Well, from my point of view, it would be international bookings. People don't really want to do their own international bookings yet, unless it's a very simple booking. And also, I think the biggest thing is when they're frustrated at the airport, or there are delays, or any of that. They want to know that there's someone they can reach out to for that. Those are the two most important times.
10:18 Shannon Marvin
And another kind of question along these lines. You know, we talked a little bit about white-glove service and VIP service, and I know that Jackie has some strong opinions about this, but I did want to ask if VIP service is still relevant, and for whom? And maybe along those lines, what role should the supplier apps be playing in servicing travelers?
10:45 Jackie Collins
I do. I do have... I feel there's a difference between a concierge service and a VIP service. For me, a VIP should be everybody that you book. No one in my company is any different, from our analysts on up to our CEO. I would expect the same service for all of them. That being said, can our CEO travel a little differently? Sure, of course. There are a little bit fewer, you know, rules with her travel. But I would want the service level and the booking tool level to be the same for all of them. So for us, anybody can book; we can book first class. It's not something that we would necessarily fly. It's not in our policy, except for exceptions. But it allows you to book because you could be traveling with a customer. So we have everybody as a VIP at my company.
I see the need for a white-glove service that's more of a concierge service. So you have somebody who you need to follow around the clock, right? They're having a limo pick them up at 5, and at 3, they want to know the driver's name. You're checking them in for all the hotel bookings; you're checking them in for their flights. You're making sure their flights are on time. If not, can you get them out on something else? That concierge service, I definitely think that there's a huge market out there for that piece of it.
But for the traditional, old-fashioned VIP desk, for me, I've never seen the need, and I see less of that out there. Other companies... We don't differentiate in the C-suite. So for other companies, I'm sure they need that. But for me, that's how I see the differences.
I'm sure Louise has a different take on that because she would, you know, encounter people at larger companies.
12:28 Louise Miller
Yeah. To Jackie's point, we see kind of two schools of thought. One school of thought is, everyone's the same, everyone has the same service, and it's really triggered by people that are flying private aircraft or have special security requirements, like a CEO, that end up in that more concierge-type service.
Then we also have companies that have three or four different tiers of service that they ask their TMC to provide. And it's based on culture. And it's also sometimes based on the kind of traveler. You know, another area that's very high touch in many companies is candidate travel or new joiner travel. Because sometimes trying to fly without a profile is not the easiest thing. So a lot of times there is a manual touch and a higher level of service related to candidate travel.
13:25 Jackie Collins
You know what? Let me add one thing on that. Louise is right. Candidate travel is something that was absolutely high touch. I mean, that was something I actually handled myself for the whole company, for the most part, until we took on the booking tool.
I know this isn't an advertisement, but the booking tool allows HR to do their job actually better now. So that part of the service has gotten better because now we've consolidated candidate travel. Instead of everyone calling me, it starts in HR, where it should, and they use, you know, Gather and the meeting travel, and we don't have to ask a lot of questions for the candidates. They can actually book their own with our criteria, so that service piece of it has made a world of difference for us at Mesirow.
14:08 Jeff Klee
Jackie, I'm curious. Your question about, you know, saying, like, you consider all your travelers in the same tier, and I get that. I remember this was probably about 4 or 5 years ago, and I remember hearing about it from our salesperson in an RFP. And there was a question about VIP service, and we had, like, you know, kind of a typical RFP answer. Like, we didn't have a VIP department at the time, and we were very proud of our service. You know, we have all... everyone's an AmTrav employee. It's all in-house, 24/7. But we gave an answer like, "We treat everyone like a VIP. Everyone has the same level of service."
And the prospect answered back, and I remember that it stuck with me: "If you're saying everyone's a VIP, then that means no one's a VIP." And it got us thinking. And, you know, things have evolved. We do have a VIP desk, and I think that the biggest difference is that, to your point, Jackie, where there's a lot more proactive monitoring, where we, like, you know, we check everything in advance, make sure the flight's on time, as opposed to waiting for there to be an alert that there was disruption, and, you know, every step of the way. So there is, I mean, there is a different level of service that, you know, that we and others call VIP.
I think the question is, how necessary and how valued is that in today's era of travel?
15:42 Jackie Collins
Yeah, for Mesirow, if I go back to being an agent years ago, I mean, I can understand that there was a difference. It was normally a C-suite difference. But I think with the world today, and how... and I'm sure some of the larger companies have it. But for Mesirow, I disagree. I view everybody as a VIP, and when I say that, I would want everybody to get the same service level. You know, I wouldn't want, just because our CEO is calling, you or her admin, to get better service from someone than anybody else, and I think you agree with that.
I would want to make sure that, you know, she has her seat assignments and her frequent flyer numbers in there, and all of the things that are important to a traveler. And honestly, in today's world, where we have, you know, candidates who actually look at the travel policy and what does it take to travel, and how much are you shutting us down to travel? Do I have to fly on a connecting flight as opposed? It matters. It brings in a higher level of candidate when you have a little bit looser policy, and that they understand that you treat everybody fairly, and that we allow everyone to purchase seats, not just our managing directors.
So I think I kind of look at it in that light and in the world today. You know, with the new candidates, they definitely look at that. I mean, I've been asked more than once about the travel policy from Mesirow by a candidate, and I think that's where I think that everybody should be treated like a VIP. But I understand the flip side.
17:16 Shannon Marvin
So I wanted to talk a little bit about sort of the in-house versus outsourced support. And then also 24/7 support, because we know that a lot of our customers appreciate that we have 24/7, stateside support; all of our support staff are employees. But we also know that the trend is to go outsourced, and 24/7 usually means somebody on the other side of the world is answering the phone.
So I guess the question I was going to pose to the panel is, firstly, do companies all need 24/7 support? Or do we think that's an over-promise for some programs?
18:06 Louise Miller
I'm happy to take a first stab at that. I've probably worked on 70 TMC projects in my five years as a partner in a consulting firm. Every single one—small, medium, large—all need 7x24 support because even if our culture is one country during business hours, and people are not as wired to work on the weekends and in the evening. We've all seen the different disruptions around the world related to, you know, strife and airline industry and travel industry specifics. So it's very relevant. Number one. And number two, certainly through COVID and coming out of COVID. I hate to keep bringing that up, but it did change things, and, you know, the importance of having service all the time for travelers is more important than ever.
Now, as far as, you know, whose employees they are and offshoring and all of that, I've seen programs be very successful in multiple environments. But it also depends on where you're based. So travelers based in the US tend to be a little more sensitive to wanting to talk to someone that has, you know, my accent. Travelers that are based in a lot of other countries around the world, maybe a smaller country, they don't have the labor market to support onshore voice. So the voice services for everything they buy have been offshore for a long time, either to a neighboring country or to what they might consider a low-cost country.
So I think the answer to that question varies very much by where you're based. And I would also say that, you know, as travel volumes grew back over the past four years, companies really didn't have a choice as they scaled but to introduce flexible labor market solutions. So as you grow and change, and your customers grow and change, I think you'll have to be open to more options, too. But today, there's still a pretty high sensitivity for travelers based in some countries to want to talk to someone that, you know, knows the geography of New York because they've been there, for example.
20:16 Jackie Collins
Well, I'll add to that as a buyer: it's critical to us. I want our travelers to have 24/7 service.
As far as outsourcing or insourcing, I have to say, you're the first that I've worked with that insources. I love that concept because they're your employees, and I know that they're held more responsible. I hate to say that, but it's the truth. And, you know, tomorrow, when I talk to an agent that I talk to all the time, she can go back to Joe, or whoever we spoke to the night before. And they just know us better. That change in the past year alone has been phenomenal. I have not heard one thing about the after-hour service. The most complaints I usually get are hold times and on an after-hour service. Those are the two complaints in general. I would say that Mesirow has... I have not heard... Oh, gosh! Let me knock on wood for this one. I have not heard that in the last year.
You know, people understand that hold times are going to be longer. I think that is one thing we learned from COVID: that this is what happens. They can't bring in 100 agents from a closet when, you know, the world has a bad weather event. But I think it's really critical to have after-hours service in general. Do I love that it's AmTrav's? I do.
Now, contrary to that, if you did outsource it, I think the travelers don't really care who's talking to them as long as they can help them. As long as they understand, they see that they can read a profile and they can help them. That's the biggest issue. But they definitely need it.
22:00 Louise Miller
One thing that we didn't get a chance to talk about because I couldn't get my Zoom to log in, is the idea that just calling someone isn't the only red carpet anymore. Right? So in today's day and age, as a road warrior and as someone from the generation that, you know, grew up talking to people because there was no other option, I love when I get red carpet service through chat, through email, through discussions, and through my online tools.
And, by the way, whether I log into my hotel app, or my airline app, or my car rental app, or my TMC, I want to be able to have the service experience that's right for me at that point in time. You know, if I'm in an airline club or in a line, I don't want to call anyone. I don't want to talk about what I'm doing in front of people. But if, you know, I'm on my last straw in a line of 300 people, and I can tell that only a magical wizard agent can help me, then you better believe I'm going to call.
So I think the importance of when you finally reach an agent is more important than ever, because so many times we do have successful servicing through AI, through a bot, through self-service. And even road warriors, spoiled road warriors like me, can still consider those experiences a red carpet type service.
23:21 Jackie Collins
Yeah, I have to say the chat has been a huge success. And I say "call," I mean all of it. I do, because it's so incredible.
23:29 Louise Miller
Oh, chat is my favorite.
23:32 Jeff Klee
Glad you brought up the airline and supplier apps. This is something that's, you know, become a little bit of an obsession of mine, in that, I mean, I think back to, say, five years ago, and, you know, as a TMC, one of our big advantages with technology then was such that if you had to change a ticket, you probably had to contact someone. And so, as a TMC, we could be really confident. It was a good selling point like, "Hey, if you need to change, it's going to be way easier to call or chat with us than to call the airline's 800 number."
But things have changed dramatically now. And the airlines have done—especially the airlines, but also the hotels and car rentals—the airlines have done such a good job with their apps, and they're so easy to use, and travelers love them. And if you need to make a simple change, it's really easy to do on an app. You don't have to call anyone. And so that, I mean, that tells me two things.
One is, we have to make sure that if you're coming into our booking tool, if you want to self-serve, it's got to be just as easy as on the airline app. But also, if you want to use the airline app, we have to make that possible. And, you know, we've done a lot of work in that regard, but we're nowhere near where I'd like us to be. And I think there are a lot of inherent challenges in the industry, the technology where, you know, what some people call omni-channel, being able to use the airline app for a change, but then call the TMC and make another change, or make sure that the reporting and the data is kept in sync.
And this is, you know, one of the biggest areas of R&D for us and things that we're trying to... I'm just curious how important you guys think it is and how much your travelers care about being able to mix and match. Sometimes they're using the TMC booking tool or the TMC people; sometimes they're using the airline tool or people.
25:38 Jackie Collins
Yeah, definitely for us. I mean, that would be Nirvana, right? If we could do that, and it interchanged, and it was easy. And they could do that, whatever app they have up in front of them, or they could go to their United or their American app, and that would flow back through to you. And then, you know, through all of the information, we would have everything. That's absolutely Nirvana. I would much prefer that.
I think I spoke to someone who said, "You know, it's instant gratification, right? We want to do our own." And when I get off the plane, there are 300 people in front of me looking for a flight because they canceled it. I want to be able to go to my app and just change it right away—instant gratification. They don't want to have to call or chat or whatever quickly. And so that, you know, to combine those and have that as one would be absolute Nirvana. Yes, I'm with you.
26:28 Louise Miller
So one of the things that we hear talking to so many buyers and program managers every single month, right, is that we have two different kinds of companies. One company that's very policy-driven. And sometimes those companies have regulatory constraints that they're dealing with, right? So, rightfully so, they need to have a command-and-control program with lots of rules. And they want to put the travelers back into the TMC because it's the only way they trust—whether it's through the booking tool or voice or chat—because it's the only way they trust that their policy is going to be applied properly, right?
But the number of companies that are like that has dramatically decreased in the past five years in particular. The much more common model is that companies absolutely want to give their employees guidance. They no longer really have a true, lowest logical airfare policy with a window of two hours. It's more like, okay, travelers need to be able to use some common sense. And they're out there traveling for a business purpose, and we're trusting them to do that. So let's arm them with good tools and good services, and let them decide what fits their schedule, and let them manage their own budget.
And in that kind of world, the door is totally open. And there are many companies that are already doing and/or experimenting with this kind of model, where I don't have to remember where I booked my original trip—whether I called, chatted, or emailed, or logged in. And I don't have to remember if it was that one trip that, you know, I booked direct for some reason. I can just log in wherever I am, wherever is convenient for me, or wherever maybe I am already talking about a different trip, and still service my booking. And there's interoperability behind the scenes. There, you're able to service bookings across. And, you know, the first step is, if I booked in my managed channel, then maybe I can switch around the servicing after the fact. It's going to be much harder to get to the point where you can book anywhere, but somehow they know that you're connected to this company. And so, even if, no matter where you book, you can get service anywhere. That's going to be a little bit harder.
But I'm a big fan of this type of model, and I can tell you that it is Nirvana to every single buyer I talk to that does not have a totally closed, policy-type program.
29:01 Shannon Marvin
That's great. So since we're already kind of talking about chat and some of these automation tools, let's talk a little bit more about maybe what's working and what's not, and maybe where it's all heading. Obviously, AI is the big buzzword. Can we talk a little bit about maybe parts of the travel experience that AI has dramatically improved, and maybe some areas that it has not?
29:32 Louise Miller
So where we see AI in travel servicing is in those simple responses. And whether it's inside the client's organization or the TMC trying to provide service, AI is there. Most of the customers that we work with already have AI, for example, helping with their queries on their policy. So the travelers aren't hunting and pecking anymore. They type a little question in, and it interprets the policy for them.
So customers are using AI internally in their own intranets to help travelers navigate and make policy deciphering easier. On the TMC servicing side, we definitely see it in chat. I mean, that is the biggest use case. And, you know, we're migrating from a simple bot that just gives a canned answer to one that learns. And that's the difference, right? When it becomes AI, it's going to learn from all of that experience. And the technology is now finally in place.
Lastly, we see AI in use all over the place in the end-suppliers that we use as we travel—in hotels and airlines. And I think the travelers really enjoy the fact that, you know, hotels are using AI to figure things out, to align their staffing better. Everyone has labor shortages. There are not enough good travel agents in the world, right? And now they're trying to keep up with us road warriors who have way too much information at our fingertips. So I think there's evidence of AI all over the place. And I feel like it's going to exponentially impact everything we do more in the next 12 months than it did in the past four years.
31:15 Shannon Marvin
And maybe Jackie, then, to kind of kick it over to you. Do you think that travelers are ready for a fully AI-driven service? Or how do you feel on the buyer side?
31:27 Jackie Collins
You know, yesterday, just by coincidence, Mesirow had an AI meeting for the company, about what we had and what's coming. And all of us were really excited when we walked out of there. I mean, I was raising my hand for a couple of products. I was like, "Oh, my gosh! Those will change my life, right!" And I could see some things that would help with travel a great deal, a great deal. I don't know enough about them, but I know that there were some thoughts I had walking back to my office.
You have a million thoughts racing through your mind for those. Do I think our travelers would embrace them? I do. I do. I keep hearing the same thing over, and I know I've said this, but: instant gratification. You know, going back to Uber Eats and DoorDash and all of that, it's instant gratification.
And if a bot—instead of me waiting for someone in chat to come online, or instead of waiting for an agent, or instead of waiting because I can't do the exchange through the app—if an AI learned (because I think Louise is right; right now, I don't see an AI agent that can help you, although I've heard they're out there). I've seen a few, and I wasn't impressed with those. But I think it's coming. I think you're right, and I think it's coming rapidly. I think travel is changing rapidly from the last couple of years and moving on. So I think our people would definitely embrace it, for sure.
32:52 Jeff Klee
I think when it comes to AI, there are kind of two categories. There's one: how can we use AI to do the things that we'vealways done, you know, better, faster, and cheaper, like a chatbot or making an improved policy.
But then there are the things that many we haven't even imagined, and some that we have, where it's completely blowing up the whole process. And I mean, you know, one of the big ones that's always thrown around is the idea that everyone will have some sort of personal agent that will just book all their travel. So online booking tools will go away. No one will want to type into an online booking tool and, you know, have to make a choice because your bot that knows you so well, knows your company's policy so well, will just book it for you, and then, you know, deliver your trip into your inbox.
But then there are also other things that we haven't even thought of. So I think, who knows what? And I know there have been a million other webinars on AI, so I don't want to turn this into one of those. But I think, you know, we ought to be really open-minded, for there are lots of both little and enormous ways that AI can change things. And, you know, there's a whole spectrum, and I think there will be solutions from everywhere on that spectrum that emerge in the next few years, some of which we're not even conceiving of yet.
34:22 Louise Miller
But you know the good news, Jeff, is that service providers that we use on a daily basis—some of the big online retailers come to mind, and our friends in the airline and the hotel industry—they're priming travelers and arrangers every day to get better at being users of AI-enabled services.
And so the way is being paved for us. It's our job, then, I think, in the intermediary space—TMCs and OBTs and all of us that are in the middle—to figure out how to make it really work, so that people like Jackie get great feedback when they finally see it as real and impactful. And we don't have that six months to a year where everybody just says it's awful, 'cause nobody wants to go through that again.
35:16 Jeff Klee
Yeah. And I think it's all very positive. Like, I think that all this new technology... I mean, one of the biggest challenges, at a very high level, the problem with our industry is that we've got so much complexity that it just takes forever to fix things.
And the great thing about AI is it's a way to do things much faster than we've ever done it before. So I'm really optimistic that in all the different ways we come up with to use AI, it will, it is going to make life better for travelers, and it is going to make life better for companies. And some of these... you know, there's so much complexity, and, you know, managing travel both at the traveler level and company level, it's still way too burdensome in a lot of ways. And it will become less burdensome, and AI will help that. There's no doubt in my mind.
36:09 Shannon Marvin
So Jeff kind of opens the door for another cool area to talk about, maybe, which is just evaluating service itself. So I think we probably have some folks attending the webinar that are either considering a TMC or thinking about managed travel.
Maybe this is a question for Jackie and Louise initially. How can companies assess a TMC's service before buying? Or maybe a better question: what's a smart question to ask a TMC that will reveal how good their service really is?
36:43 Jackie Collins
Try it before you buy it. There were many reasons why I started looking for a new TMC. And part and parcel of that was to make sure that we were going to be on the cutting edge. So we wanted to make sure that we had a TMC that could keep up. Because, you know, to Jeff's point, we do move slowly in this industry, and we need to catch up. And I wanted a booking tool that was not cumbersome, that was user-friendly, that was like the airline's booking tools, but a little better and had support behind it. And that was really my goal. So I went out there, and I looked at every booking tool I could look at. And I was offered to, "Hey, use us before you buy us." And I was like, "What? That's incredible."
It's like moving into a house for a couple of nights before you buy it, right? So I said, "Okay, let's try that." So we took a few of our people that really book a lot. In fact, one of them is the CEO of one of our larger companies within Mesirow, and I asked him if he would be a guinea pig, and he was. And we did it for a good couple of months, and even though all the discounts weren't in there, and even though you didn't know us, and it was sort of, you know, a raw sort of tool at the time for us because we didn't have everything in there that worked.
I have to tell you, that worked, and the feedback was phenomenal. And I liked... There were other tools out there that I thought were really great. I asked if I could use them. I asked if I could, you know, try to use you for a month before that. I think that was the best thing that happened to us, and it worked out well for us. It did. It's the best thing I could do and suggest. You're going to drive a car before you buy it. I think that's a big thing. I don't know how you do that for larger companies, or, you know, in general, but for us, that worked. I'd have to go back, if I had to do it again, I'd have to think about how do I go to the next agency? Hopefully, I don't.
39:06 Louise Miller
So if we take a look at the whole market, and you think, we have extra-large clients, and we have pretty small clients, and everything in between, right? And the one thing I'll say that's similar to what Jackie's saying is that a lot of companies are... I don't know that I love the word "pilot," although a lot of people use that. But, you know, early experience, pilot, test drive, whatever you want to call it, using a service before you make a long-term commitment is becoming a bigger topic now.
Sometimes there are, you know, data privacy and data security screenings that have to happen before you can just test drive something, which can make it prohibitive to companies that have those kinds of rules in place. But when you think about it this way, travelers are putting their credit card and their personal information all over the internet and into the tools of intermediaries that are consumer-based. So essentially, you should be able to experiment with something without 90 approvals.
The second thing I'll say is what is kind of the more typical approach. And I think the part that a lot of people skip is the discovery: Why am I doing this? What are people doing today? Why are people going direct to suppliers today? Why do I have six TMCs? How many countries are interested? The number one noise we hear from companies who are either not using a TMC, or just offer it as an optional program, or they have different TMCs across the world is because we've lost the trust of the travelers and bookers when it comes to content across the world. It is the loudest thing. We used to hear, "Nobody's answering the phone," because it was 2022. Now we hear, "My travelers and my arrangers don't trust the content." And so, we as managed travel advocates—whether we're buyers or suppliers or consultants—we have to find a way to get that confidence back. And so, understanding what your current state is really, not just when does your contract expire, but what are you really doing? And how do travelers and road warriors really feel? That's very much important before you decide what your selection process is going to be. Because the suppliers can't really help you if you're not able to articulate what your problem is.
And the second most important thing I would say is that we're in a world where we have to look at our policies, whether they're travel or expense policies. And we have to decide: is loyalty driving our program, or is our policy driving our program? And where along the trip lifecycle do each of those come into play? What we're seeing is that loyalty is driving shopping 95% of the time, unless you're in a very, very command-and-control, very tight, policy-regulated program. But during, you know, the traveling and expense part of it, you see a lot more policy elements coming into play. People know they're not allowed to expense Wi-Fi, or they know they're allowed if it's more than two hours. Right? So, but it's that shopping experience that you really have to think about.
So I would encourage anyone on the line who's trying to redesign their program in some way, shape, or form to really look internally before you start talking to suppliers because you're not going to be great at articulating what it is you're trying to buy if you don't really have an inventory of all of the things I just mentioned.
42:49 Shannon Marvin
That's great. Jeff, do you have anything you want to add.
42:53 Jeff Klee
I actually have a question I'd love to ask Louise and Jackie before this ends. And this is, I've been on this soapbox forever, on the commercial models in the TMC world. And it's a constant source of friction between myself and our sales team and our prospects, where I don't like the per-transaction fee model. I don't like charging someone extra to give them service every time they call because that defeats the purpose. Like, the whole point is, we're here to provide service. And but if we say, "But every time you actually use that service, we're going to ding you for an extra, you know, whatever amount," it kind of lessens that.
So we go through this thing with salespeople where we, you know, we have meetings. We say, "Okay, we're done. We're not going to do per-transaction pricing." You know, we're very flexible. We like a per-trip—one per trip, no matter how many times you have to call or book online or book offline, whatever you need—or a subscription fee, a monthly fee. We'll do anything. But we just don't like to do per-transaction. It's not about making more or less, because, you know, you can work it out so it comes out the same. But I constantly have the salespeople come to me or to Craig, my co-founder, and say, "Hey, you know, we've got this prospect. They only want transaction fee pricing because that's what everybody else is offering them, or that's what they're used to."
And it absolutely drives me crazy because I think this pricing model that is so predominant in the industry, it's: 1. Travelers hate it. 2. I think it's a disincentive to actually automate and improve your technology because everybody's making extra money when your technology is such that you force people to call or chat in. So, I'll stop ranting now. But I'm just curious how you guys view this issue because it's a big issue with me.
45:02 Jackie Collins
Louise, I know you have some larger clients, so I'll take two seconds and talk about ours to begin with. So we bill behind the scenes. We do, you know, per-transaction, but we bill—no, per trip, Jeff. But we bill behind the scenes, so it's not on the invoice. The customer, our travelers, never see that. We bill monthly, and I would never want them to see that.
I have been in the business long enough, prior to fees being, you know, even a dream, right? So long ago, when we got commissions and all of that. You know, and then, when fees came in and people complained, and then, even a few years ago, prior to COVID, people would balk at a fee, but they would pay a $200 fee to the airline like it was nothing to change, right? But they really balk at agency fees. So you learned that. I was an agent; I remember that.
But you learned you really want to do it behind the scenes. It shouldn't be something that we show to the client, because for a couple of reasons for the travelers. The first thing is, they could be at the airport needing help, and they don't want to call because they don't want to get dinged another fee. And that's not a thought process we want at Mesirow. We want you to get the help you need to get. We don't care about the booking fee. Of course, we do; we always care about money. But, you know, in those circumstances, we don't want people to care about the booking fee. So the per-trip fee is fantastic. It works for us. But again, you bill us monthly behind the scenes, and it's easier for us. The traveler never sees it, and we allocate behind the scenes.
46:43 Louise Miller
And this is a very important discussion to every customer and everyone we talk to out in the marketplace. And I think the first issue is, are you going to show the travelers the TMC's fees or not? And there is no right or wrong. But Jackie and Jeff and Shannon and I were talking on one of our preparation calls earlier in the week that during COVID, a lot of companies took away the transaction fee that the traveler could see and started figuring out how to pay for their TMC service behind the scenes. And there are many ways to do that, right? So it became more popular.
And one of the reasons is because TMCs needed to be paid for the services that they offered all this time, let alone during COVID. And so the cost per transaction was kind of high because we were out of whack with our volumes, right? So that's what drove this conversation to even be more popular: "Can I pay behind the scenes somehow and take that fee away from the traveler?" The second reason that's a popular strategy is because of program leakage. You know, before COVID, I'd say we had 90% of airline tickets in most mature markets being bought through the TMC. And about 50% of hotel bookings were being made through the TMC. We see that leakage dramatically higher. We're talking leakage is up to 25% on air in many companies, and it's 60-70% on hotel. And part of the reason is because some travelers don't understand the value they're getting for the fee when they may not be the traveler with that big problem where they really need an agent to help them.
So I think those two things come into play. Now, as far as per-transaction, per-trip, all those kinds of things, I feel like it's one of those things where everybody has a different preference. Some clients feel like it's easiest to not have a transaction fee at all and pay through corporate overhead, like you pay for an expense. Nobody charges a transaction fee to do an expense report, at least not many that I know. But when you decide to show the travelers the fee, and you got to pick something, travelers, right or wrong, want the simplest fee structure possible: per trip, per ticket. Either one's better than what most have today, which is a laundry list of all these things: I called, I emailed, I called after hours, I called during the day, I booked online and then touched, whatever. Like, there are just too many of them. And whether you decide you want a simpler fee structure that's per trip or a simpler fee structure some other way, that's going to get your travelers' attention. Because they don't like all the fees. It's loud. We do hundreds of traveler interviews every quarter, and that's one common feedback.
49:40 Shannon Marvin
Well, we're coming up on time. It's been a really great conversation. I know we got started a little bit late. We did have a question in the chat about whether or not this was going to be available for recording, which it is. We will make sure we get that, make that available to all the attendees.
We really want to thank all of our panelists for the real talk and insights. Thank you for sticking with us today as we worked out our technical difficulties, and thanks to everyone who joined us. If we didn't get to your question, we'll do our best to follow up after the session.
So please keep an eye out for the webinar replay and any future events from AmTrav. All right. So thank you again, everyone, and until next time, happy travels.
50:26 Jackie Collins
Thank you. Bye, bye.
50:27 Louise Miller
Thanks, everybody.
50:28 Shannon Marvin
Bye.
Shannon Marvin
