Airlines Getting Stricter On Business Travel

Reuters reported yesterday that airlines are going to be cutting corporate discounts or pulling contracts if businesses fail to meet their air travel commitments.

Preferred rates are negotiated with the expectation of a certain level of sales delivered. Aggressively pulling back on the discounts or contracts is new, but reflects the imperatives of today's economic environment.

For businesses, this will create a challenge. Cutting back travel will save money on travel expenses yet compromise preferred contracts. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. Corporate travel will increasingly be viewed with more scrutiny, heightening the importance of reporting tools.

At Jupiter, we are spending a lot of time talking about the impact of the economy on travel. This impact will be discussed in our upcoming US Travel Forecast. We�re also fielding the Frequent Business Traveler Survey in the next couple of weeks with the report scheduled for November. I suspect we'll see an increase in compliance policies, both for booking with the selected provider and preferred airline.

New Report Demonstrates Evidence of Significant ROI from Well-integrated Email and Online Self-service

Today we published "Online Self-Service Case Study: Carfax Cuts Support Costs and Raises Quality Through E-mail Deflection" which outlines the tactics CarFax has leveraged to reduce TCO of email and online self-service by 49 percent. Since deploying this integrated offering in 2001, Carfax has experienced dramatic and sustainable improvements in response quality, agent tenure and overall operational costs, among other benefits.

Read the report to find out how CarFax has been so successful.

Multichannel Customer Service in Retail Sector - Trends, Innovations & Best Practices

Please join me for a webinar on September 23 entitled: "Multichannel Customer Service in Retail Sector &mdash Trends, Innovations & Best Practices"

Retail sales around the world continue to grow and online commerce is growing at a faster clip. In the US alone, Forrester projects that online commerce will grow 21% to $204B in 2008, compared to 2007. European retail sales increased 58% in 2007, compared to 2006, and the trend is expected to continue in 2008. However, the retail industry is also one of the most competitive industry sectors, affected by economic cycles and cut-throat competition. The hypercompetitive business environment and the growing use of emerging communication channels such as web self-service, email, chat, SMS, web collaboration and kiosks, in tandem with the traditional phone channel and retail stores mandate that retail businesses provide superior and seamless customer service experiences within and across channels and across the customer lifecycle. And at the same time, they must do more with less in order to sustain operating margins. What are the latest trends, innovations and best practices in multichannel customer service? How can you do more with less in customer service?

Join us for a live online seminar, featuring Zach McGeary, Associate Analyst of JupiterResearch and Don Muchow, Senior Solutions Consultant of eGain Communications Corporation to learn how. Attendees will learn about:

Trends in consumer adoption of interaction channels and customer satisfaction in the retail sector

The current state of multichannel customer service, email and web self-service in the retail sector, as measured by benchmark studies conducted in North America and the UK

Innovations and best practices to provide superior multichannel customer service

For more information, or to register, click here.

Hotels.com Launches Photo Filters for Accommodation Recommendations

Hotels.com has launched a new feature called Visualiser that will generate hotel suggestions based on a range of images travelers have selected on topics such as the type of trip they want, how they want to feel, what a fun evening is, etc.

The system was quick, easy to use, and intuitive. My first attempt had some unsual recommendations: I searched for a beach holiday and was surprised to have San Francisco listed as an option. The neighborhood of North Beach was recommended (perhaps this is the logic that put San Francisco on a beach list). The hotel I was recommended was surprisingly not in located in San Francisco but instead in Redwood City.

Subsequent searches garnered much more relevant searches. It is an inexplicable programming truth that an analyst or journalist will always unearth the last glitch.

Overall, I like the idea of using photographs to filter. People have some emotional aspiration with their leisure travel, and it is an interesting way to use photographs to identify those aspirations.

United Airlines retreats on eliminating transatlantic meals

Earlier this summer, United Airlines announced plans to stop providing meals to coach passengers on its transatlantic flights. Today, the airline emailed its customers to advise that they had changed their mind based on the feedback they'd received.

United Airlines is positioning this as responding to what travelers value. You may not be a fan a airline food. But if your flying from San Francisco to Frankfurt, a box of microwaved chicken looks a lot better than the Starbucks egg salad sandwich that has been in your carry-on for 10 hours.

I don't blame United for trying to eliminate transatlantic meals. Cost cutting is essential right now. I don't know if they had any focus groups prior to the initial announcement. But it is somehow reassuring to know that passengers out cried and United listened.

Starwood Preferred Guest Takes To the Skies

Starwood's loyalty program, Starwood Preferred Guest, has allowed members to transfer SPG to airline loyalty programs, which has been useful if not occasionally cumbersome benefit. However, now the program has gotten even better — SPG points can be used to book flights directly on www.spg.com/flights.

It gets better: there are no black out dates. On my first try comparing SPG Flights to an airline site, I found SPG offered several loyalty point options while the identical route on the airline's Web site indicated there were no loyalty point flights available.

And, it gets better still: While airline redemption programs impose fees on airline mile redemption flights, SPG Flights redemption includes taxes and booking fees in the price of the flight.

This is great news for travelers, the savviest of whom should be signing up for Starwood American Express cards from their desks in the Sheraton. It is also interesting for the travel industry — the most competitive loyalty program to book flights is now run by a hotel.