For many business travelers, organizing a trip might start with some research on flights and hotels, and finish with a booking for both. When required, flights and accommodation are essential components of a traveler's business trip, but what about their travel once they touch down? And what about trips that don’t involve a flight? More business travel happens on the ground than in the air, but are travelers and travel managers giving ground transport enough thought?

A travel management company, like Egencia, can help your business manage every aspect of its travel program. Our global platform makes booking and amending flights and hotels simple. And, it does the same with ground transportation. With a dedicated booking tool within the platform, and an average of 5% off all published rates on Egencia preferred suppliers globally, we have made car rental more straightforward and cost-effective for businesses.

Putting your company’s travelers in the driving seat

Our single, comprehensive platform allows travelers to book flights, accommodation, and car rental all in one place. And what’s more, they can book and manage their business travel through a desktop, tablet or via the Egencia app from wherever they are; they can even start making a booking on one device and complete it on another.

When choosing how best to travel on the ground, travelers can use the platform to help make informed decisions. If cost is a consideration, whether as part of their company’s overall cost-conscious culture or, more explicitly, as part of the company’s travel policy, the Egencia platform gets travelers the information they need to make wise choices. Travelers can compare offers from different suppliers, including negotiated rates, through a user-friendly display that includes information on factors such as price and additional charges.

Your travelers also have access to amenities like snow tires and GPS navigation systems to help support smooth travel. And the convenience of a delivery and collect feature, which allows them to pick up and drop off at different desired locations.

Travelers can also make changes to their car rental after booking. Using our platform, they can amend and reschedule with just a few clicks. This function helps travelers to stay on top of their travel, and also gives travel managers the peace of mind that their travelers are supported at home and on the road.

Steering your business travel the right way

Consider the person in charge of procurement and purchasing at your company. How do they approach their decision making? No doubt, they're greatly influenced by price and efficiency when assessing every purchase they oversee.

So, what if your company’s procurement specialist helped evaluate your travel program, what would they find? Potentially they may discover a lack of consistency between the way air travel, accommodation and ground transportation, like car rental, is booked and managed in your current program, with some areas running more effectively than others.

A travel management company, like Egencia, can provide your company with all the options they need in one place. Now, your procurement specialist is happy as they don’t need to look for multiple solutions to support their colleagues to travel for business. And you, as a travel manager, can keep things simple and efficient.

Driving change for business travel managers

With the Egencia car rental solution, you can empower your employees to manage their journeys over land, while you learn from the way they travel, through their data. Our platform lets you keep track of your travel spend through the innovative, easy-to-use Egencia Analytics Studio. There you can use data to help you forecast travel spend, plan your travel budget, and identify savings opportunities.

As a global travel management company, Egencia has a worldwide reach when it comes to travel options, customer support, and access. However, we also work hard to stay locally relevant and have strong supply ties present in a vast number of locations to help us provide the best value car rental service.

Travel managers with Egencia have all the tools they need to empower their travelers to rent a car with confidence. These include flexible payment options, like the lodge card and direct billing. Options that support travelers to manage their own travel spend and expenses within the platform, without having to collect piles of paper receipts and payment details. A huge benefit for travel managers, who would be churning through hours to sift through receipts otherwise.  

Travel managers with Egencia, are safe in the knowledge that our platform will help their travelers manage their own timetable, comfort, and spend.

The Egencia effect on your bottom line

Let’s imagine two of your business development executives are scheduled to visit a client based in South Bend, Indiana. Given that South Bend is a small city with only a few flights a day, you advise them to fly from their base in San Francisco to Chicago and use a rental car for the final leg. That car will be essential to get around South Bend and gives them the option of dropping in on a prospect located en route, in Gary.

At San Francisco, they encounter flight delays. They contact customer service only to discover that no change in the car booking is needed. A car rental booking on our platform includes the flight code, so the rental company is automatically updated with their new ETA.

Your business development execs saved a huge amount of fuss by traveling with Egencia, and they’re happy travelers. What’s more, they’re loyal and feeling engaged with your company, safe in the knowledge that their comfort and welfare is a business priority.

Even when one of the execs receives a promotion a few months later, which includes relocation, their experience remains the same. The Egencia platform allows for a globally consistent experience for travelers and travel managers, no matter where they’re based.

The benefits in brief

Booking and amending rental cars for business travel has never been more straightforward. Here’s a reminder of the key benefits that you and your travelers can enjoy with Egencia:

• A dedicated portal, accessible from any device, which shows multiple options from different suppliers. Travelers can easily compare offers before choosing the one that best suits their needs and your travel policy.
• An average of 5% off published rates, helping you maximize your travel investments.
• A single source for both individual bookings and consolidated car rental data which has a robust data analytics facility to personalize choices for travelers (and allows managers to identify usage trends and find opportunities for future savings).

Read more about car rental trends for business travel.