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Case Study: Travel

This leading global travel conglomerate with rooms at more than 70,000 properties around the world has relied on Working Solutions for almost a decade to fill heavy periodic travel cycles and year-round peak demand.

The Challenge

As a company that relies on knowledgeable and experienced travel specialists to book hotel rooms and other travel needs for online customers all over the world, the client wanted to ensure their current levels of quality, equivalent sales success rate and average order value were maintained during times of increased call volume.

One of the company’s key objectives was to maintain the current in-house staff that was already utilized year-round, while avoiding the annual expense of recruiting and paying additional full-time staff to meet the fluctuating call volume. The decision was made to augment existing in-house staff with travel specialists who could be used solely for seasonal travel coverage and year-round peak volume. These travel specialists would need industry experience to provide the same expertise as in-house staff with service seamless with that of the company’s in-house staff. After considering and deploying a number of outsourcing options, including offshore/nearshore, remote/home agent and blended solutions, the company consolidated operations and moved the majority of the outsourced agents to Working Solutions.

Working Solutions’ experienced staff worked closely with the company to outline an implementation plan that would meet the company’s unique needs. By providing experienced Travel Agents OnDemand, Working Solutions supplied the ability to staff to demand while maintaining the company’s service levels and sales success. Because the agents had industry experience, preparation time was shortened, creating additional value for the company.

The Solution

Working Solutions is a better value than any other outsourcer. In fact, using their travel specialists is a better value than using our own staff. They are a perfect solution to our overflow needs. Lead Executive

While the travel company had prior knowledge of Working Solutions and its Agents OnDemand, and knew that Travel Agents OnDemand were specifically educated in the travel industry, they were not sure if the home-based model would meet their needs. The industry leadership at Working Solutions developed a customized six-month trial solution which demonstrated:

• Reduced costs compared to their in-house agents
• Increased revenue per hour
• The intrinsic flexibility of Working Solutions’ business model
• The exceptionally high quality of Travel Agents OnDemand
• A passionate commitment to total customer satisfaction

In preparation for this project, specialists were prepared using role-playing techniques to ensure they were effectively asking for sales and maximizing opportunities to cross-sell on every call. To reward the specialists for using these techniques, each was paid a commission based on call effectiveness, a cost structure beneficial to all parties involved. As a result of this innovative strategy, the revenue per hour generated by Working Solutions’ Travel Agents OnDemand was and continues to be equivalent with that of the in-house specialists.

The Result

Using Travel Agents OnDemand from Working Solutions has been a complete success for the company. They consider Working Solutions a dynamic partner in their strategic plan for excellence in customer service.

The agent pay structure for this project continues to be hourly, plus commission – a “pay-for-performance” plan that rewards specialists for exceptional service, as well as benefitting the company.

The alternative home-based specialist model worked so well for the travel company that they increased the number of travel specialists used to meet peak demand to several hundred specialists.

The travel company’s partnership with Working Solutions to provide superior customer care to their clients has grown over the years, and continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of the company’s clients.

Working Solutions continues to provide the travel company with superior agents, increased hourly revenue and scheduling flexibility to match the elasticity of their call volume – all this at a lower cost than their in-house agents.