Mantic Point

Mantic Point and iJet join forces

2014-06-21T12:06:00.001+01:00

NEXT GENERATION RISK MANAGEMENT

iJET INTERNATIONAL CONTINUES GROWTH AND LEADERSHIP PROVIDING TRAVEL PARTNERS WITH CUSTOMIZED TRM SOLUTIONS

Leading with Innovative and Flexible Models to Meet Clients Ever Changing Needs

ANNAPOLIS, MD (June 12, 2014) – iJET International, Inc., a leading operational risk management solutions provider, announces the formation of a new strategic partnership with Mantic Point, a UK-based itinerary management solutions provider, focused on ‘powering’ the Mantic Point corporate duty of care platform with iJET’s best in class intelligence as well as supporting backend Hotline and Security Response capabilities for small to mid-tier travel management companies (TMCs) as well as their customer base.

“As the travel industry’s knowledge and responsibility for delivering travel risk management (TRM) solutions has grown, so too have the options by which companies can implement and procure TRM services. iJET is thrilled to continue our tradition of thought leadership and responsiveness to market changes by building on our ‘Powered by iJET’ model with Mantic Point,” says Bruce McIndoe, CEO and President of iJET.

The Mantic Point partnership is another milestone in a 15-year roadmap of successful travel industry partnerships. As the industry leader – iJET has been able to differentiate itself by offering customized partnership options that range from tiered referral and reseller programs to integrated and strategic partnerships – something that other providers are not able to offer. Additionally, the depth of iJET’s partnerships roster further validates the organization’s leadership and the strong value-add provided to clients.

“What makes iJET different is that our approach to every partnership is a shared understanding that what we are building is a solution and on-going relationship that is based on each company’s unique needs and go-to market strategy,” said Theresa Thomas, Vice President Travel Partnerships. “iJET wants to walk alongside our travel partners to deliver value in the TRM space, this new partnership with Mantic Point is another great example of how we are able to continue to deliver on that commitment.”

“iJET’s openness to a model that works within our existing business allows us to move quickly and offer additional value to clients in a shorter amount of time. Our clients expect best-in-class intelligence and the backend security services to support delivering an end-to-end TRM solution; iJET is the best partner to support this type of flexible approach. We win. They win. The clients win,” says Mike Atherton, CEO and co-founder, Mantic Point.

Supporting the varied travel partnerships is as critical as defining them. iJET has resources worldwide, across departments and at all levels in the organization that engage with our partner peers on a daily basis, from the C-level to dedicated account management and implementation teams. All travel channel support team members are committed to having an in-depth understanding of each partnership and the needs of their customers.

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About iJET International

iJET International (iJET) provides intelligence-driven, operational risk management solutions that enable multinational organizations to operate globally with confidence. iJET’s end-to-end, tailored solutions integrate world-class threat intelligence, innovative technology, and response services to help organizations mitigate risk and protect their people, assets, and reputation. Founded in 1999, iJET is a privately held company headquartered in Annapolis, US with regional offices in London, and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.iJET.com.

About Mantic Point:

Mantic Point provides integrated itinerary management services to the travel industry. It supports travel management companies (TMCs) and travel agents to deliver a seamless service experience to their corporate clients, and in turn to the individual business travellers. Follow Mantic Point online: Twitter: @manticpoint or www.manticpoint.com

FCm Secure with Mantic Point

2014-04-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

FCm Travel introduces new risk management service from Mantic Point

‘FCm Secure’ delivers enhanced travel risk management programme for the global TMC Itinerary management solutions provider, Mantic Point, has extended its relationship with FCm Travel Solutions by introducing a new suite of tools to boost its traveller safety services.

Mantic Point has developed the new ‘FCm Secure’ to provide FCm’s clients with a comprehensive portfolio of cost effective travel risk management (TRM) solutions that can be tailored to meet their specific needs.

FCm Secure uses iJET International’s iJET’s risk intelligence and global response hotline, in collaboration with FCm’s technology and operations. By doing so, it provides clients with a comprehensive portfolio of cost effective traveller safety solutions.

Charles Brossman, senior director of global TRM at FCm said: “FCm is investing heavily in the
development and roll-out of a global TRM programme with the expansion of FCm Secure.

We are working in partnership with Mantic Point and iJet International to create a triple-
tiered programme that offers a range of free and paid-for options, and we believe this level of choice will greatly appeal to our clients.”

The triple-tiered ‘FCm Secure’ programme is made up of the following:

• Secure Start: a zero-cost option for FCm customers that acts as a starting point for building a customer’s individual TRM programme. It includes itinerary-based traveller tracking; GPS/mobile based traveller tracking; FCm global crisis communications process via email and SMS; security alerts available to travellers via FCm’s portal (powered by Mantic Point); plus a colour-coded ‘risk map’ dashboard and subscription-based security alerts to travel managers (both powered by iJET).

• Secure Protect: a combination of the base, zero-cost Secure Start and additional paid features. Options include a communications feature giving client administrators the ability to send their own emails and SMS text messages to travellers from a traveller location report; trip briefing tied to itinerary and automated report distribution.

• Secure Outreach: a global response hotline available for clients that require crisis support above and beyond FCm’s regular after-hours emergency services. Eligible clients who purchase Secure Outreach have access to a hotline staffed 24/7 by iJET’s global response operations.

Adds Charles Brossman: “Our clients understand that TRM is something that must be proactively adopted, no matter what industry they work in or the size of their company. As a global TMC we need to make sure we continue to innovate and provide affordable TRM solutions for small, mid and larger companies. Clients will benefit from faster and more comprehensive crisis communications, which means travellers receive critical information faster.”

Mike Atherton, Mantic Point’s CEO said: “We are proud to be extending our relationship with FCm, in order to develop the enhanced FCm Secure travel risk management solution. By launching this new programme, FCm is able to provide its clients with superior travel risk intelligence and higher levels of response services, which can be completely relied upon when needed.”

Itinerary visualisation and traveller location

2014-03-23T20:46:00.000+00:00

Visualising itineraries with Traveller Location and Communication

We're launching our new itinerary visualisation and reporting tool. Our TMC customers and their clients can now see where their traveller are supposed to be, and for those that need it where their travellers actually are.

For travel managers or those responsible for risk management, the traveller tracking portal gives them targeted access to their itineraries and if need be the option to communicate with the traveller as well as see their last reported position. Fully integrated with the travellers mobile travel app, they can elect to "check-in" their location or for those special situations the mobile app can automatically update the travellers location to the travel managers portal to make sure the latest possible information is available.

As a tool provided and branded by their TMC it changes the service level conversation from "provide me with a report" to "I'll see what's happening now"

We then add to the visualisation by overlaying relevant, timely travel information, making sure the travel manager, traveller and TMC always have the latest information at their fingertips. Whether it be governmental advice or by integrating proprietary security information the travel manager has all their trip information needs in one place.

Portman Travel Case Study

2014-03-20T13:10:00.000+00:00

Portman Travel describe the value of working with Mantic Point

Mantic Point provide Portman Travel with its post booking itinerary management solution. Fully branded Portman Travel throughout it hands back control of the client and traveller communication experience, enhancing service and brand value.

Including document delivery (personalised email and online itineraries) mobile travel apps, traveller tracking, journey monitor and duty of care - all integrated into one seamless experience.

As part of the Travelport Developer Network we put together a short video of how and why we work together. I'd like to thank Travelport for producing the video and especially Adrian Parkes from Portman for sharing their experiences.

Mobile and Merchandising - mobile user survey

2014-03-11T15:55:00.001+00:00

How TMC's can make money post booking

For the TMC, being able to provide a mobile travel app with auto-itinerary updates, flight status and all the relevant information their travellers might need has moved from an aggressive differentiation strategy of a few years ago to an increasingly must have service strategy today.

After accepting the fact that they need to offer something a question I get asked all the time is - "How can we make money from this?"

We thought we'd ask real travellers who had recently used a mobile travel app to help manage their trip, if, when and how they would want to purchase additional travel products beyond the point of sale.

Mantic Point operates the Travelport ViewTrip Mobile service available free to Travelport's agencies and tightly integrated with the online viewtip.com service. In December 2013 we decided to ask over 4,000 of the viewtrip mobile subscribers what was most important to them about the service as well as mobile travel apps in general and how they prefer to purchase.

Along with this survey, Tnooz recently published a couple of articles that really reinforce how the TMC is leaving money on the table by not making it relevant and easy for the traveller to purchase both tradition travel items and a broad range of other travel revenues.

The first of these, reports survey results for how click to call (C2C) is becoming increasingly important in the travel sector. Good news for TMC's who've made investments in the consultant led experience. Tnooz reported that 32% of 1,500 traveler surveyed said they regularly used C2C to research services.

In our traveller survey we saw a significant increase in business travellers who want easy access to their travel consultant to make changes or additions to their itineraries. In 2012, when we first ran the survey, 71% of respondents wanted to be able to make those changes themselves online or via mobile. Just a year on this response has dropped to 62%, meaning 38% of travellers who want to talk to a real person to help them with their journey up from 29% just 12 months earlier.

We'll repeat our survey again again towards the end of 2014 and in subsequent years to build up a really detailed picture of travellers preferences and how they change over time.

The second Tnooz article builds on a report from the Harvard Business Review - Know what your customers want before they do - both reinforce our own survey findings about the rise of NBO - Next Best Offer

As Mantic Point focuses on post-booking merchandising, the definition used here for NBO's exclude point of sale up-selling, lots of travel firms already have successful strategies to maximise the value of the initial sale transaction. Our aim is to use itinerary, profile and contextual data to drive relevance into the post booking communication strategy that can drive incremental revenue.

Our algorithms describe the traveller persona based on the TMC's client base. Including client profile information, trip stage, appropriate delivery channel and the TMC's "traveller communication strategy" that correlates to which content needs to be served, by what channel and at what time.

Lets work through a real example. One segment type that is often not taken at point of sale is airport parking. The purchasing behaviour if often to leave this to later in the trip planning as the individual concentrates on booking the right trip, that fits with policy or business needs.

Airport operators and parking consolidators know this. One of our past airport operator clients once shared their "business traveller journey" strategy with us. Their key selling moment focused on the 3 to 5 day window prior to departure as this gave them the best conversion rate for new business. What airport operators and the like don't have is access to the itinerary to work out when are the best selling opportunities.

We worked with them on various ways of enticing the passenger to share their itinerary (in return for flight status tracking). We achieved a 4% conversion rate from mobile itineraries that didn't have a parking segment in them. Even at a basic affiliate level, this is new money to the agency, it doesn't cannibalise the consultant led selling experience and builds the traveller purchasing profile. Money currently left on the table.

Imagine this same approach extended to hotel attachment rate across the traveller community (something we're doing with one of our large TMC's - more in a later post)
Finally there are our results and behaviours from non-traditional merchandising revenue channels we operate. TMC's want to help manage clients costs. One of the ways we help is in reducing the costs their clients employees incur during travel - and make money for the TMC in the process.

We work with airport retailers to make targeted offers to passengers - mostly for airlines. Typically the offers are their to promote footfall into the retail concessions to get them spending money. We re-use this technology to send discount vouchers to travellers for commonly purchased items that fits the traveller and client profile - meaning lower expense claims. At the same time the airport retailers will pay for the privilege to offering the clients employees a way to spend less.

Our voucher delivery rates, charged to the airport retailer are £0.20 per voucher. For those of you who are familiar with mobile ad rates you'll know this is a stella rate. Why? Retailers will pay handsomely for blind access to premium profiles of people who are travelling through their airport. Again, new money not on the table for TMC's but waiting to be placed in their hands.

The conclusion must be that a holistic approach to post-booking itinerary management across multiple channels, sensitive to trip stage and profile can significantly alter the revenue performance of each booking.

Drop me a note if you'd like to know more about how Mantic Point make this happen.

Statesman Travel partners with Mantic Point to deliver integrated itinerary package for its travellers

2014-03-06T13:09:00.000+00:00

Statesman Travel Group, a London-based travel management company, has partnered with Mantic Point, to introduce a brand new integrated itinerary management solution for the benefit of its travellers.

Via the iTIM (Integrated Traveller Itinerary Management) platform, Statesman Travel will deliver a fully-branded, consistent and contextual experience across mobile, email, online and social media, meaning travellers can access the information they need for their journey, at any time, from any device.

The Mantic Point service also includes a ‘Who’s Where’ module, which provides Statesman Travel with a corporate duty of care product. It is a traveller location and reporting tool, which, within a few clicks, enables Statesman Travel’s clients to track travelling employees and send and receive direct messages between travel managers, bookers and travellers.

Mervyn Williamson, Joint-Managing Director of Statesman Travel Group said: “We provide a full range of travel management services tailored to the specific needs of both corporate and private clients. By integrating Mantic Point’s iTIM platform, we are able to provide our clients with a consistent way of accessing travel itinerary data, regardless of whether they are on a desktop, tablet or smartphone.

The added advantage of the Who’s Where module also means we can provide an unrivalled duty of care service, so our clients can fully track their travelling employees and ensure their safety. It will also give our Travel Teams up to the minute updates on flight delays and cancellations, allowing us to proactively hold flights on behalf of our travellers, extending our personal service approach.”

The iTIM platform also provides a number of useful supporting features that travellers can access via a Statesman Travel-branded smartphone app, such as the ability to ‘check in’, flight status notifications, updates to their planned itinerary, plus international airport guides, currency conversion tools and access to localised weather forecasts.

Added Mike Atherton, Mantic Point’s CEO: “We are proud to be supporting Statesman Travel with delivering an innovative itinerary management solution that will meet the needs of its clients, both today and in the future. By rolling out the iTIM solution, Statesman Travel is able to deliver a highly proactive and efficient service, in a consistent and relevant way, which is easy to navigate regardless of whether the traveller is using a web-browser on their PC, or an app on their mobile Tablet or phone.”

Established in 1975, Statesman Travel is a top 20 Travel Management Company, who specialise in the provision of travel services in the Media, Communications and Finance sectors. At the end of 2013 Statesman was the only travel management company to be listed on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list, recognising the company as one of the UK’s 100 fastest growing businesses over the last three years.

For further information on Mantic Point, visit www.manticpoint.com. For further information on Statesman Travel, visit www.statesmantravel.com

Duty of Care - Travel Advisories

2014-02-27T16:41:00.000+00:00

Make sure your clients and travellers have the latest travel advisory information.

We're adding new functionality to our Duty of Care and Traveller Tracking solutions to ensure the client fulfils their employee responsibilities and the traveller is fully prepared for their trip with timely, relevant travel advisory information delivered in the way they want to receive it.

We aggregate travel content from your preferred source and alert travellers, travel managers and risk managers when advice or security threat levels change. Using the TMC or client rules to make sure travellers are kept informed with relevant, timely information without adding any consultant workload.

Even when things run smoothly the client can be assured that their employee has all the relevant information they need without any manual intervention from the client or TMC - service just happens.

Servicing your Client’s Travellers Better with Apps

2014-01-31T15:05:00.001+00:00

Travel Technology Europe

4-5 February 2014, Earls Court – London

With February’s arrival, we see the onset of the ‘Travel Technology Europe’ show at Earls Court.

Our very own Tod Lockard is looking forward to being involved in the Conference schedule, and in particular in a panel debate that will discuss the topic of “Servicing your client’s travellers better with apps”.

The session, which takes place on 4^th February at 10:15am in the Business Travel Technology Theatre, will discuss a range of topics, including the use of apps the overall travel management experience; whether you should develop your own app or use a third-party provider; does ceding control to the traveller reduces a TMC’s influence; how to reconcile apps that are good for travellers with those that work for corporates; and where app development is and to review the associated costs.

Tod will be providing his views on how adopting a multi-channel approach to the way in which bookings are managed provides customers and travellers with a more consistent, yet flexible way of accessing relevant travel data – whether its online, email, via mobile apps or even through social media.

The session is being moderated by Business Travel Wire’s Mark Frary, and as well as Tod, also involves representatives from Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Mubaloo.

To find out more details about the exhibition and conference schedule, visit http://www.traveltechnologyshow.com/conference/conference_2014.aspx

When: Tuesday 4 February

Time: 10:15am

Where: Business Travel Technology Theatre, Earls Court

Say hello to Tod

2014-01-05T18:40:00.001+00:00

Tod Lockard joins the Mantic Point team

Highly experienced travel technology specialist appointed to direct growth programme

Tod joins the team having worked in the travel technology sector for almost twenty years in various senior positions, in addition to working within blue-chip organisations at Vice President and Director level, including American Express and HSBC.

With our recording record year-on-year sales for 2012/2013, Tod’s remit is to further increase the adoption of Mantic Point’s itinerary management platform with travel management and travel agency clients across the globe.

It’s great to welcome Tod Lockard to Mantic Point. Tod is extremely well known in the travel technology sector, having worked with a number of competing operators as well as travel firms such as Carlson Companies and Delta Airlines. He will be instrumental in driving forward adoption of our multi-channel itinerary management platform, and further increasing our market share in this space.

Prior to joining Mantic Point, Tod was VP Sales, Customers and Chief Marketing Officer at conTgo. He also held the position of General Manager for HSBC Technology and Services for three years and was Vice President EMEA at American Express where he spent two years implementing and leading a client-facing transformation programme across EMEA. In addition to this, Tod held senior positions in travel tech firms including Sabre and GetThere.

Added Tod Lockard: “I have a great deal of experience in helping shape and grow businesses not only in this sector, but with blue-chip operations. Mantic Point is a business that is poised for real growth: its technology platform is solid, it has a prestigious customer list and the future development roadmap is extremely exciting. Its technology will really help shape the way travel management companies and agencies communicate with their customers, in order to deliver a better overall travel experience; I relish the challenge of growing the business with the Mantic Point team.”

Mantic Point Travel Messenger

2014-01-05T16:43:00.001+00:00

FIND, COMMUNICATE & ASSIST YOUR TRAVELLERS

Monitoring incidents globally is an essential component of your risk assessment and traveller communication strategy. To effectively support your travellers you need to identify those most impacted by unplanned disruption. What follows is the need to target those travellers with key information based on what’s happening around them and to assist them to make the right next step.

The Mantic Point Travel Messenger helps to ensure you are always in control of the communication channel and supporting your incident management process with timely, relevant and targeted support.

Targeted itineraries are represented on an dynamic map interface making it easy to quickly pinpoint a travellers position. Filter by PNR segment so you only see those travellers who need assistance now. Clear colour coded displays highlighting countries, cities and any geolocation such as airports, carriers, hotels etc make it easy to determine a travellers status along with their complete itinerary at the click of a button.

Travel data within Mantic Point’s Travel Messenger is automated across GDS and mid-office systems ensuring users always have the latest information.

Communicate with travellers at any time using mobile apps, SMS or by email. One way or two way messaging provides feeback and updates a traveller’s status overlayed on their itinerary on the online map view.

Mantic Point’s Travel Messenger optimises workflow for incident management, delivering real productivity savings by making the disruption communication process faster and more cost efficient.

Traveller Tracking

2014-01-04T15:34:00.003+00:00

Do you clients need to know?

Mantic Point recently launched a number of new tools for TMC's to provide to their clients who are interested in the real time reporting of their employee itineraries and actual location.

The Traveller Tracking service provides secure, self-service access to the travel manager to visualise and report their traveller itineraries.

Using GPS and cell based mobile location the travel manager can drill down into the map based itinerary to locate and communicate with the traveller.

Additionally they can request the traveller update their actual location via their mobile app and display it against their booked itinerary.

Should an incident occur that requires the company's employees to take action the travel manager can simply filter those likely to be affected, display their booked and actual location and pass on to them the information they need to reach safety.

The Traveller Tracking product is fully integrated with Mantic Point's iTIM platform and Travel Messenger which means the TMC can white label the service and provide it to their chosen clients as part of their total service offering or as an additional revenue generating item.

Customer Communications: How to Take Control in an Emergency

2013-11-12T20:49:00.000+00:00

When an emergency situation occurs in a business, by the very nature of the event, it is unplanned. It can absorb a great deal of team resources and energy to rectify the issue as contingency plans are put into action.

As the public ‘face’ of any business, close scrutiny ultimately falls on the customer service function however, as the way in which the situation is communicated can have a major impact on how the company is perceived, customer loyalty and other such factors.

For example, if a mobile network operator experiences an outage, customers are understandably frustrated and want to know when the service will resume, what created the issue and what has been done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

If the external communications aren’t handled in a proactive way, it creates significant inefficiencies as the customer support team is tasked with handling the many varied inbound enquiries, and frustrations quickly escalate. And, in today’s digital world, this isn’t just in the form of telephone communications, but multi-channel – so, phone, email, online and social media interactions – all requiring a prompt and relevant response.

By operating in a reactive way, it creates a major impact on staff productivity who are instead removed from providing proactive support or even generating new sales, to instead fire-fighting. Retaining control when an unplanned situation occurs is therefore vital, and the way in which many organisations are doing this today is through harnessing technology to support the communications process.

We specialise in the travel industry and when major delays occur with airlines or operators, it is vital that they are able to proactively communicate to their travelling clients. During periods of mass disruption the number one complaint from airline passengers is: "The airline / airport didn't keep me informed."

In the digital age, when the mobile phone is one of four essential items carried by passengers (the others being keys, money, and travel documents) it makes sense to embrace this technology to improve passenger communication and aid disruption management.
Most communication systems talk about being ‘multi-channel’ – this means that they can send content via email, SMS text or apps for example in a parallel method or sequentially in a progressive fashion. What this means for the end user is they receive the same message multiple times. This can potentially risk ‘end user overload’ and create annoyance, not to mention the increasing cost when you consider most of the messages are wasted.

"It is better to alert customers in advance of any issues so they are reassured of the steps being taken"

What is important is to employ the use of a system that enables ‘cross-channel’ communication. Using a ‘decision rules engine’, it allows organisations to send targeted and relevant messages to an appropriate channel, based on end user preferences and responses. This means the end user is engaged in a ‘conversation’ that is not only sensitive to what has gone before, but prompts the end user on what to do next. This avoids bombarding them and makes every communication matter. It also helps save the organisation money by reducing redundant communications.

One example of this is when the volcanic ash cloud closed much of Europe’s airspace for six days, affecting hundreds of thousands of travellers. For many stranded travellers, mobile was their only means of communication and with travel companies call centres stretched beyond capacity, airlines and travel companies turned to cross-channel communications to send out over 100,000 personalised messages containing advice designed to inform, reassure and ultimately help travellers get home.

The technology is able to target specific messages to travellers, based on criteria including their location, the traveller’s intended flight and when they were due to depart. Replies could also be received via the system, so travellers could request help or ask further information. The inbound enquiries could then be routed through a secure, online portal to travel company customer service advisors, who could respond directly to the customer.

During periods of disruption or emergency, the mobile phone today becomes the primary communication tool for individuals who are on the move. If you compare this to the previous methods that an airline could have employed to notify passengers delayed by the ash cloud, and you would have seen staff attempting to print out the latest information, creating 1,000s of photocopies, and then distributing the information by hand.

Of course, by the time this information reaches passengers it is often out of date. However, with the mobile, customer service teams can now direct messages to groups of passengers in real-time, providing far more control at often difficult times.

What is important to remember is that customers often associate a lack of information with a loss of control and this can cause them to become frustrated, stressed and generate a bad feeling. Organisations can help reduce such stress levels by proactively informing customers in advance of any issues using a cross-channel technology approach.

Working on the basis that forewarned is forearmed, it is better to alert customers in advance of any issues so they are reassured of the steps being taken. Ultimately, implementing a simple cross-channel communication system to proactively outreach to customers via mobile, email, web or phone should be a priority for all organisations that want to take complete proactive control of their customer communications.

The benefits of a consistent journey

2013-11-12T20:24:00.002+00:00

Understanding your offering from your customer’s perspective is the foundation of good customer service. Empathising with your customers and understanding how their needs change, depending on where they are and what they’re doing, is key to delivering services that are relevant and valued.

The corporate travel industry provides perfect case study examples of companies communicating consistently and in a timely way to groups of customers, using the most appropriate channels.

A ‘whole journey positive experience’ begins with the customer booking a trip, through providing timely updates on check in times and timetable changes; retail discounts and venue recommendations during the journey; proactive duty of care in the event that travel is disrupted and timely follow-up after the trip.

It is crucial for travel management companies (TMCs) to appreciate how customers consume information at different stages of their journey to enable them to provide consistent service, over the appropriate channel. For example, before setting off, travellers are likely to check their travel details on desktops or tablet devices. En route to the airport they are likely to use their smart phones to check for emails, texts, or social network updates alerting them to traffic jams, train stoppages, or delayed flights.

In the event of travel disruptions, customers will automatically turn to the call centre, airline website or social media sites for the latest news. Once they have arrived at their destination, corporate travellers are more likely to use tablet devices on the hotel WiFi, in conjunction with their smartphones.

The number of contact points throughout this customer journey can be therefore be varied, yet the expectation is for the traveller to receive the same consistent service levels, regardless of the chosen mode of contact.

Therefore, TMCs and agents must be ready to push relevant information out over the most appropriate channels and, crucially, at the right point in the customer’s journey. By keeping this journey in mind, clients feel their journey has been well planned and the agent has their best interests at heart.

Travel confirmation reminders can be delivered over email and SMS in the days before the customer departs. Route changes or delays can be texted in the two hours before check in opens. Retail discounts for airport outlets can be pushed out over SMS in the two hours between check in and departure. Three to five hours after departure an SMS and email containing directions to the hotel and recommendations for local restaurants and shopping venues can be sent to customers’ smartphones.

TMCs and agents can even help customers to save money, by alerting them to available discounts in nearby outlets. For example, Bristol International Airport discovered that, on average, travellers spent 50% more in its tax and duty free store if they received an SMS containing a discount code between check in and departure times.

Using the appropriate channel

Portman Travel has taken an holistic approach to delivering itinerary information to its corporate travel customers, in a way that they can easily consume while they are in transit. Portman has used an integrated multichannel approach to take control back from global distribution systems and back office providers. Each touch point with the client and travellers supports Portman’s contact and business strategy and delivers a better quality experience for customers. A key part of this strategy is Portman’s ability to get the latest itinerary into travellers’ hands while they are travelling.

At the centre of Portman’s platform is a sophisticated rules engine that aggregates travel and itinerary data from multiple sources into a single view of the business traveller’s journey. The same data feeds into the system’s duty of care and risk management tools, so that consistent information is delivered to travel management staff, corporate travel bookers and travellers.

A major difference in Portman’s delivery of the whole journey customer experience is that communication is not restricted to the mobile channel. The travel management company uses an integrated technology platform to define the service experience that they want for each customer group. Once the service experience is selected, content is cascaded to relevant groups. Travellers have up to date itinerary and related travel policy information easily to hand on their mobiles and via other channels such as email, text, mobile websites and social media, as appropriate.

The client and traveller are supported throughout the trip with reliable information, delivered while they are on the move. Whichever way the traveller wishes to access information, the content, branding and experience fit together into a consistent Portman approach, from the initial booking, to the first day back in the office after a successful business trip.

Integrated, customer-defined services allow TMCs to increase the level of personalisation that they provide to business travellers. TMCs can also be more proactive in their duty of care procedures in the event that travel is disrupted for a particular group of travellers, or if individuals have a personal emergency during their trip.

Customer service managers in all industries have to stay abreast of new communication channels that increase the points at which customers can interact with their brand. It is vital to remain flexible and able to integrate new touch points into the customer service strategy. In the travel industry, we have seen that integrating multiple data sources into a single itinerary view allows corporate travel bookers and TMCs to organise the flow of vital travel information to their travellers over the most appropriate channels. This “Front to End” approach to customer service provides access to timely information with the minimum of fuss and delivers a more positive experience for business travellers, from initial booking through to returning safely home.

Mantic Point launches OpenItinerary Nexus

2013-08-01T19:41:00.003+01:00

Mantic Point launches OpenItinerary Nexus

Centralising travel data from multiple sources into one central resource: simplifies travel data management for TMC’s and corporate buyers

Itinerary management solutions provider, Mantic Point, has launched OpenItinerary Nexus - a new service that allows business travel buyers to easily capture and manage travel data across booking multiple sources. Travel management companies (TMCs) and travellers will be able to create a single itinerary from travel booked via multiple sources, giving them and their travel booker better visibility across the entire trip.

Building on Mantic Point’s existing white label mobile apps, email, online and social itinerary tools (iTIM) as well as its duty of care and traveller tracking capabilities, OpenItinerary Nexus addresses the data gaps created by multiple Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and back/mid office systems. Corporations will have greater insight and control over their travel itineraries, while travel management companies (TMCs) will save time and be more proactive with their clients’ travel activity, allowing them to personalise service delivery and better manage and serve business travellers.

“This is a significant step forward in managed travel: OpenItinerary Nexus will help travellers have a better service experience and allow travel bookers and TMCs to be better organised in the flow of key travel data to their travellers,” said Mike Atherton, CEO of Mantic Point. “TMCs will be able to increase the level of personalisation, be more proactive with duty of care and provide complete visibility across their travel itineraries.”

At the centre of this new service is a sophisticated rules engine that aggregates travel and itinerary data from multiple sources. Whether a trip was booked in GDS, back or mid-office systems, the OpenItinerary Nexus collects and delivers a single view of business travel itineraries with mobile, online, email, social and tools to create a complete view of the travellers trip. The same aggregated data is used to populate Mantic Point’s duty of care and risk management tools. This ensures TMCs deliver consistent content and usability to their own operations staff as well as the traveller and travel booker.

OpenItinerary Nexus helps solve the problem of fragmented itinerary visibility for travel management companies, corporate clients and business travellers.

Who's Where

2013-05-10T18:46:00.001+01:00

"Who's Where" Mantic Point's new corporate duty of care product.

I thought I'd give a quick overview of our new traveller location and reporting tool for corporate customers and TMC's. Who's Where brings together the itinerary tracking and duty of care disruption management capabilities of our integrated traveller itinerary management platform (i-TIM) into a self service portal for the corporate buyer and TMC.

With just a few clicks the corporate buyer can see where their employees are, the status of their trip and have the ability send direct messages through to them. In addition they will be able to see all the messages sent by their TMC to ensure the right people are getting the right information at the right time.

As well as seeing where people are based on their itinerary the user can also list, print and download the information for use in other systems or for reporting. The service lets the user drill down to the region, country, by name or booking reference so they can get to the information they need easily and quickly. If its a common report they need then it's easy to save and re-run the report at any time.

The user can choose the type of trips taken by their travellers, whether its a flight, train, hotel etc or a combination of trip segments.

When the TMC or corporate client just want to see who's flying then the Whose Where product has it covered. Clicking on the Who's Flying button bring up a panel that lets the user select the country, airport, airline, traveller or booking reference to quickly get to what they want.

The Who's Where product is available as part of the i-TIM product suite and for Travelport agencies who take the white label version of ViewTrip Mobile.

Mantic Point Announces Record Quarter

2013-05-08T11:49:00.001+01:00

We are proud to announce that we have closed our best quarter ever, with revenues growing by 210% compared to 2012. For the period ending 31st Match 2013, the quarter-on-quarter revenue increased by over 70%.

Part of this increased momentum was due to signing new customers in the travel management and travel agency markets who have selected our itinerary management software to achieve new levels of service for their corporate customers and business travellers.

The latest set of results are testimony to our continued investment and innovation in travel itinerary management; we are at the forefront of delivering the critical enterprise functionality demanded by TMC’s and travel agencies around the world.

Latest innovations include the release of our integrated Traveller Itinerary Management system, i-TIM, and our continued development of the Duty of Care product for airline carriers. It is gratifying to see the positive reaction we continue to receive both from our TMC customers and from the wider agency community.

The interest in i-TIM has been phenomenal. Launched in Q1 we already have live customers for this product from around the world and we've been incredibly pleased by the demand for information from TMC’s and our partners.

Portman go mobile with Mantic

2013-05-06T15:09:00.001+01:00

We've been working for some months now with Portman Travel delivering their new itinerary management product, the Portman Trip Planner, based on our i-TIM platform. Portman faced the same challenges other TMC's have in how to solve the industry's disjointed approach to delivering traveller itineraries.

I've talked before about how the traditional silo approach by travel technology providers has left the TMC, corporate customer and traveller with a plethora of different tools that makes the job of the TMC ever more difficult in delivering a consistent, relevant and timely brand and content experience to the traveller.

That's why I was so pleased when I met the folks at Portman Travel. Their vision of a consistent and holistic approach to getting their corporate clients the itinerary information their travellers need, in a way they can connect with and consume easily was refreshing.

It seems to me Portman's objective is to rest control back from the GDS and back office providers so each touch point with the client and traveller supports Portman's contact and business strategy.

A key part of this strategy is to get the itinerary into the travellers hand when travelling. The i-TIM platform let's the TMC define the service experience they want for their customers, or customer grouping. Defining experience by cascading content down to relevant groups means the traveller has all the itinerary and related travel policy information easily to hand on their mobile. A supporting part to this and one often overlooked is the impact on the travel consultant work flow and productivity. As a zero touch process the travel consultant can get the itinerary out to the traveller without extra calls on their time.

Oh I hear you say - lots of other providers have a mobile itinerary app - and to a certain extent you're right. However they often force the TMC to accept their vision of what the TMC should provide to their customer. Also they often stop at mobile leaving the TMC to handle other channels differently and we're back to the silo approach.

This is where our view of the integrated part of traveller itinerary management comes to the fore. In the Portman Travel case the mobile apps are one crucial part of an overall service experience that covers email, online and a duty of care strategy that supports the client and the traveller throughout the trip.

Whichever way the traveller wishes to access their travel information the experience, branding, and content fits together into a consistent Portman approach.

Mobile travel - where next?

2013-03-12T14:57:00.000+00:00

We've been doing some work recently on where we see the evolution of mobile in travel and strangely enough most of it is not in mobile itself but more how mobile fits into the wider, expanded view of the traveller experience. It's a huge topic so lets put some context around it. There seems to be two camps forming on how organisations, small and large, view mobile travel. The first wants to sell you something, see the channel as a convenience tool and an extension of their online presence, companies like Kayak, Expedia and numerous others.

The other camp are using mobile as a service extension - they already have the travellers money and in the ever increasing drive to provide more service differentiation (to protect their margins) they want to add a mobile experience into their service mix. An example of this is the soon to be launched post booking mobile travel tool we're supplying to Flight Centre's FCm and Corporate Traveller brands.

As an aside, it's interesting to talk to these organisations as even though they have a vision in mind (sell or service) they all want to have a piece of the other camps action - but not from day 1.

As a technology service provider to the travel industry we're firmly in the second camp - providing reliable, relevant trip based information to travellers on the move. When we've asked the travellers that use our services (under our customer/brands name) we find the most positive response when we are helping the traveller access timely, relevant information with the minimum of fuss.

When we do help our customer/brands sell via mobile, its always upselling items missing off the traveller itinerary or by understanding their itinerary and location then showing them how they can save money wherever they are (in the process making money for the travel provider)

But is all this focus on mobile and smartphones really hitting the key issues facing travel brands and how they deliver itinerary services to their customers?

If we take a step back and look at the wider traveller experience of accessing their travel information from their provider, then the mobile experience must be just one component, albeit an important one, in the overall service mix. As a traveller I might want to check the status of my trip with my provider at my desk, on the move via my smartphone or tablet, by email, online or my social networks. Basically as a traveller I want to be able to access my travel information, at will and by any method that works for me right now.

Not that radical a view really? Can't traveller do this already? Well yes to a certain extent, but when you look at it from today's systems landscape with its mix of GDS, mid-office, home grown and frankly missing functionality you'd forgive the traveller from being confused at best or worse still giving up searching for their information. The patchwork of content, brand, workflow and usability offered by the traditional silo approach to the traveller means there is no integrated view of the travellers itinerary - from the traveller perspective.

So the work we've been doing with TMC's such as Portman Travel is to give the agency the type of control they need over the delivery of personalised, contextual itineraries to their clients and travellers. Our recently launched iTIM product suite (integrated traveller itinerary management) provides brand, content and client consistency for the traveller across mobile, email and online. Each channel has its own opportunities and constraints but the key is to have the consistency of user experience regardless of how the traveller accesses their information.

Getting back to the wider communication strategy another step forward is to combine the traveller itinerary delivery with the agency itinerary monitoring and duty of care responsibilities. As part of the iTIM product set the agency can be alerted to disrupted itineraries and deliver targeted ad-hoc messages to those affected straight from the Duty of Care portal. In a similar way to how easyJet proactively manage customer communication during disruptions, agencies can deliver a positive service experience by being one step ahead with disrupted communities of affected travellers or drill down to individual itineraries impacted by that disruption.

In this way the agency can bring together all the individual service elements into a holistic, traveller centric approach that supports both the traveller and agency operations.

What travellers want from their mobile app

2012-10-06T20:54:00.003+01:00

Vodafone Travel - UK travel app

There has been lots of press about what travellers want or need from their chosen travel app. For the last couple of years we've been working with Vodafone UK to deliver to their subscriber base a unique mobile operator travel app that aims to provide their roaming customers a useful an relevant mobile travel app service that no only helps them travel but alos access Vodafone help, customer service and roaming tariffs.

It's been a great success, with not surprisingly lots of Vodafone customers opting to subscribe to the service. So, we decided to ask them what they thought about the service and how it helped them when they were travelling.

Why did we do this?

There's certainly no lack of industry consultants, pundits and opinion leaders all giving their views on why mobile and travel are a match made in heaven. Every month there's a new analyst report or vendor infographic, but thats all from the inside, what do everyday travellers want and value. How can a mobile service make a difference and what features deliver something that actually helps.

We decided to ask those most important in the development of the mobile travel sector - the travellers themselves. A radical notion I know, but its how we develop products.

We asked 9 questions. The first question of course was "Overall how do you rate the service" You can see the users answers below;

79% of those that used the app thought it was useful or very useful on their journey, remember these are Vodafone high value customers, so not bad for a first launch.

We then went on to ask, what features were most useful?

Not surprisingly, the ability to have all your itinerary items on the phone, getting proactive flight status alerts and being able to check in for your flight via the apps were seen as the most useful features. But what also scored highly was the ability to check what the roaming tariffs would be for a particular country (don't want any surprises on the bill!) and content such as airport information, destination weather, guides and currency conversion rates.

For those operators wishing to increase their ARPU (apologies but this is a telco) the next question was really insightful. We asked if you buy travel products, hotels etc, through the app would you be likely to purchase these products. Wow, what a response, more than two thirds of those that responded said yes they would be prepared to purchase products via their travel app if he price was right or the offer was made at the right time. That's got to make a difference.

Social media is a big part of most peoples lives, even if they don't know it. But during travel do travellers want to be able to dip into their networks to share and get help? Most of the industry says this is a key future development. Vodafone UK's customers think differently. Almost 70% of travellers using the service don't want to share their plans, maybe tehy're to busy travelling?

The next question wanted to see how travellers see mobile promotions - annoying interrupts or useful ways of discovering whats available near them. We asked would Vodafone users be interested in getting discount vouchers from airport retailers when they're at the airport. We all know that the airport isn't the place to get a bargain but we all spend and spend and spend when we get airside at the airport. Good news for those interested in new revenue streams, over 77% of travellers would be happy to receive offers from airport retailers as long as it was relevant to them and it saved them money. I've mentioned in earlier posts how we can achieve over £150 CPM for advertising to airport retailers - so those who have large volumes of travellers can make money and get praised for doing so from their customers.

Other questions explored the usefulness of Vodafone tariff and customer service information - not surprisingly this type of service information was very welcome and warmly received.

So the summary is, yes travellers do find value in mobile travel apps, but the more personalised, contextual and relevant the more they continue to interact, enjoy and spend.

Managing corporate travel content and branding

2012-09-06T11:09:00.000+01:00

Using Mantic Point's white label itinerary management solution lets you cascade and manage corporate customer branding.

Mantic Point's white label itinerary management platform lets travel agencies and TMC's take back control over the travellers experience from the moment their booking is completed and throughout the period of travel.

Multi-channel and multi-GDS the platform lets the agency style and manage content across email, online itinerary views and mobile to give the traveller a consistent brand, user experience and access to content to support them on their trip.

But the white label model doesn't stop at the agencies brand. The agency can choose to cascade the white label service down to their corporate clients, regional offices or franchisees. This means individual customers can load, manage and control content within the white label for their particular users.

So company A can not only be styled under their branding within the white label but alos their travel policy and preferred partners can be loaded against individual company itineraries.

All of this is administered from an easy to use self-service portal so changes can be made at anytime.

If personalisation, easy administration and consistent brand image across all email, mobile and online would help your customers then here's the solution.

Newcastle Airport joins StreamThru Airport Network

2012-09-06T10:07:00.000+01:00

StreamThru Airport Network provides airports with shared mobile application . Leaves them in control of brand identity and content.

Mantic Point today announced that Newcastle International Airport has joined the StreamThru Airport Network. The StreamThru Airport Network provide airports with a hassle free way of offering their own mobile application. By joining together and promoting the StreamThru mobile application, each airport in the network gains a presence in all the major app stores, so it reaches more customers and drives greater retail revenues, yet still retains control over its brand identity and content.

John Mason at Newcastle Airport explained: "We wanted to offer travelers from Newcastle Airport a compelling mobile experience. That's why we didn't want to just replicate the airport departure and arrivals boards within a mobile app - because, for any Smartphone user, this information is readily available from Newcastle Airport's web-site. Instead, the Newcastle Airport App from StreamThru pulls together all the information a traveler needs, when they're on the move, and presents it in one place - saving them time and hassle."

Mike Atherton, CEO of Mantic Point commented: "We're delighted to welcome Newcastle Airport on-board as a key member of the StreamThru Airport Network. Not only can travelers flying from Newcastle use the StreamThru App to access rich, relevant, and timely information about their trip, but they gain extra peace of mind from knowing that their flight information is coming directly from Newcastle Airport's systems and that they have access to the official airport guide, which is regularly updated by the team at Newcastle."

Atherton continued: "And, the great thing is, travelers can use the same StreamThru App when they fly from any other airport, too. It really is one app for all of a traveler's needs."

The StreamThru Airport Network builds on Mantic Point's experience of working with airports on mobile projects over the past 5 years. It's designed to give both airports and travelers what they want out of a mobile app:

Each airport network partner gains its own MicroApp, within StreamThru, so when a traveler adds a trip from a network airport, it's the airport's brand they see alongside flight information from the airport's systems, an official airport guide, and targeted promotions from the airport and its concessions. Airport's manage their brand identity and airport guide content using a secure, web-based console provided by Mantic Point. From this same web-based console, the airports operations team can communicate with affected groups of passengers during times of disruption (e.g. due to weather, industrial action, etc).

Travelers get a consistent experience whenever they travel and use of an application which is helpful not just at the airport, but throughout their entire journey - offering additional content such as destination and events guides, 5-day weather forecasts, an itinerary manager, and a currency converter.

Why give your customer away?

2012-06-27T11:21:00.001+01:00

I've been talking to lots of travel agencies and TMC's recently since we launched Travelports mobile travel app service, ViewTrip Mobile. The apps let their agencies extend the agency experience and control into the period of travel by white labelling the apps with their own colours/content/product.

That said one of the things that I'm frequently amazed at is how easily and quickly agencies and TMC's will give their hard won customers to 3rd party mobile travel app companies. Recently Tripit announced it would commence hotel search and book through its mobile services - what must all those agencies who've happily given away their customers to Tripit et.al be thinking now?

Even large international brands seem willing to hand over their customers thinking that the 3rd party mobile service is free. When I ask how long they think it will be before those 3rd party providers start selling competitively directly to the travellers they've given away I get an uncomfortable silence. Another question that gets the same response is, if I came along and asked politely "can I please have all your customer data" what would be your answer? To suggest a company gives away one of its prime assets and lets go of its brand is obviously ludicrous.

Its as if that's a "tomorrow" problem and we have enough to do meeting the demands of our customers today. I have some sympathy with this view given the disparate, silo technologies out there supporting the trade - especially from the GDS, but if you look at the bigger picture and compare innovation timescales in travel and the same timescales in mobile you can easily see where the disruption is coming from.

The relative rate of innovation in mobile is far higher than in travel, we've seen this before with the move to online but the pace is even faster this time, hence its disruptive nature. Just look at the number of new entrants into the travel space, the barrier to entry gets lower and lower as the technology and skills become more readily available. Its time for the brand to reinforce itself by claiming back the opportunity of service and revenue via mobile and integrating it into it overall service and contact experience, doing it now will cost a whole lot less than the cost of winning back lost customers.

StreamThru now includes multiple travel guides for multiple destinations

2011-03-02T10:15:00.001+00:00

As an all-in-one mobile travel application, StreamThru has always stood apart by providing you with the most relevant information for the current stage of your trip. Now we’ve taken this a stage further, for multi-destination trips, by providing you with a travel guide, events guide and weather forecast for each destination in your itinerary.

When you’re on the road, StreamThru will show you the relevant guides for your current destination … but at any time, if you want to plan ahead … maybe searching for a restaurant in your next destination … StreamThru lets you view the guide for any destination in your itinerary.

See this unique new feature for yourself in this short video clip (running time: 3mins 45 secs)

How to add multi-leg flights to StreamThru

2011-02-25T15:40:00.003+00:00

Whether your itinerary comprises 1 flight or 10 or more, StreamThru keeps you informed and helps you stay one step ahead when you're on the move.

In cases where you're not flying direct to your destination, you'll have one or more stopovers, and to set-up this type of trip in StreamThru, you need to tell us about each of your connecting flights.

It's easy to add connecting flights in StreamThru and in this short video (running time 4mins) we show you how:

Mobile is key to unlocking untapped ancillary revenue

2011-01-20T12:13:00.008+00:00

I was delighted to read the findings of the Amadeus-Forrester report: "Ancillary revenue vital to travel retailers" as reported by Kevin May on Tnooz.

The report suggests that ancillary sales will grow by 30% over the next 5 years, against a wider industry growth rate of just 3% - so, ancillaries represent an "untapped opportunity".

However, Director of the travel services business group at Amadeus, Marcos Isaac, says that to realise these new revenue streams, sellers will need to use tools and technologies that reach customers beyond the initial point of sale, and up-selling via mobile phones, before and during the trip will become increasingly important.

This topic has been a common theme of this blog for the past 3 years (e.g. here, here, here, here, and here), I've been harping on about using mobile to extend the ancillary sales window, and sharing examples of successes we achieved promoting travel ancillaries via mobile, for as long as I can remember, although it's often felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

So, I applaud the Amadeus-Forrester research, and for those travel companies seeking success with mobile, I'd recommend bearing these points in mind:

Retain control of the mobile customer relationship

Lead with service, follow with revenue

Retain control of the mobile customer relationship

Airlines, travel agents, and tour operators have a huge advantage when it comes to providing a mobile experience for travellers. I wrote that back in 2008, and it remains true today. Visibility of the customer's itinerary is key to delivering a meaningful mobile experience. Any targeted content you want to deliver by mobile, be it flight status updates, travel guides, weather forecasts, road traffic conditions, whatever - it all relies on knowledge of the itinerary.

Use this knowledge of the itinerary well, and you'll create a mobile dialogue that is relevant, and that your customers will keep coming back to - creating the new mobile touch points that you need.

Yes, the itinerary is precious, potentially invaluable, information and you should treat is as such.

So, why do some travel companies give this data away, effectively disintermediating themselves from engaging in a mobile dialogue with the traveller (e.g. think BCD Travel or Virgin America giving their itinerary data to TripIt)? This seems so short-sighted and, to me, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the power of the mobile channel within the travel industry.

So, I encourage you to recognise the value of the itinerary and use this as the basis of your mobile interactions.

Lead with service, follow with revenue

Solely using the mobile channel to send out offers for upgrades and additional products just doesn't cut it, your customers will soon lose interest.

The best mobile strategy is to provide customers with a service that they value, a service that keeps them coming back time and again ... and then interweave ancillary promotions into each of these interactions. And, the best promotions are done subtly, its more about helping the customer (e.g. let them browse and learn about a small number of relevant tours for their destination, let them add the tours to their itinerary, and then give them the option to book via call center).

We've just implemented something similar for airport parking in the UK with our partner Airport Parking and Hotels (APH). We use the itinerary knowledge (departure date, departure airport, return date) to show available airport parking options for the customer's trip and then allow them to book. We display the offer from the time they add their trip with us until the day before departure (because, on departure day, there are more relevant promotions to use). We're running the parking promotion within Vodafone Travel and our own StreamThru application for trips from UK airports, and early signs have been very encouraging.

Over the past few years running mobile travel services, we've seen time and again that travellers want access to and value relevant content, they don't want to waste time searching for this content, nor do they want to download lots and lots of apps to get at this content. So, I believe if you do a good job providing a mobile experience that delivers value to your customers, you will create the new ancillary revenue touch-points that enable you to realise Amadeus-Forrester's "untapped opportunity".