Capturing Multi-Channel Bookings Made Simple with Concur TripLink

In this brief video, real Concur TripLink users and experts share how TripLink makes it easy to capture bookings made outside your managed travel platform. They explain how this flexible solution allows their travelers to access the best content at the best rate, including NDC content. Hear their story in the video above or read the transcript below: 

Cathy Sharpe, director, strategic sourcing, global travel and expense management services, Illinois Tool Works (ITW): When we came out of the pandemic, all of a sudden there was this big travel boom, and Concur TripLink really gave us a bird's eye view. And we have always strived to ensure that we bring the best possible experience to our employees.

When one of our employees books on a airline or hotel website, that information flows directly into SAP Concur.

Glenn Hollister, vice president, sales strategy & effectiveness, United Airlines: So United was the first airline actually to implement Concur TripLink. With corporate travel and business travel being so important to us, we feel it's always important to be innovative and to be answering our customers' needs.

Ed Phillips, university travel manager, Michigan State University: We use Concur TripLink at Michigan State University. So we have this generation, this rising generation, and they are mobile savvy like you can't believe. And by our understanding what the features and benefits are of TripIt Pro, of Concur TripLink, of the SAP Concur mobile app, and how efficient that makes the request, the booking, the expense reconciliation processes, that only enables us to offer better products to our end users.

Hollister: It's really hard to run a managed travel program when you don't know where your people are going or how much you're going to spend. Some programs find it really useful just for capturing leakage.

Sharpe: You can't manage what you can't see. You can't negotiate with what you don't know either. So there's been a great benefit to really roping in all of that spend and being able to leverage it.

Hollister: We have content on our website and our app that we cannot push through EDIFACT.

Sharpe: When I go to a Marriott website or United or American Airlines website, I want to see the best that they have to offer. Now, with NDC around the corner, we want to make sure that we're getting the best content at the lowest rates.

Hollister: So travelers ultimately get more choice and better price points using Concur TripLink and shopping on united.com than they would in traditional channels.

Sharpe: I think a lot of travel buyers don't really know that you can push your Concur TripLink data directly to your duty of care provider.

Phillips: So that now the data is captured at the time of booking, so we know where they are should a catastrophic event occur.

Hollister: I think travel managers absolutely have to think of themselves as innovators, because in most companies they're the only people who understand the travel ecosystem well enough to actually figure out what innovation could happen and how to make it work.

Sharpe: If I was talking to somebody who was on the fence about turning Concur TripLink on, I would tell you that you should try it. Try it, and check and see what pearls of wisdom you derive from that.

And it's going to make you better for it and it's going to make your travelers better for it too. It's an omnichannel, if you will. And we believe in it.

Ready to learn more? See how Concur TripLink works in our brief demo bite.