SOUTHLAKE, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 25, 2005–Travelocity Business(SM) today announced it has opened a new state-of-the-art service center in Irving, Texas to support its growing customer base and supplement operations in its centers in San Antonio, Texas and Saint Louis, Missouri. Travelocity Business has hired a team of seasoned travel agents to staff the new center who have corporate travel experience ranging from five to 30 years, with expertise handling both online and offline travel reservations and specialty services such as coordination of VIP, group, meetings and international travel.
“The philosophy behind our service centers is to provide the best possible travel services to our customers while helping them control travel costs,” said Kathy Petrovic, vice president of Global Operations at Travelocity Business. “We have selected agents that have a tremendous amount of experience understanding the corporate traveler’s needs. And we’ve empowered them to do their job well by automating routine aspects of the travel process so they can focus on helping travelers with more complex travel needs.”
Travelocity Business agents at all service centers are organized into designated teams that are trained on specific customer policies, so that customer requests are always routed to an agent familiar with the account. Agents focus on understanding corporate travelers’ historical travel patterns to anticipate their preferences during the reservation process. Agents also receive ongoing training and assessment of their travel and technology skills as part of Travelocity Business’ quality assurance program.
“The agents at Travelocity Business seem to know what my executives need before they even have to ask for it,” said Deb Brown, corporate travel manager at Campbell Hausfeld. “Their attention to detail has helped ensure that my executives have a seamless experience during their business trips, which in turn makes my job easier!”
The agents also leverage specially designed desktop software to provide them with travel data specific to incoming callers for faster, more efficient service. Information from the online booking, mid-office and telephonic systems created by Travelocity Business is automatically pre-populated in multiple windows on the agent’s screen, eliminating the need to look up, write down or re-enter travel information. For complex tasks such as the exchange or reissuing of tickets, pop-up screens provide the appropriate calculations and help the agent guide travelers through their travel options.
In addition to its three U.S. service centers, Travelocity Business also has centers near Manchester, England, in Monterrey, Mexico and in Ottawa, Canada to support U.S. customers with multinational operations.
About Travelocity Business
Travelocity Business is a full-service corporate travel agency that helps companies easily manage travel and reduce costs, while providing more choices to travelers. Travelocity Business combines the savings and convenience of online with the full service of dedicated agents available 24/7 who typically answer the phone in 20 seconds, and within 60 seconds guaranteed (see site for guarantee details). Companies can cut travel costs through flight deals, Web fares, hotel discounts and service fee savings — representing an average savings of more than $100 per trip, including airfare savings averaging 26 percent per ticket and service fee savings of up to 84 percent (see site for savings details).
Travelocity Business combines the expertise, service and travel choices of Travelocity(R) with corporate experience gained from serving more than half of the Fortune 200 companies. For more information, companies can visit www.travelocitybusiness.com.
Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE:TSG) is a world leader in travel commerce, retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry. More information about Sabre Holdings is available at http://www.sabre-holdings.com.
CONTACT: Vollmer Public Relations for Travelocity Business
Mary Kate Smither, 972-488-4790
marykate@vollmerpr.com
or
Travelocity Business
Noel Bilodeau, 415-932-1292
noel.bilodeau@travelocity.com
SOURCE: Travelocity Business
