Travelling for business presupposes a perfect organization

Nothing can be left to chance.

It often happens to focus the attention exclusively on the location where to stay or on the flight to take, neglecting the ground services, considered by some users poor in terms of the added value!

I have recently done a little survey among some travellers, asking them this question:

When you travel for business, what kind of transport services do you use?

• I take a local taxi or Uber found at the airport with no reservation 41%
• I book a service with a luxury chauffeur service before the departure 25%
• I don’t request and don’t use any professional service. A local colleague picks me up 26%
• I use local public transport services such as bus or subway, booked the moment of the arrival 8%

These answers got me thinking.

Perhaps is missing the added value perception that only a serious trip scheduling can provide.

No manager would ever think of scheduling a meeting to debate a project without having clear the project itself. Well, to do a business trip without having clear the issues a trip may entail is equivalent to taking risks and improvising!

From the answers emerges that a little slice of  the people who travel for business schedules in advance a ground transport service, reducing by far risks and potential issues that may happen with a poor or total lack of scheduling. Strikes, sold-out locations and drivers with poor or total lack of training can put at risk a business meeting.

• Using a local taxi doesn’t always protect from all the risks. Traffic jams or mechanical problems can create an issue to the user that has to move around a foreign city for business.
• To rely on a colleague who is not a driver by profession and then lacks the experience and the tools of a professional, means to take further risks. Wrong ways, not optimized itineraries, lack of in-out info with other drivers. Often not adequate or not correctly maintained vehicles and the stress of the driver who finds himself handling unexpected situations can transform a business day into a not estimated stress.
• The use of local transport services implies a great knowledge of the reality of the place in which you are travelling. Coincidences, connections among subways and external lines, operating hours: all of this doesn’t allow to optimize the time and handle an agenda full of commitments often mutable during the day.

I assume, in a situation as the one I’ve just described, that most of the business travellers may not feel satisfied of their own transport experience. Dissatisfaction moved to the background by the idea of saving or making the company save the travel expenses.  This makes me smile 🙂

This is not always true!

Rationalizing time and travelling relaxed allow to have a more profitable approach with the working activity full of commitments and appointments. To stay in a “comfort” zone also during business trips contributes, by my own personal experience, to focus the attention on the important things only and on the true goals for whom in the first place you embarked in a trip. “Distractions” linked to third activities must be delegated in advance to professionals.

For this reason, when I travel for business, I, too, rely on the various cities’ professionals knowing the need of travellers. Nothing is left to chance, everything is handled from the departure with a prior individuation of the most suitable vehicle (sedan, luxury sedan, van, luxury van) and the following indication of the local driver’s references. In some cities the option of taking advantage of drivers speaking our same language is not neglectable.

But this isn’t enough!

I rely on an office monitoring every hour of day and night the reservation and its possible modifications: schedule changes, delayed flights and cancellations are on the agenda. For this reason, it is crucial that the organization knows how to keep the connection between the local land services and the passenger.

Tell me in few words your own travel experience to contribute to my “personal” survey!