Former Amex GBT chief operating officer Bill Brindle says TMCs and their clients must take a collaborative approach to new pricing and service models as the industry navigates the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brindle, who left the company at the end of July, believes TMCs should not be “battered by contracts when corporates aren’t making any bookings” and that “the all-encompassing transaction fee has had its day”.
Speaking to BTN Europe, Brindle also discussed his departure from Amex GBT and paid tribute to his father-in-law and former HRG CEO David Radcliffe, who passed away in July.
“I think it’s really important that clients and TMCs have more of an open debate about how service will be delivered in the future,” says Brindle. “For an organisation to be forced [by clients] to focus on service levels doesn’t really make a lot of sense right now. Everybody’s volumes are down. It’s going to come back without any doubt, but we’ve all got to tread the path that gets through this.”
He continues: “If a client is paying for their staff members from the TMC it’s relatively straightforward. If they’re not and transaction volumes are nothing like they used to be, expecting the same sort of service levels becomes difficult.
“There is a new reality out there and what we can’t do is have 5,000 staff sitting out there taking calls on queries when there’s no value in the chain to achieve that.
“We have historically given away so much in what we deliver… lots of things are wrapped up in the transaction fee. That works well when there are transactions. When there aren’t, it exposes you a bit.”
Pricing and transparency
Brindle believes “more pick and mix type charging” could prevail and points to the unbundling of fares by low-cost carriers as a similar trend.
“I think there has to be a bit more of an understanding of what the price of a booking actually is. And if someone comes to a TMC as a web chat, or email, or voice, or through the OBT… there has to be channel variance in the way it’s priced.”
Brindle says talks were already underway with some “big clients” that have been “very receptive” to discussing new arrangements. “In today’s world you can’t wait for a contract to end. Those discussions have been positive and collaborative. Generally speaking, everyone knows this is an unusual situation and that their model isn’t necessarily fit for purpose anymore.”
The collaborative approach is manifested in GBT’s new Global Customer Partnerships group, which Brindle helped establish and officially launched on 31 July. It brings together traveller care, sales, client management, marketing and consulting in what the TMC calls a ‘One GBT’ approach that it says will improve customer experience and speed up decision making.
“It’s a pretty massive development. It reflects the way the business has to work going forwards between TMCs and clients. It has to be a partnership; everything must come together. It’s reflective of how we as an industry need to start working together as well.”
Stepping down at Amex GBT
Coming from the HRG side of the business, which Brindle describes as “much more concise”, he says: “One of the things that always stood out to me was that the commercial teams and traveller care teams were quite separate.
“When Paul (Abbott, Amex GBT CEO) first joined I said I wanted to see how these could come together and our strategy at the start of this year was quite clear. And with Covid, we looked at bringing in these changes earlier.
“We sat with Drew (Crawley, CCO) and looked to see how we bring together a more combined group. Having achieved that, I’m quite happy to step aside.”
Brindle continues: “It was always my plan to leave the business but in the current situation it made sense for me to step out early and spend some time with the family.” He expects to commence some industry project work and consultancy later in the year.
“We had a very clear strategy meeting in Florida in February and we laid out plans for the year. I didn’t realise at the time that would be my last long-haul flight with GBT and my last couple of weeks at Canary Wharf. It’s surreal how things have changed between then and now. I’ve been in the industry a long time and there’s nothing I’ve ever seen that compares with what we’re going through."
Furloughs and reorganisation
“If someone had said to me in February that I’d be working non-stop until the end of July on reorganising the business, getting people on furlough globally, making sure the business is in the right shape… I’d have said you were crazy. The amount of work the company and industry has had to go through just to make sure it’s where it is has been phenomenal. We’ve always come back stronger as an industry. Unfortunately, there will be casualties by the wayside.”
He says GBT has maximised use of furlough schemes for its employees around the world and that some are “beginning to return but only if there’s a business reason to do so”. The TMC has also introduced voluntary redundancy schemes and early retirement opportunities but has not made any forced redundancies to date.
“One of the challenges we have as an industry is that unfortunately people will move on. What worries me is that we’ll lose a lot of industry experts. There’s a danger that the industry, sadly, is going to lose a lot of expertise now.”
Paying tribute to David Radcliffe
Brindle’s father-in-law David Radcliffe, the former HRG CEO and non-executive director at Amex GBT, sadly passed away in July aged 67. He first encountered Radcliffe while working at Amadeus.
“I first met David when I was working at Amadeus and had to brief him on the company. Later in life I realised briefing David about anything was a waste of time! You would brief him and he would go completely the opposite way,” says Brindle. “That was one of his strengths. He really had the ability to deliver something and to unnerve people but at the same time earn a lot of respect. You saw a lot of that in the tributes to him.”
Brindle later joined HRG under Radcliffe as part of the team that oversaw the sale of HRG to Amex GBT in 2018. “I worked alongside David right up until the GBT sale. Sometimes people believe David just rolled over during that, but he didn't. Anybody that was part of the negotiation knows that. It was like David was waving goodbye to his child.
“He was as nice as pie but if you got on the wrong side of him he could be difficult! He could set you up, knock you over and bring you back up again. It’s just the way he was. There was never anything personal in it; it was always business-related.
“I got to see both sides of him – a work point of view and the complete other side, the informal family point of view. We used to try and leave one of them behind because you’re not always going to agree about everything.
“David loved the industry and everything about it – especially the people. He was a larger than life guy and really good fun. He was a character and had a very strong team. There are a lot of ex-Hoggs working around the industry today that still talk about David. If you can leave that sort of legacy you’ve done a good job.”