Three months after travel and expense platform Emburse acquired reshopping and auditing specialist Tripbam, the two companies this week unveiled their first collaborative development at the BTN Group’s Innovate event in New York, and landed the People’s Choice award for their efforts.
Announcing the integration of Tripbam’s reshopping offers into the Emburse Go app, Tripbam CEO and founder Steve Reynolds said it was a “combination of technologies we’ve been waiting to build for a long time” and which a number of buyers had called for pre-Covid.
“This is all about the cost-saving side from Tripbam and the traveler satisfaction with Emburse Go,” Reynolds added, calling the Emburse Go app “extremely sticky” for travelers and noting engagement is the part we’ve been missing.”
Provisionally dubbed Tripbam Go, the development is being piloted and is expected to be rolled out by the year-end. The results so far are promising, said Reynolds, who explained take-up of reshop offers in Emburse Go has been five times higher than it typically sees via email, where the acceptance rate averages 5 percent to 10 percent.
“You can present the options to travelers, but you can’t make them take it. The problem is traveler engagement,” Reynolds said. But by presenting reshop offers natively in-app and actionable at the slide of a button, the technology offers a pathway to savings.
As with Tripbam’s existing reshopping functionality, offers in Emburse Go are based on customers’ policies while travelers’ personal preferences can be set up via users’ profiles within the app.
“Imagine the day before a trip you get a message: ‘We found a better deal, swipe to unlock your deal’. Just tap the button, and you’re done,” said Jeroen van Velzen, SVP of solutions strategy at Emburse. “It’s not just a cheaper hotel we’re recommending, it can also be a better room, a better location, a preferred brand.”
Flight reshopping in Emburse Go also is on the roadmap, while another phase could include the introduction of scorecards within the app reporting on travelers’ performance with regards to compliance, sustainability and other metrics.
While the development was not the Innovate judges’ winning innovation—that went to enterprise mobility platform HQ—it did secure the most votes from buyer attendees of the 13 Innovation Faceoff participants.
“It’s very clear to see the value that’s offered by combining the two services—saving money, increased satisfaction and driving adoption,” said Troop founder and co-CEO Dennis Vilovic, one of this year’s judges and the Innovate judges’ winner in 2022.
