Faced with competition from airlines and under pressure from the imminent arrival of new players on Europe's railways, rail operators are playing the service card to win the loyalty of an increasingly demanding business clientele. With this in mind, the SNCF has designed its Pro offer, which enables companies to optimise their staff's journeys on the high-speed network - with TGV Pro - and the mainline network - with Teoz Pro. In addition to special fares, Pro passengers enjoy a host of other benefits, including ticket flexibility, dedicated kiosks and ticket offices at stations - saving them time - a welcome on the platform, and access to the Grand Voyageur lounges for the Pro 1\u00e8re range. In addition, at major French stations, and particularly in Paris, customers can reserve a parking space, order a taxi on departure or arrival, and even have access to an office in one of the 17 Multiburo business centres.<\/p>\n
For the past two years, the SNCF has also been offering its Portail Entreprises (Business Portal), aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, as well as a number of major accounts. As well as traditional ticket booking and payment 24\/7, this internet portal allows companies to configure their travel policy and manage their purchases with the rail operator on TGV, TER and Teoz lines, as well as Thalys, Eurostar, Lyria, etc. Several levels of service are available, including centralised payment, the use of a card (Air Plus, Amex) or the provision of reports. This portal, and the commercial dynamism of SNCF teams in selling it to companies, have been heavily criticised as unfair competition by networks of agencies specialising in business travel for SMEs. These agencies all have their own online booking tools...<\/p>\n
Online solution<\/strong><\/span><\/span> A business product<\/strong><\/span><\/span> To improve its quality of service, the company has also developed a major training programme covering all points of contact between staff and customers, whether on board TGVs, in stations or in call centres...\"We are now working on the details to ensure that our travellers are as satisfied as possible\".<\/em>says Lionel Benbassat. For example, the Business Premier meal menu has been redesigned by Michelin-starred chef Alain Roux, and an initial selection of hot drinks is now available as soon as the train departs. On-board taxi booking will soon be available to help business travellers in a hurry avoid long waits on arrival at Paris Nord, Brussels Midi or London St Pancras stations. \"Through the new features and various advantages, Eurostar must no longer be perceived as a simple carrier, but as a genuine service brand\".<\/em>sums up the sales manager.<\/p>\n Thalys has taken the same approach, fine-tuning its Comfort 1 offer for business customers. New for Thalys is its private lounge, located at the head of each first-class train. Popular on the Paris-Brussels route, this dedicated space allows four passengers to work in meetings during their journey, with a made-to-measure service. More sustained promotion should increase its use on the rest of the network. \"We're going to target our corporate customers\".<\/em>says Managing Director Franck Gervais, who is not worried about the arrival of competition, scheduled for 2013 or 2014. \"The challenge is to have the right offer, with the right frequencies, attractive fares, plenty of flexibility and excellent on-board service. To this must be added optimum train punctuality\".<\/em>he continues. On this last point, after suffering in 2010, Thalys has returned to its best levels, exceeding 86 % of regularity at 15 minutes across the entire network. \"My goal is to exceed 90 %\".<\/em>says FranckGervais.<\/p>\n Smartphones become tickets<\/strong><\/span><\/span> Unlike Thalys, there are no plans for the Eurostar Frequent Traveller Card to also be used for electronic tickets. However, in response to very strong demand from business travellers, a dematerialised ticket in the form of a flashcode is expected in the second half of 2011. Indirectly, this innovation is part of the sustainable development policy introduced three years ago by this company, which has already stopped printing its timetables and ticket pockets. In terms of mobility, Eurostar has also launched a new version of its website, along with mobile applications for Android and iPhone smartphones. With 55 million tickets sold in 2010, Voyages-sncf.com has no intention of missing out either. While e-tickets, the symbol of the end of ticket stamping, now account for one ticket in four sold, three times more than in 2010, since June the website has been testing the use of flashcodes on mobile phones with travellers on the Paris-Lille route. This service will eventually be extended to other routes, once the reliability of the system is guaranteed.<\/p>\n Mobile reservations<\/strong><\/span><\/span> Many small businesses book their tickets directly on the Voyages-sncf.com website, which sells between 150,000 and 200,000 tickets, depending on the day. These are astronomical figures, but they do include leisure sales. In view of this success, this SNCF subsidiary has had to increase its infrastructure capacity by a factor of 10 over the last two years. Two data centres have been commissioned since April, in Lille and Saint-Denis. This means that the site will be available 99.99 %! According to Yves Tyrode, the average time taken to book a ticket has fallen from 52 seconds in 2009 to 25 seconds in 2011! However, this timing seems hard to believe when you make your own reservation...<\/p>\n For Pro 1\u00e8re customers, the SNCF has also launched the tgv-pro.mobi website, where you can change your ticket right up to the last minute. The SNCF plans to go even further with Compagnon Pro, a project that will be rolled out at the end of 2011 and accessible on mobile phones. Through this application, business travellers will receive a summary of their journey before departure, and will also be able to consult information about the services available at their destination station or in the town of arrival.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Voyages-sncf.com introduced a new 3D Secure payment method on 19 July. \"It's a necessary technological evolution that customers will gradually have to switch to. We're going to raise their awareness\".<\/em>explains Yves Tirode. The stakes are high, as the site generated sales of 2.8 billion euros last year, an increase of +18% compared to 2009, representing 36% of the sales of the SNCF's Travel branch.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To attract and retain business travellers before the arrival of the competition, operators are stepping up their innovations in terms of services and new technologies. It's a strategy that meets travellers' new expectations.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"type-darticle":[],"n_magazine":[],"class_list":["post-20251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ferroviaire","vapo-free"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Across the Rhine, DB obviously also has a Business offer, with companies benefiting from discounts ranging from 3 % to 5.5 % depending on the volume of tickets used during the year with the German railway company. DBusiness also offers a Business portal for groups whose employees make frequent journeys on the German network. The DB France agency is responsible for its deployment and management in France, providing services and advice to companies. In addition to managing the travel purchasing policy and selling \"Online- Tickets<\/em> on ICE, Germany's high-speed trains, this portal also allows you to compare fares with air travel on the same route.<\/p>\n
Eurostar, for its part, has created a product specifically designed for business travellers: the Standard Premier. This successful intermediate class will be retained when Eurostar receives its 10 Siemens trains in 2014 and renovates its current fleet of 28 TGV trains. For Business Premier passengers, Eurostar has introduced greater flexibility in the use of tickets with Guaranteed Boarding. Passengers can now take the train of their choice on the day they book, provided there is space available. Another of the company's initiatives is the simplification of the Eurostar Frequent Traveller loyalty programme, which has 80,000 members, to enable points to be acquired more quickly depending on the fare and class of travel chosen. \"The aim is for customers to derive a direct benefit from their loyalty to Eurostar\".<\/em>says Lionel Benbassat, the rail operator's Sales Director for France. This improved customer recognition is also designed to ensure brand loyalty, given that competition from DB is on the horizon for 2013.<\/p>\n
The dematerialisation of tickets is one of the other major projects underway by operators. Since the introduction of the \"Ticketless<\/em> in 2004, Thalys went a step further with the launch on 15 June of Mobile Ticketing for all business travellers with The Card loyalty card, i.e. almost 135,000 members. Gone are the days of cardboard or printed paper tickets, as tickets are now offered in the form of a flash code received on a mobile phone with an Internet connection, be it an iPhone, Android smartphone or Blackberry. This barcode is accompanied by a summary of the journey details. Currently, 20% of customers already travel ticketless. From September, this option will be available to all Thalys customers booking via the Thalys.com website. \"Mobile Ticketing will increase flexibility, as passengers will no longer need to print out their tickets\".<\/em>says Franck Gervais.<\/p>\n
This service has a bright future ahead of it, with applications developed for mobile users proving increasingly popular. Following the 2 million downloads of the iPhone version, the booking site has launched other versions, first for iPads in March, then for Blackberry in May and finally for Android and Windows Phone 7 smartphones in June. \"In the first five months of 2011, the volume of business generated via mobile phones came to \u20ac20 million, an increase of 100 % compared with the same period in 2010\"<\/em>says Yves Tyrode, the new Managing Director of Voyages-SNCF.com. Unsurprisingly, given the number of phones in circulation, 82% of this amount is made via the iPhone, 10% - already - via the iPad, 6% via Android and 2 % on Blackberry. A particular feature of these users, who include a significant proportion of business travellers, is that 25 % of them buy their ticket on the day of their departure, printing it out in the station on an automatic machine just before getting into the car.<\/p>\n