Redmond-based Concur is best known for helping business travelers manage travel and entertainment expenses. Now, with the addition of Trip Maximizer, the company is looking to go a step further, helping sales professionals locate and communicate with clients.
Here’s how the new Trip Maximizer service works: The user inputs their initial travel plans into the Salesforce Sales Cloud, and then is shown recommendations for prospective sales opportunities during the trip. Once the traveler decides to add a sales opportunity to their trip, it takes a few clicks to add it to their itinerary, which is then added to their connected calendar. The idea is to remove the need for a countless number of emails, as well as remove the need to go back and forth between separate applications.
Trip Maximizer goes beyond that, though. Adding to the social side of the connected cloud, the service will also provide recommendations for dining locations near scheduled meetings. If there are any colleagues that will be in the area at the same time, they will be notified of relevant trip details, to maximize collaboration between workers, through Salesforce Chatter.
It’s interesting to see a company focus on the social side of business, especially when it comes to the employees who travel for a living. Simplifying the event, as well as reaching out to colleagues, other business sales prospects, and even dining opportunities is a big step in the right direction. Adding the social aspect only seems to make the service that more accessible.
Concur will be showing off Trip Maximizer during today’s Dreamforce 2012 event, hosted by Salesforce.com. It should be available for all Concurforce clients by the end of the year. Additionally, it will be made available for Concur clients via the Concur Connector for Salesforce. Concurforce is the travel and expense management offering designed for Salesforce.com.
