Just as it takes a unique approach to advertising ("Talk to Chuck"), the Charles Schwab Corp. takes a unique approach to the travel buy. The San Francisco-based financial services firm has a corporate travel department (CTD). Simply put, a CTD has industry accreditation and is able to sell airline tickets to travelers.

Curt Mattos, director of travel services at Schwab, manages the company CTD. He and the team of travel counselors work hand in hand with procurement. The result: Improved efficiency and customer satisfaction, both of which lead to cost savings.

"We have a strong and seasoned team," says Mattos. "Our counselors have an excellent relationship with our travelers. As a result, we get better policy compliance. Everyone is on board and driving our preferred suppliers in the direction we need."

Schwab has 300 offices in North America and 12,500 employees, of which about 5,000 to 6,000 travel. Of this figure, some 2,000 to 2,500 are designated as frequent travelers. Most travel is domestic, although there is some international. A group in the company IT operation works with a few offshore firms in India necessitating some travel to and from the country. The company's annual tab for travel (including meals but excluding meetings) is $25 million.

Mattos has been with Schwab for nine years and has experience managing travel agency operations. In his current role, he is responsible for sourcing, negotiating agreements and managing relationships with suppliers—air travel, hotels, ground transportation, technology tools and corporate card. He also manages the company travel and T&E (travel and entertainment) policies.

Among his sourcing duties: preparing and evaluating requests for proposals (RFP), which Mattos does in tandem with a senior manager of contract negotiations who works in procurement. They send out the RFPs and receive and rate responses from suppliers. As they narrow down their selection, they consult a committee that consists of travelers. Together, they prepare the supplier agreement.

Quality and reliability are two characteristics Mattos and his team look for in any travel services supplier. "We also like to see if we can find suppliers that reflect the culture of this company, which is highly focused on service and integrity," he says.

Mattos: “When benchmarking, we find our costs are at or below average. With our  CTD we get superior service and policy compliance which leads to savings.”

A separate department manages strategic meeting management planning at Schwab, although Mattos and his team work with the group in some areas, such as leveraging the company's spending with airline suppliers. When negotiating with the suppliers, Mattos combines spend data of both groups. And the two are working towards doing something similar with some big hotel brands.

"A challenge with meetings is that if you consolidate the spend with one brand, you don't always know in advance if it is going to have availability when you need to source the meeting," he says. "But certainly the bigger the brand, the more options it has and the more likely that will happen."

Managing compliance. What distinguishes a successful corporate travel department from those not meeting a company's goals is process efficiency, says Mattos. To that end, his team has implemented several technology tools. Travelers use a booking tool available through GetThere, a provider of online business travel technology in Southlake, Texas, and an expense management reporting tool from Concur in Redmond, Wash. (Data from the corporate card populates the expense report). For RFPs and negotiations with hotels, the travel team uses a tool from BidStork in Solana Beach, Calif., and other tools for some back end processes.

Mattos, like many of his peers, considers user compliance to travel contracts and preferred suppliers a major challenge. He says compliance at Schwab is now in the mid-90s. While the company requires travelers use the CTD and company credit card to book travel, policy is what he considers a soft mandate—the team does a lot of guiding and recommending. For instance, they strongly recommend travelers use the company's online booking tool to make reservations with airlines, hotels and rental car agencies. The CTD is for travelers to use to make arrangements for complex trips, itinerary changes and ticket exchanges.

The team communicates the travel policy through the company intranet. On a Web page, travelers can find the policy, lists of preferred suppliers, hotels directory, corporate card application and a link to the booking tool.

The booking tool is relatively easy for travelers to use; it has a look and feel similar to many consumer websites. When planning a trip, the tool guides them to the company's preferred suppliers for air travel, hotels and rental cars.

Use of the online booking tool has resulted in airfares 11% lower than those the travel counselors are locating. "It was a pleasant surprise," says Mattos. "There's something psychological about folks taking care of their own arrangements and having it right in front of their eyes. We have really great travel counselors investigating alternative fares and offering low ticket prices, but for some reason travelers are making different choices."

Plus it's efficient: Nearly 65% of the transaction is touchless. Once travelers initiate booking and the arrangements go through a quality control process and come out the back end ticketed, an e-mail of the itinerary is generated and sent to the traveler.

Sourcing travel. When sourcing air travel, the team looks at carrier performance records, cities the airlines serve and frequency with which they serve them. "And we look at the volume we can leverage," says Mattos. The team goes through the RFP process with airlines every two to three years.

Selecting hotels is more subjective. "You may think you can go at it strictly from a rate and amenities point, but you really need to understand that travelers stay in certain hotels because of proximity to an office, or they feel safe and secure or they have the technology tools they need to be productive," he says. "Plus Schwab has certain standards. We want to make sure hotels are clean, comfortable and modern. We also like a hotel to reflect the company culture and reputation."

Mattos negotiates with hotels annually, usually in the fourth quarter for the upcoming year. "Using technology is essential," he says. "We formulate agreements with roughly 70 hotel brands, and we probably source those from more than 100 RFPs. The process is time consuming, and without technology it would be grueling."

The team generally invites the same suppliers to bid each year. "It doesn't mean they will be back in the program, but we certainly look to renew partnerships when possible," he says. "That is, unless we have a service bump or we get feedback from employees that a particular location is not working."

While the team does not have a formal process for measuring supplier performance, Mattos says they are moving in that direction. Meanwhile, they meet with representatives from the airlines and car rental agencies quarterly and the larger hotel brands monthly. They also conduct customer satisfaction surveys with travelers.