Client Spotlight

Making Bid Responses as Seamless as Booking Travel

The Challenge

Known for ‘Business travel made simple,’ Australia-based QBT specializes in intuitive booking technologies, strategic account management, reporting and cost savings for its corporate travel clients, including its No. 1 client: the Australian Government.

Despite embracing a seamless and stress-free travel experience for its clients, QBT struggled to find a seamless process for responding to RFPs and other bid opportunities.

The team, which works with sales field experts on two to three bids a month, lacked a way to access company information from a centralized location, despite having a previous bid-management system. Specifically, they found their previous software hard to navigate and wanted to explore ways they could expedite the bid-management process. Having a customizable template they could update was a key requirement.

The Solution

Expedience Software implemented the Proposal Automation suite, along with its specialized Excel RFP product. The Excel add-on package greatly simplifies Excel RFP responses by integrating them with Microsoft® Word. As part of the custom implementation, Expedience:

  • Created an automated template that fully met QBT’s needs
  • Rolled out customized training so QBT could easily manage updates
  • Centralized the company’s proposal content in one place

Training tailored to QBT’s project ensured that bid team members would have total ownership of their proposal template, including modifying it as their business strategy changes. A key factor in selecting Expedience was that the software resides directly in Microsoft Word.

QBT’s Sara Nedelkoska, a member of the commercial bid writing team, explains that since everyone knows how to use MS Word, rolling out Expedience would not be as daunting as implementing a new software and training the entire team from the ground up.

The process is much more efficient from the previous bid management system, with Expedience doing “a fantastic job” loading all QBT’s content into their library, says Nedelkoska, who applauded Expedience VP of Client Services Diane Loudenback for serving as an “excellent point of contact” throughout the process.

About Expedience Software

Expedience Software creates fast, accurate, and beautiful proposals directly from Microsoft Word! Automate RFP & RFI responses (even Excel RFPs!), FAQs, DDQs, SOWs, Questionnaires, PowerPoint presentations, and more! With more than 20 years of proposal automation experience, Expedience is the premier solution for sales and proposal professionals in financial and asset management, healthcare, legal, manufacturing, and technology organizations.

Company

QBT

Industry

Hospitality & Travel

Critical Issue

  • Lack of consistency and central library
  • Ability to respond to Excel-based RFPs

Solutions

  • Automated Proposal Generation
  • Content Management
  • Styles Management
  • Excel-based RFPs in Word

Impact

Since going live, QBT reports that their bid and RFP response process is much more efficient and allows bid team members to focus on the things that “really matter in the business.”

Sara Nedelkoska, commercial bid writer, reports that the amount of time she and other team members save using Expedience has been significant.

“The fact that we have a library of content for our teams to go into and see is just excellent,” she adds.

About QBT

With almost 40 years in the corporate travel business, QBT knows travel in all its complexity. QBT’s goal is to ensure the travel experience, from beginning to end, is seamless, simple and stress-free for travelers, bookers, managers and finance teams. Highly experience consultants are based in Brisbane, Canberrra, Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. In 2018, Australian Travel Awards named QBT Corporate Travel Agency of the Year for over $100 million revenue. Learn more at qbt.travel.com

Expedience was the obvious choice for us. It looks great and is easy to use. Having a customizable template is very beneficial for us; it allows both the Sales team and the Bid Management team to control the content efficiently.

Sara Nedelkoska

Commercial Bid Writer, QBT

Teams do extraordinary things with Expedience Software