The Two-Week Implementation That Saved Our Travel Program

Our corporate travel program was a disaster. This was a few years ago, when our company had grown to a size where we knew we needed a professional travel solution. We did the "responsible" thing and signed a contract with one of the big, household-name Travel Management Companies (TMCs). The sales process was long, but they promised us a world-class, enterprise-grade solution. The implementation process was even longer. It took a full nine months of weekly meetings, complex configuration spreadsheets, and IT headaches to get their platform live.

The result was a catastrophe. The booking tool was so clunky and unintuitive that our employees refused to use it. Our adoption rate was below 40%, which meant we had no visibility or control over the majority of our travel spend. The "integrated" expense tool required our travelers to manually re-enter all their flight and hotel data, a process they universally loathed. The entire program was a failure, and it had taken the better part of a year just to get to that point. We had a travel management stack that looked impressive but delivered nothing.

We were stuck. We felt we had two choices: live with this expensive, frustrating system for the duration of our multi-year contract, or go back to the chaos of a completely unmanaged program. It was at this point of desperation that we discovered there was a third option: a new breed of modern, technology-first travel platforms.

After a few demos, we made a bold decision. We would cut our losses, pay the penalty to exit our legacy contract, and switch to a new provider, Routespring. We were nervous. Having been burned by a nine-month implementation nightmare, we were terrified of another long, drawn-out process. The Routespring team promised us it would be different. They promised they could get our entire program, with our full travel policy and approvals, live in two weeks. We were skeptical, but we took the leap.

It was one of the best decisions we ever made. This is the story of that two-week implementation and how it completely transformed and saved our travel program.

Week 1: Configuration and Onboarding

The difference in approach was apparent from day one. There were no complex technical questionnaires or endless configuration spreadsheets.

Day 1: The Kick-Off and Policy Workshop We had a 90-minute kick-off call with our dedicated Implementation Specialist from Routespring. Instead of asking us to fill out a giant spreadsheet, she walked us through their intuitive admin dashboard. We screen-shared, and together, we translated our existing travel policy into automated rules within the platform.

• We set up our advance booking rules.
• We configured our tiered hotel price caps for different cities.
• We built our multi-level approval workflows.

The entire process of building a complex, dynamic travel policy was done visually, in real time. What had taken months of back-and-forth with our legacy TMC was accomplished in under two hours.

Day 2: User and Accounting Integration This was another area where we expected a major headache. With our old provider, integrating with our accounting system had been a custom IT project.

• HRIS Sync: We gave the Routespring team a simple CSV export of our employee list from our HR system. Within a few hours, all of our users were provisioned in the platform, assigned to the correct departments and approval chains.
• Accounting Sync: We use QuickBooks. The integration was a matter of our finance controller logging into both systems and clicking "authorize." Our chart of accounts and all our department codes were instantly synced. It took less than 15 minutes.

Day 3-5: Communication and Training While the technical setup was largely complete, Routespring's team helped us craft a communication plan to prepare our employees for the change.

• The "Good News" Announcement: We sent a company-wide email announcing the switch. We framed it as a major upgrade, focusing on the benefits to the employees: a much easier booking tool, and, most importantly, the end of out-of-pocket payments for flights and hotels thanks to Routespring's centralized payment system.
• Live Training Sessions: Our Implementation Specialist hosted two 45-minute live training sessions for our employees, walking them through the new booking process. The sessions were recorded for anyone who could not attend. Because the platform was so intuitive, the training was simple and focused on best practices rather than basic navigation.

Week 2: Go-Live and Hypercare

Day 8: Go-Live One week after our initial kick-off call, we were ready to go live. We switched off access to our old system and officially launched Routespring. We were braced for a flood of support tickets and complaints. It never came.

The First Bookings: Within the first hour, we had over a dozen trips booked on the platform. The feedback that started trickling in was uniformly positive. "This is so much easier," "I can't believe I don't have to use my own card anymore," and "I booked my whole trip in five minutes." The contrast with our previous, painful rollout could not have been more stark.

Day 8-14: The "Hypercare" Period For the first week after go-live, our Routespring Implementation Specialist was on standby for us. She created a shared Slack channel where our employees could ask questions directly. This provided instant support and helped to quickly resolve the few minor user queries that came up. This "hypercare" model ensured that our team felt fully supported during the transition.

The Results: Why a Modern Platform is Different

How could an implementation that took our enterprise TMC nine months be accomplished in two weeks? The difference is philosophical and architectural.

• Designed for Simplicity: Modern platforms like Routespring are designed from the ground up to be configured and managed by business users, not IT consultants. The admin tools are intuitive and visual.
• Productized Implementation: The onboarding process is a well-oiled machine. It is a standard, repeatable process, not a custom software development project.
• A Focus on What Matters: A modern implementation focuses on getting the core 90% of your travel program automated quickly. The complex, "edge case" scenarios can be refined later. A legacy implementation often gets bogged down for months trying to solve for every possible exception before launch, leading to "analysis paralysis."

Two weeks after we started the process, our travel program had been completely transformed. We had a platform our employees loved, which pushed our adoption rate to over 95% in the first month. We had real-time visibility into our spending. Our approval process was fast and efficient. And our finance team was overjoyed at the prospect of a world with fewer expense reports.

Our experience taught us a valuable lesson. A travel management platform should not be a complex, year-long implementation project. It should be a modern, agile tool that starts delivering value from day one. The two-week implementation did more than just launch a new piece of software; it saved our entire travel program from the crushing weight of a failed legacy system.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Is a two-week implementation realistic for a larger or more complex company? While a very large, global enterprise with highly complex needs might take a bit longer, the principle remains the same. A modern platform can still be implemented in a fraction of the time of a legacy system. A 4-6 week implementation for a large company is a very achievable goal with the right platform and a dedicated internal project manager.

2. What was the hardest part of switching from our old TMC? The hardest part was the internal decision to admit our first choice was a mistake and to walk away from a contract. The technical and process parts of the migration were surprisingly easy once we partnered with a modern provider who had a structured onboarding plan.

3. Did your employees need a lot of training on the new platform? No, and this was a major benefit. Because the Routespring platform is designed with a consumer-grade user experience, it feels familiar to anyone who has ever booked a trip online. The training was focused more on our specific company policies rather than on how to use the tool's basic functions.

4. What if we have negotiated rates with certain hotels? Can those be brought over? Yes. A key part of our implementation was working with the Routespring team to load our existing negotiated hotel rates into the platform. They were then flagged as "preferred" properties in the search results, making it easy for our employees to find and book them.

5. What advice would you give to a company that is currently stuck with a failing legacy travel platform? Do not fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Do not keep pouring time and resources into a broken system just because you have already invested in it. Build a clear business case that quantifies the total cost of your current program, including the hidden costs of low adoption and lost productivity. The savings from switching to a more efficient modern platform will almost always outweigh the cost of making the change.