PNR Watcher is the Swiss Army knife of GDS add-ons. With it you can automate a wide range of manual processes quickly and easily.
PNR watcher works by monitoring the consultant’s entries into the GDS system, in real-time, against a centrally configured set of rules.As soon as a rule is met, PNR Watcher can orchestrate any desired sequence of events. This sequence can consist of one or many steps and can include things like opening documents, launching programs and displaying messages.
Our clients are always coming up with inventive new ways to use PNR Watcher to improve efficiency and productivity.
Here are five examples of ways you could be using PNR Watcher to create revenue and maximise profits:
- Ensure route deals are always applied
Route deals are a major unit of currency in the business travel world. Booking travellers on route deals typically offers your client the lowest fare and you the highest profitability – win win. But what if consultants don’t recall or, worse, even know if there is a route deal available when booking a ticket? Ensure this never happens by creating a rule in PNR Watcher to look out for any availability entry on which you have a deal. When the rule is met, you can open up the document that contains the full details from your file server. Your consultant will know to check if the route deal can be applied, every single time.
- Enforce fare compliance
In a busy TMC, booking errors are inevitable and some, like fare compliance, are harder to spot than others. With PNR watcher you can automatically check the current booking file for compliance with the fare chosen, removing the risk of ADMs from this type of easily overlooked error.
- Create agency specific commands
Business travel consultants have to draw on a multitude of resources every day, often relying on familiarity with their client, knowledge of the industry and their memory to make the right choices. Anything that can improve their productivity while reducing their burden is a plus for TMC profitability. PNR Watcher watches all GDS entries, not just those that the GDS understands. Thus, you can use any non-GDS command to create a unique function especially for your consultants. Consider these three examples:
- Type ‘PREFFERED’ to open a list of this month’s preferred suppliers
- Type ‘BAWEB’ to launch the BA website in your browser
- Type ‘DETAILS’ to bring up the clients travel policy and other info
- Prevent ticketing when crucial info is missing
Helping travel buyers do their job is an essential part of making your TMC invaluable to its clients. This often involves making sure that essential data is entered or key processes are followed before tickets are issued. With stop ticketing rules you can employ PNR Watcher to prevent the issuing of tickets until these requirements have been met. This could, for example, be used to ensure cost centre codes are entered.
- Ensure the right people are involved
Sometimes you only want certain people, or departments, to perform certain functions. For example, perhaps only your ticketing team can reissue a ticket in order to comply with agency or client policy since getting this wrong could directly result in the agency being hit with unnecessary ADMs. In cases like this, use PNR Watcher to enforce a stop trigger entry rule and to abort any entry made by the wrong team member.