There are entities all across the globe wanting to provide some form of benefit or incentive to its users, examples including employees of a business, students at a school or university, spectators of large sports events, and even tourists during the high season.
Take the world of work, for example, that’s grinding to reach its pre-pandemic momentum. One of the ways in which this is happening is that more and more businesses are investing in employee welfare to boost retention and recruitment levels and crank up productivity levels.
A 2021 report in Italy highlighted that over 64% of small to medium-sized Italian businesses have more than doubled in providing a high level of welfare — rising from 9.7% in 2016 to 21% in 2021 — with 54.8% of businesses that have incorporated welfare into their business plans recording a positive return on productivity; representing a win-win situation for employees and businesses branding.
One of the many welfare advantages include discounted or refundable services such as transportation services, which can be covered completely or partially by an employer. Depending on the country and region, there are often several tax benefits for transport users and organizations that invest in providing an alternative type of transport such as local public transport or other public/private solutions.
These benefits, especially in the world of passenger transportation, are typically redeemed in the form of a voucher. Vouchers aim to make commuting more accessible, affordable, and attractive — especially for those facing financial challenges but also to strengthen today’s sustainability efforts. The specifics of how vouchers work can vary depending on the type of partnership between an issuer and a carrier.
Whether physical or digital, a voucher is provided by an issuer (such as businesses, organizations or institutions providing a transport incentive to staff or students) to a holder. The voucher holder can then redeem the voucher when paying for a service that is provided by one or more of the issuer’s affiliated carriers (in this case transport providers, both public and private) to unlock the voucher’s benefits.
While vouchers come in many shapes and sizes, the advantages of a well-implemented voucher system not only benefits the voucher holder but also both issuers and carriers reel in numerous benefits from their partnership.
In this article, Sengerio puts under the microscope the dynamics of a voucher system to break down some of the key points that go into creating an effective voucher partnership between issuers and carriers and how this process can be optimized with the use of a centralized platform.
But before jumping into how a voucher is generated, let’s look a little closer at the issuer-carrier partnership.
When creating a partnership, carriers need to establish a form of agreement with an issuer to clearly define the limits and entailments of their voucher system.
It is always ideal to lay down the conditions of the partnership. This can include information such as the time scale or duration of the partnership and identifying the geographical area where the services are to cover as well as the typology of requested services.
Once a carrier and issuer enter an agreement and the conditions have been clearly established, we can then move on to making a voucher.
Establishing the pricing benefits of the voucher is the essence of the campaign. Here, the benefits are to be clearly defined:
What are the monetary benefits of the voucher holder? Cashback? Discount? Maybe the issuer, such as an employer or governing body, covers all the cost?
Perhaps the voucher holder will have a fixed percentage knocked off the total price, or even a fixed sum — these are questions to be answered by the issuer who then communicates this to the carrier.
In addition to pricing and, of course, specifying who the beneficiary of the voucher is, one of the first things to consider when generating a new voucher is the type of redemption each voucher requires. While some vouchers can only be redeemed a single time, there are different types that can utilize multiple redemptions. This is especially useful if a voucher covers more services with more than one carrier.
As well as the type of redemption, it is important to include information such as the duration of a voucher. This is because some vouchers will need to maintain their validity for an extended period of time, depending on the type of partnership.
A possible scenario could be issuers such as businesses and educational institutions wishing to incentivize the use of the local public transport system to their employees or students by contracting with a local transit agency, where the business or university covers all expenses directly on a rolling basis.
Other vouchers, on the other hand, might require a limited, shorter period of validity, ranging anywhere from a day to 72 hours, for instance.
This type of voucher could be of a particular interest for an issuer who requires an irregular service for their passengers, as opposed to the regular services supplied by public transit. Possible scenarios here could include school trips, events, and during the tourist season, where tourist agencies sell ‘bundles’ that include the transportation costs as well as the other aspects such as entry to a museum and other attractions.
By now, it starts to become clear that in order to implement an efficient voucher system there needs to be crystal-clear transparency between issuers and carriers, especially when it comes to communication.
Issuers are responsible for who is eligible for a voucher, where it can be used, and when it can be used.
Carriers, on the other hand, need to relay the key information back to the issuer once a voucher has been redeemed so that the issuer has a precise understanding of the voucher system’s efficiency; this includes things such as the date and time of redemption, and the total value redeemed.
When it comes to managing this type of system, there are different kinds of approaches to consider.
First of all, there is the traditional way of communicating information via telephone, emails and calls. This approach typically entails a to-and-fro style communication between issuers and carriers to manage their system. While this is still a great method for managing physical vouchers, it can be somewhat cumbersome and slow in this digitalized world — not to mention of course, one slip-up can throw a spanner in the works.
Besides the traditional method, there are digital solutions to voucher management out there yet many lack the specificity that the issuer-carrier partnership needs to manage transportation services. That being said, now there exists a digital solution that centralizes the entire process.
The team at Sengerio recently unveiled the software’s new capacity for carriers and issuers to streamline their voucher system by providing a unique platform that centralizes all the processes from the creation of a voucher to the time of its redemption and much more. Let’s have a look at this in more detail.
Sengerio Vouchers is the latest addition to the passenger transportation software Sengerio. Sengerio provides a dynamic cloud-based solution to managing the many aspects of a transportation service from initial quotation and booking generations to service scheduling. While the list of possibilities is exhaustive, in short, Sengerio optimizes the communication and relation between transport providers and buyers.
Sengerio’s platform allows issuers to create an agreement with carriers and specify the conditions of their voucher system. This includes the duration of the vouchers’ duration, the geographical area the voucher covers, and any additional conditions that may be deemed important.
Once an agreement has been established, it is possible for carriers to generate a voucher. When it comes to creating a voucher, carriers can specify the relevant information applied to the beneficiary — or in this case, the passenger — such as the typology of redemption (whether single or multiple redemption is applied), the maximum amount applied to the voucher, and the fixed contribution.
A voucher with a fixed contribution requires the beneficiary to pay a part of the cost at the time of redemption but the voucher covers the rest. For example, if a beneficiary has a voucher that's worth $60 and has a fixed contribution of $10, at the time of acquiring a service for $65 they will pay $10 and the remaining $55 will be deducted from the voucher.
It is even possible to specify how the voucher can be redeemed. When generating vouchers with Sengerio Vouchers, issuers can specify the redemption instructions to the beneficiary. This provides a simple but clear way to communicate to the beneficiary how they can redeem their voucher and how to take advantage of the benefit when it comes to booking their next trip.
With the voucher being successfully created, Sengerio Vouchers is then integrated with the carrier’s/ticket office’s website where the newly created voucher can be redeemed by the beneficiary when buying a service. When a unique voucher code has been entered by the beneficiary, the system communicates the redemption details directly and securely to Sengerio via an API to complete the request.
The activation of a voucher through Sengerio not only adjusts the price accordingly from the beneficiary’s perspective, but all the information is relayed into a dedicated page that provides an overview of all the redemptions made with a given issuer. The redemption log provides an overview of all redeemed vouchers, including who redeemed a voucher, when, and where, streamlining the process and offering valuable insights.
With a streamlined management system, issuers can efficiently oversee and manage their vouchers from a single platform, gaining insights into voucher usage, redemption data, and beneficiary information in real-time.
This centralized approach not only enhances operational efficiency but also provides transparency and control, ensuring a seamless experience for all parties involved. In short, there are many advantages to having a centralized platform for both issuers and carriers who are in direct contact with one another.
For issuers, the responsibility of issuing vouchers can be complex. However, Sengerio has simplified the many aspects of voucher management into one unique platform. Just as importantly, issuers can manage their vouchers from one place to understand who is using them, when, and where. It is even possible for issuers to import all their beneficiaries directly via Excel into Sengerio Vouchers, allowing them to have a complete list of beneficiaries entitled to a voucher.
In addition to the advantages a centralized system brings to issuers, it offers carriers a compelling incentive to enhance their commercial activities with potential buyers through its efficient voucher system, as well as taking advantage of the other management tools Sengerio offers.
For instance, in scenarios where a large number of individuals require transportation solutions for short or irregular periods, such as tourism-related activities, the Sengerio Voucher system can seamlessly cater to their needs. But not only, it also finds relevance in employee transportation programs, facilitating hassle-free commuting for workers.
Moreover, educational institutions and other organizations can utilize this system to efficiently manage transportation needs for students or members, ensuring smooth logistics. This system ensures that carriers can effectively expand their market reach while meeting the specific needs of different buyers across the transportation industry.
A well-implemented transport voucher system can be a powerful tool for entities wishing to incentivize transport solutions for their various objectives, whereas carriers have an excellent opportunity to expand their partnerships to provide their services.
From the initial generation of a voucher to its redemption, issuers and carriers must maintain absolute transparency throughout the entire process to ensure their voucher management partnership runs smoothly.
While it’s true that in order to have a streamlined management system there are many different aspects to consider, it’s important to remember that there are digital solutions out there which offer a centralized system to simplify the work for issuers and carriers.
Book your demo now to discover how Sengerio can simplify your business.
ABOUT SCOTT FRANKLAND
Scott Frankland is Head of Content at Sengerio. His spirit of inquiry leads him to the world of transportation and mobility to connect with the industry’s leading experts and shine a light on the hot topics.
ABOUT GIOVANNI ZACCARIA
Giovanni Zaccaria is the Marketing Specialist at Sengerio. He is dedicated to crafting compelling content that strategically promotes Sengerio's services worldwide, with the goal of simplifying operational processes for bus operators across the globe.