How Sono Bello Modernized Its T&E Program with Navan
Sono Bello is a leading medical practice with more than 40 locations across the United States. As business pushed forward and their sales and executive teams had to start visiting stores, it quickly became evident that the company needed a partner who would be able to handle its travel complexities.
Sono Bello had previously partnered with Concur to book travel, but ended its contract when the pandemic hit without a new partner in place. “No one was happy with Concur... The booking and travel agents were separate, and it became a long, painful process for people,” explains Tasha Kammerzell, Financial Planning and Analysis Manager.
Challenges
- •Inefficient & expensive travel agent service
- •Manual pre-approvals that slowed travel
- •Out-of-policy spend with little oversight
- •Wasted employee time
Results with Navan
- •One-stop shop for travel & expense management
- •24/7 access to travel agents via chat, phone
- •Visibility & control over corporate spend
- •Increased efficiency & productivity
Upgrading Policies & Perspectives
The team quickly decided on Navan as its travel partner and was pleasantly surprised when it discovered that Navan Expense had recently been introduced. Sono Bello leadership was eager to onboard an end-to-end solution that would take care of their travel and expense management needs on a single platform.
A Next-Gen Travel Agent Experience
The travel agent service was a priority as Sono Bello resumed travel in June 2020. With complex itineraries and flight cancellations becoming more frequent, Sono Bello’s traveling team members needed reliable service that could effectively support its travelers without extra costs.
“The Navan travel agents really stood out to us,” said Tasha.
An End-to-End T&E Solution
Sono Bello’s team is currently using Navan Expense physical cards. Tasha finds it easy to add new team members and assign them cards with the new expense management program. Because of built-in policy controls, Tasha feels comfortable arming individual team members with cards so that each never needs to pay for expenses upfront.
Pivoting Towards the Future
The culture shift was accelerated by onboarding Navan. “There’s been a shift in company culture and working with Navan was a great step to take towards becoming more efficient. It’s really alleviated all the pain points we had with Concur,” said Tasha.
With Navan Expense, the biggest struggle for some people is just letting the policy do the work. We set the policy and trust our partner and team members. This trust is the only way to successfully manage a system as smart as Navan Expense. We spent a lot of time setting up the policy on the front so it is intuitive to the expense process. It’s been a big shift for the company. We don’t have to babysit our team members anymore.
Tasha Kammerzell
Financial Planning and Analysis Manager