Unlocking the SME Corporate Travel Segment with Samyag AI

​How AI helped a TMC profitably serve high-volume, low-conversion SME travel enquiries

Customer Snapshot (Anonymised)

• Industry: Corporate Travel Management
• Region: India & Middle East
• Customer Segment: SME / SMB corporates
• Channels: Email & messaging
• Market Reality: SMEs account for ~70% of corporate travel demand
• Initial Conversion Rate: < 10%

The Market Challenge

The SME / SMB segment represents the largest share of corporate travel demand, but also the hardest to serve profitably.

Key challenges included:

• SMEs send enquiries to multiple TMCs simultaneously
• Decisions are driven by speed of response, not long negotiations
• Manual handling led to delayed replies (15–30 minutes or more)
• Low conversion rates meant poor ROI on agent time
• SME enquiries were often deprioritised in favour of large corporate accounts
• Travellers often booked directly with online OTAs due to faster responses even though the TMC had better rates

As a result, a large portion of SME demand was left unserved or lost, despite high overall market volume.​

Why Samyag AI

The customer needed a way to:

• Respond to SME enquiries very quickly
• Handle large volumes without adding agents
• Keep servicing costs low enough to justify the lower margins on the segment
• Compete effectively with OTAs on response speed
• Improve conversion without sacrificing margins

Samyag was introduced to automate first response and option generation for SME enquiries.

The Solution

Samyag was deployed as an AI-first servicing layer for SME travel requests.

Key capabilities included:

• Instant understanding of inbound SME travel enquiries
• Automated generation of competitive flight and hotel options
• Responses sent within the same email or message thread
• Ability to handle high enquiry volumes with minimal human involvement
• Agents focused only on confirmed or high-intent follow-ups and ticketing

The AI handled the speed layer, while agents handled confirmations and exceptions.

​Results
​Within the initial rollout phase, the customer observed:

• Response times reduced from 15–30 minutes to under 1–2 minutes
• Ability to service 100% of SME enquiries, previously ignored or delayed
• Significant reduction in cost per enquiry
• Early uplift in conversion rates with a clear path to scale

Conversion Impact

• Before Samyag: < 10% conversion
• With Samyag: ~ 40% conversion

This represented a 4× increase in conversion potential for the SME segment.

Why It Worked

• Speed-first servicing matched SME buying behaviour
• AI removed the cost barrier of manual handling
• TMCs could finally compete with OTAs on response time
• High-volume, low-margin demand became economically viable

Outcome

By deploying Samyag.ai, the customer transformed the SME segment from a low-priority, low-conversion problem into a scalable growth opportunity unlocking a large portion of corporate travel demand that was previously lost to online OTAs.