As the trusted jack-of-all-trades and travel administrator at Fischer Homes for 23 years, Beverly Turner is essential to building the strong culture that drives Fischer’s success. Founded in 1980 by Henry and Elaine Fischer, Fischer Homes builds 2,000 homes a year in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, plus Atlanta, Louisville, Dayton, Columbus and Indianapolis. Fischer knows what a big decision buying a new home is, and Fischer’s 97% buyer satisfaction rate shows they build new homes that customers love. Beverly says: “We provide homes for families at pretty much any stage of their life from the first-time homeowner to the growing family to the empty nester.”

But serving different customers in different markets is hard – how does Fischer do it? Fischer has a decentralized structure with local executives, project managers and salespeople who understand the local market and build near the quality schools, jobs and businesses that buyers need. Though the organization is decentralized, the strong culture is built across geographies with rigorous training and frequent in-person visits to ensure that Fischer homes and buying experiences are the same high quality everywhere.

Beverly describes the training: “The first thing we do at our new hire orientation to set the right expectations.” Specialized training includes “FUSE, which is the sales training where we pair you with a partner to run through scenarios like ‘I’m having trouble helping this person decide on a home model.’” Another training is “FUSE2 construction training out in the field, you pick up a hammer and nail two pieces of wood together.”

Being together in person is critical for Fischer’s training: “These are all things you just can’t do online – I mean, you can watch a video about it, but you’ve got to get out there and do it!” So the Fischer team travels: executives, quality control and marketing makes up about half of the travel, and travel for training is the other half.

Fortunately, while the Fischer team travels frequently, travel is pretty easy for Beverly to manage. “If I’m helping someone who knows where they’re going, I can book them in 10 minutes with AmTrav. If it’s a repeat person I can do that in five minutes.”

Beverly remembers when travel wasn’t so easy, before AmTrav. “You had to go to all these different airlines’ and hotels’ websites, it was a hassle that would literally take you a day to book,” with “huge Excel spreadsheets to keep track of everyone’s loyalty memberships.”

Having AmTrav support means Beverly and her fellow travel arrangers Katie and Amanda don’t have to be on call 24/7 to help travelers: “We tell travelers, if it’s a weekend or it’s eight o’clock at night, call AmTrav and get it fixed – if you’re traveling and something happens, they can assist you.”

AmTrav’s Relationship Managers are available to help Beverly when she needs help, like when Fischer decided to use Concur Expense alongside AmTrav travel. “I called AmTrav. I was afraid Concur would mess up the optional billing codes that you helped us to bill each division or department,” but our Relationship Manager said ‘oh no it’s not a problem’ and boom, we were done – it was awesome.”

To get accurate travel spend data to manage Fischer’s travel program Beverly says “I use the Trip Reports quite often.” When meeting “with my accounting partners at budget time for next year,” or when “meeting with our hotel partners [to] show how many nights we’ve stayed for our hotel program,” or just to “know who spent the most, who traveled the most – I love that feature.”

Travel Reports help with tracking and saving money: “The unused tickets report allows me to keep track of those tickets so I don’t have to do it myself manually.” In summary: “I love the dashboard, it’s very handy, breaks it all down for you, I can download that to Excel and do whatever I want with it – excellent! AmTrav is all one platform, you can do everything together.” 

Saving time booking and managing travel means Beverly has more time to help out around the business. Already a veteran of the marketing, HR and warranty departments, her current responsibilities include “the strategic planning function – forecasting what our five year projections are, where we’re going to be growing, and new business acquisition responsibilities.”

In her spare time, Beverly’s a fan of the British home renovation show “60 Minute Makeover” – “it’s so interesting to see people’s homes and preferences in a different country.” When she’s not renovating her own house (currently the kitchen!), she connects with family and friends by transforming cherished fabrics into beautiful quilts: “I picked up the hobby from my mom, she taught me how to quilt.” 

At the rate Fischer Homes continues to grow, Beverly depends on AmTrav to help with travel logistics so she can focus on other critical functions. After all,  “as a builder, Fischer’s always looking to grow, we’re not going to stop growing, and we’re not going to stop traveling. Especially with our outer markets, we have to be able to communicate with them. We have to travel, that’s the only way we’re going to be able to continue to grow.”