In 2020, the struggles of the air travel industry have been well documented. In the past week, Virgin Atlantic has filed for bankruptcy protection, it has been publicised that 6000 British Airways employees have accepted voluntary redundancy, Boeing has announced that they are ceasing the manufacture of their iconic 747 jet, while EasyJet is scheduling extra flights to cope with a sudden upsurge in demand. Sadly, that upsurge is nothing to be too optimistic about – with the airline currently working at just 30% capacity and seeing a 10% increase in holidaymaker numbers.
The economic climate is incredibly challenging for the airline industry, illustrated by the potential bankruptcy protection of Virgin Atlantic, the significant reduction in British Airways workforce and EasyJet considering a 30% reduction, while Boeing reported a loss $3 billion in the three months to June 2020.
The physical disruption, caused by Covid-19, to contact centre operations has been a major challenge. With agents being forced, at short notice, to operate from home and access key systems remotely. Then there is the dilemma of move agents back to the contact centre – willing or not.
So in this global environment, how do air travel businesses plan and deliver excellent customer service?
Changing customer service demands
Historically, air industry contact centre volumes have been relatively easy to predict. Seasonal variations repeated year upon year, with any spikes in demand usually driven by marketing campaigns or weather events which were restricted to specific geographies. 2020 has been vastly different.
With Covid-19 restricting international movement of people, demand for air travel abruptly fell to virtually zero. At the same time, the demand for answers to questions spiked alarmingly, but understandably, with millions of anticipated holidaymakers and business travellers suddenly needing to alter or cancel their travel plans. Airline customer service teams were faced with an unprecedented situation.
Following the initial spike in demand for news about cancelled flights and refund handling, call volumes dropped again and settled into more predictable enquiries, giving companies an opportunity to redraft FAQs for agents to deliver consistent standards of service. However, this period of relative stability did not last.
More recently, regional, national and international ‘mini-lockdowns’ have caused unpredictable spikes in demand. The recent decision by the UK Government to impose quarantine restrictions on travellers returning home from Spain, for example, was given with only five hours’ notice. Understandably, customer service departments were faced with a new situation they were mostly unprepared for.
How can the industry cope?
With no end to the pandemic insight and outbreaks being handled on a more local basis – enormous variations in customer service demand are likely to be the norm. How do travel companies build a service capability which can deal with this?
As airlines stopped flying, some companies deployed their cabin crew to support other departments. Commonly, the multi-lingual skills and industry knowledge that cabin crew possess have provided much needed assistance to teams struggling to cope with demand. Although, as flights gradually recommence this temporary measure needs to be replaced.
For a permanent solution, air travel businesses are planning to use two important enablers:
- Technology
- Outsourced help
Technology – the enabler
To enable agents to cope with new questions and periods of unprecedented demand, implementing improved or more sophisticated technology is being viewed as a must have by some businesses. Technology platforms are available which can be implemented surprisingly quickly, capable of rapidly expanding numbers of agents to satisfy changing volumes. In addition, automated systems can reduce the demand on human agents, allowing your team to spend more time dealing with complex enquiries while simpler transactions are handled without the need for intervention.
To enable agents to cope with new questions and periods of unprecedented demand, implementing technology is being viewed as a must have by some businesses. Technology platforms are available which can be implemented surprisingly quickly, capable of rapidly expanding numbers of agents to satisfy changing volumes. In addition, automated systems can reduce the demand on human agents, allowing your team to spend more time dealing with complex enquiries while simpler transactions are handled without the need for intervention.
Online automation, coupled with fast transfer to agents when needed, can also smooth out sudden increases in demand. Data collection also enables FAQs to be updated more rapidly, further improving agents’ ability to deal with changing issues more quickly and consistently.
Outsourcing – the facilitator
The ability to rapidly bring additional support on stream may be the defining characteristic of those businesses who survive to emerge as winners once the pandemic subsides. Some airlines already have additional outsource capacity on a retainer, deployable when required. By building this capacity, costs are reduced in the core business whilst customer service levels can be kept high during peak demand.
Outsourced teams can be tasked with FAQ responses and transactional business, leaving internal highly skilled agents to handle more complex issues. These same agents can also build up a knowledge base as new situations develop, future-proofing your teams in a rapidly changing business environment.
Specialist outsourcers can be used, in addition, to deal with specific elements of the customer journey or enquiry, for example when handling transactional data. Fully PCI DSS compliant operators can handle payments and refunds within strict guidelines, supported by other businesses dealing with conversational enquiries and online requests via chat or social media channels. Technology gives a seamless way of connecting these teams, which enables your business to give its customers a positive and risk-free experience.
Beyond 2020: converting a problem into an opportunity
One of the inevitable side-effects of the changes due to Covid-19 will be an increase in prices for flights and holidays. Travel firms will need to add extra value to encourage travellers to book again, especially international travellers and customers who have either lost money or gone through the painful process of obtaining refunds from cancelled flights.
For premium brands, there may be opportunities to offer direct services including rapid Coronavirus testing and additional PPE and barrier protection in airports, as well as at the customer’s home before and after flights.
Long term effects could result in customers becoming happy to pay a premium price to take advantage of online advice with a human touch delivered via apps such as Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams or through branded online travel gateways. By delivering a travel agency experience online, companies might be able to maximise loyalty by using a lower cost, non-intermediary advice channel for premium clients.
Whatever the future looks like, it will certainly be very different operating landscape for the travel industry. The short-term prognosis is very challenging and difficult decisions will need to be made. Companies who survive and emerge as front-runners beyond 2020, will need to provide enhanced customer service in a more challenging marketplace than the industry has ever seen.
If your business needs to consider how to deal with post-Covid customer service volumes, or to look at strategic options for technology and flexibility, CCP can help. Our skilled and vastly experienced team, backed by our comprehensive Contact Centre and Technology Networks, are able to advise your business on ways to improve your customer experience and introduce contact centre technologies that will help reduce costs and improve customer interaction. Get in touch today for a free no obligations consultation.
Whilst society as a whole has shown care for those at risk or need, illustrated by the large number of people signing up for voluntary work and the weekly ‘clap for carers’, has the business community done the same? Will companies who have given customer service priority to the elderly, vulnerable and essential workers continue after the crisis has passed and at what cost? Have lessons been learned already and will these provisions be written into future crisis management and business planning?
In this article, I offer my thoughts on the subject of Corporate Social Responsibility in times of crisis – highlighting both the opportunities and pitfalls organisations could face in the future.
Will opportunity and reputational pressure drive change?
There is a considerable opportunity for brands who recognise this pandemic as an opening to improve how they deal with the most deserving groups of customers. This includes not only the vulnerable and elderly, but the essential workers and front line carers who are trying to cope with limited time, heightened stress levels and the need to fulfil their roles.
Building effective ways to prioritise these customers and deliver a great experience, under pressure, will ultimately result in more effective businesses in the long term, not just when the chips are down.
On the other side of this argument, brands who do not perform their duties and illustrate a level of corporate social responsibility may suffer irreparable damage to their brand reputation. Virgin Group, Wetherspoons and Sports Direct, for example, will need to work hard to overcome the damage caused by the well-publicised and unpopular decisions made early on in the lockdown period.
Lesson learned from the pandemic
The massive change in the demand for customer service support, during this period, has put many organisations under extraordinary strain in unexpected areas. Some contact centres have witnessed unprecedented volumes at precisely the same time they have been forced to implement mass moves from office to homeworking. Call queues have been longer, with customers sometimes waiting hours and the prioritisation of customers becoming a real challenge.
Some major brands have made great strides. The largest supermarkets have been given access to the Government’s list of 1.5 million vulnerable people to help them prioritise deliveries to those most in need. This initiative has only been allowed by measures in the Data Protection Act, which enable public authorities to share relevant information to provide essential services. Coupled with their own data, this has enabled them to deliver priority services to those who need them most. However, the data is sensitive and the Information Commissioner has instructed supermarkets to delete it when this crisis is over.
Some brands already have a great reputation for the way they deal with elderly and vulnerable employees. B&Q is a good example of this. Do they have the ideal opportunity to build that reputation with vulnerable customers too? How do organisations engage and prepare now for future crises, how will they grasp that opportunity now, whilst still a hot topic and then critically maintain that commitment until the next crisis?
Improving customer care for the elderly, vulnerable and essential workers
The companies that deal successfully with all their customers will do so by overcoming significant challenges. This includes how the most deserving groups are looked after. There will be a time when we reflect on how businesses dealt with Coronavirus, which will include their treatment of specific customer sets.
Now is the perfect time to plan, develop and build new systems and processes for the future. The huge changes which have been and still are necessary to simply stay in business, during this extraordinary time, maybe the basis for improved business practice as the crisis abates. Incorporating additional care for the most vulnerable customers now should, in theory, set brands up to deliver excellent service to those people when the pandemic is over.
This is the perfect opportunity for businesses to identify, if unaware, customers who are vulnerable or classed as essential workers and develop the most effective ways to service those groups. It is important to build trust so data collection must be seen to be done for the benefit of the consumer and rather than to exploit their position.
Increasing loyalty through problem-solving
Many larger brands already have sophisticated loyalty schemes, used to reward customers and to gather data on buying habits. Why not extend these schemes to vulnerable members of registered customers’ families? This is an ideal opportunity to broaden the reach of your brand and to give a positive experience to your loyalty scheme members and their extended families. Enhanced loyalty schemes for families of the elderly and vulnerable, or key workers, could undoubtedly deliver enormous long term benefits for customers and of course for the brands who do it right.
At the contact centre, simple Business Continuity processes could reap immediate rewards, for example the creation of a special number only for vulnerable and elderly customers to call and who are then routed to a team trained to deal empathetically with their demographic. FAQs can be built up quickly in times of crisis, improving the results of calls in the minimum time by concentrating the effort in a focused team. It may be possible to offer customers an ‘honesty button’, allowing them to press a phone option to be put straight through to the team dealing with vulnerable customers. Agents could qualify by asking for the government-issued reference number, then CLI can be used to route future calls from the same number for optimal results. In this way, a brand can build up their understanding of this important customer group, in the minimum time, whilst delivering a trustworthy service and great experience, tailored to their most at-risk customers.
Make the vulnerable part of your business planning
It is not just good Corporate Social Responsibility to look after the elderly, vulnerable and essential workers. Brands who take the chance now to build systems, which help those in need at times of crisis, will emerge with improved loyalty and insight from these customers and a higher brand perception from the wider populous.
In a previous article we published in September 2018, we pointed out, using DMA statistics, that only 4% of agents felt they knew when they were speaking with a vulnerable customer. Now is the chance for businesses to make big improvements on that disappointing statistic and to enhance the customer experience of those groups receive. A group that will become increasingly important, from a financial perspective, as the average age of the population increases.
What happens next?
Once this difficult time subsides, most businesses will need to look into cost-cutting measures to survive. However, good customer service must be maintained or customers will be lost. Organisations who are able to deliver prioritised services to their elderly, vulnerable and essential worker customers, without overtly affecting their overall service delivery, should reap the rewards of increased loyalty, brand reputation and better customer handling processes and customer insight.
The pandemic offers a wonderful opportunity for businesses to shine, embracing their Corporate Social Responsibility and delivering the highest levels of customer experience to those who need it most. The cost of a damaged brand, including the impact on sales, employees and customer retention, will more than outweigh any increases to the cost of service delivery.