Omnichannel

Omnichannel customer relationship management – the future of customer management

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“Alexa, find me the best prices on flights to London.”

Gone are the days when customers reached airlines and travel agents through only phone, email, or the company website. Everyone’s house is filled to the brim with “smart devices” that can be used to make inquiries, book tickets, or even raise complaints. There are numerous instances of customers reaching out via WhatsApp, social media direct messages, and even the comments section of a promotional post on social media.

Customers seamlessly switch between devices, and they alternate frequently between various modes of search, so they expect you to be reachable no matter what channel they use. Further, they expect to be served in the medium in which they reached out to you. For instance, they’ll be upset if they reach you via Facebook Messenger, and you send them off to fill a Google Form or redirect to a website.

But most importantly, they expect personalization; customers wouldn’t appreciate any automated messages that say you will look into the matter or directs them to your website or gives them an email/phone to reach when they want a resolution through social media.

If you are eager to cater to modern passengers and provide them with a delightful experience, getting an omnichannel CRM is the way to go.

With an omnichannel CRM, you can handle customer interactions from all channels in a single platform, resulting in a seamless customer management process.

Why omnichannel CRM is the future

A specialized travel CRM can go a long way in bolstering your customer management efforts by helping you connect with clients across multiple channels, help them make bookings, get relevant travel information, and resolve any queries they may have.

Equipped with such a tool, you can:

Provide exceptional customer experience:

You can delight customers by rapidly responding no matter which platform they use to reach you. It is possible to configure the CRM to automatically assign agents to handle the customer or person inquiring or respond with a personalized canned message.

Owing to fast response times, and the ease with which customers can access the information they want, it is undeniable that you will get more bookings with minimal effort.

Capture customer data in a pain-free manner:

With a travel CRM that uses AI, you can rest assured that the tool will capture important customer details to build a profile for them that can be leveraged by you to offer personalized products. Also, you can use this contact information to reach the customer with relevant offers and information about travel.

Make the life of customer support agents easier:

Since requests from all platforms will be accessible in a single place, customer support agents don’t have to waste time searching for customer information. Since the CRM can also send personalized messages, the support agent can spend his time dealing with complex requests that can’t be automated.

Enable self-service and buying:

With the right CRM, you can improve your sales drastically by providing customers with the ability to serve themselves. You can do so by making use of canned responses and AI-powered chat and even knowledge bases filled with necessary information.

Automate time-consuming, tedious work

When it comes to serving customers, speed is key. Using a powerful CRM, you can deal with customer requests easily, as the tool will automatically assign the best possible agent. The software will further take care of preventing agent collision, which can be something that slows down work and serves to embarrass the company.

Conclusion

VoyagerAid travel agency CRM is equipped with all the necessary features to take the customer engagement efforts of airlines and travel agents to the next level and prepare you for the future when travel is set to pick up exponentially. With it, you can make sure that you leave no customers behind and upsell to the maximum extent possible via all your channels.

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How can airlines boost ancillary revenue post covid?

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Since budget carriers— such as Ryanair —entered the fray and began competing for market share in the airline sector, they have thrived by selling ancillaries. In 2019, before covid was a factor, ancillary revenue for airlines stood at a staggering 109.5 billion U.S. dollars.

With covid throwing a wrench in the workings of the airline sector for nearly two years and costing billions of dollars in losses for airlines, ancillaries have retaken the spotlight. However, airlines can’t expect to return to profitability by focusing on the same ancillaries as before.

Airlines need to focus on the following ancillaries to increase revenue by taking advantage of the post-pandemic desire among customers for personalization, flexible pricing, and higher safety standards.

Personalized tours

Given that over half of business travelers are reluctant to travel in the next few months, tourists and religious pilgrims will be the critical drivers of airline revenue in the near term. Careering to them with competitively priced flight packages that include ancillaries, such as car rentals, food, hotels, etc., will go a long way in optimizing your revenue.

Airlines can further offer tours centered on the emotional and physical wellbeing of passengers, given the toll the pandemic has taken on everyone. This can mean a vacation at a hotel with a spa or a beachside resort, or a hill station.

Safety focused ancillaries

Ancillaries ranging from immunity boosting kits to travel insurance to baggage wrapping can go a long way in inspiring customer confidence in travel and increasing your bottom line. Airlines also need to make sure these safety measures offer comprehensive protection at an affordable rate.

Airlines can even take a cue from travel operators offering trips to Russia that include vaccinations on arrival. Also, airlines can capitalize on the need for social distancing and offer passengers the ability to buy the seats near them to leave vacant.

Another ancillary that airlines can sell is the ability to cancel tickets without any penalty if the passenger gets covid.

Corporate rewards

Airlines can team up with credit cards companies to offer frequent flier rewards and other bonuses. This leads to credit card users becoming patrons of the airline. There are also various loyalty programs that airlines can roll out for both retail customers and corporate travelers that are guaranteed to increase brand loyalty and drive revenue.

For corporate travelers, airlines can offer on-demand services, such as Wi-Fi, in-flight meals, business class lounge access, extra legroom, transport facilities once they reach the destination airport, etc.

Conclusion

Personalization and innovation in ancillary offerings are the keys to an airline’s post-pandemic success. When these are prioritized across all channels and touchpoints, airlines will undoubtedly gain a competitive edge in these turbulent times.

If you are unsure about how to offer customer-centric ancillaries that will bolster your revenue, feel free to reach us at [email protected].

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Can Chatbots/Virtual Assistants Help Airlines Bounce Back When Travel Revives?

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According to Forbes, 86% of consumers prefer humans to chatbots.

This should not be surprising, given how many of us have reached out to customer support, hoping to get to a sympathetic human, only to be faced with a chatbot that seems determined to annoy us with either nonsensical answers or the infamous message: Sorry, I cannot help you with that.

But what if we told you that chatbots will RESCUE your AIRLINE?

That it will turn the limp that COVID-19 has given your airline’s growth into an unstoppable sprint?

Sounds unbelievable?

Allow us to show you how ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE makes that possible. As you read, you will see how AI-powered customer service chatbots will not just save you money but also leave your customer delighted.

The situation to date

While chatbots with basic functionalities have been implemented by the airline sector, most of the customer support work is still being done by humans. To cut back on costs, airlines have taken to outsourcing their customer support needs, but there is a limit to the money that they can save.

Making matters worse, the COVID-19 outbreak has forced airlines to cut back on support staff. This has, to a large degree, left the airline sector vulnerable to surges in customer support requests as the pandemic subsides and travel resumes.

That raises a serious question.

How will airline support teams scale up when travel volume picks up?

Like many other sectors, the aviation industry has sought to leverage AI to enhance their passengers’ travel experience.

AI chatbots, which are self-training systems that can remember user preferences and the context of conversations to provide a human-like experience, can go a long way in enhancing customer satisfaction and bringing down costs.

Owing to its immense potential, airlines have been quick to tap into AI-powered virtual assistants/chatbots to both replace and facilitate the working of customer support executives. In many instances now, airline companies employ AI chatbots to provide customers with personalized care and flight information.

Key trends in airline chatbot implementation

Increasingly, airlines have implemented their chatbots on popular social media apps, allowing customers to get their issues resolved at their convenience. Here are a few stats that prove that the airline chatbot revolution is here to stay.

  • Iceland-based carrier, Icelandair, now provides 24×7 customer support via Facebook Messenger thanks to its bot.
  • Air Asia’s implementation of AVA ensures that 10 times the normal number of tickets are cleared daily.
  • WestJet’s Juliet resolved 87% of the cases coming from Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp owing to its machine learning capabilities.
  • During the peak of the pandemic, Iberia’s IBot resolved 72% of the incoming queries. Further, on other platforms, it had a success rate of 88% while dealing with 250,000 messages. Notably, the issues it dealt with included booking management, voucher requests, and flight status inquiries.
  • The rebooking bots from KLM saved agents’ time by resolving 10% of the issues instantly and automatically and only diverting complex requests to their human counterparts.

It is beyond reasonable doubt that airline chatbots are here to stay. If the examples are not convincing, maybe the SITA report, which found 68 percent of airlines and 42% of all airports use chatbots/ virtual assistants to keep customers notified of important developments, will do the job.

Why the newfound popularity?

Given how unpopular ordinary chatbots are, it may be surprising to see AI-based bots taking over the industry. But what you are missing is that AI chatbots have a variety of features that give them an edge over all the other means of customer support that airlines have been using since the industry’s inception.

These features are what will help the industry bounce back when travel volumes go up.

  • Stay on top of customer support requests regardless of volume

With AI, airlines have the option of resolving tickets extremely quickly with a limited budget even as support request volumes go through the roof. AI is tireless, so chatbots employing the technology have what it takes to scale up rapidly to meet demand. This is especially beneficial because airlines do not have to go through the tedious process of hiring and training lots of customer support executives in a short duration when travel volumes go up.

Even the ones that you do end up hiring will be more productive given how they do not have to deal with repetitive tasks all day thanks to AI-enabled automation of ticket resolution. This is a surefire way to save a ton of money.

Besides, these highly intelligent virtual agents can be used to provide quick resolutions across multiple channels, which will save you and the customers a lot of time.

  • Identify and solve trending issues during flight disruptions

Even after we put the COVID-19 crisis slowly behind us, it will take time before we know its full ramifications. Consequently, new issues in travel will keep cropping up, just like the necessity for social distancing that came up amidst the worst period of the pandemic.

New challenges that may come up in the wake of the pandemic, such as government regulations or related disruptions in flight services can be found out quickly and tackled using AI. Promptly informing passengers of issues when there is a disruption in flights is a great way to prevent tickets from coming in.

  • Revenue optimization through the sale of ancillaries

The fact that AI chatbots can automatically sell ancillaries through a passenger’s journey is a point in its favor. Ancillaries are a key driver of airline revenue, so the ability of chatbots to offer personalized ancillaries, such as priority boarding, seat upgrades, and extra checked baggage, answer queries instantaneously, and facilitate easier purchases justifies their use as travel picks up.

  • Retain more customers with stellar customer support

Steadily, travel volumes are going up, and you can capitalize on this by consistently providing customers with a delightful travel experience. According to a study from Applied Marketing Science and Twitter, customers are willing to pay more for a flight if they have had a positive experience with the airline’s customer support team.

With an airline chatbot, you can make sure that your customers are taken care of round the clock and attended to instantly. Amazingly, you can do this without hundreds of support staff stationed around the globe.

  • Safeguard your customer service executives’ mental well-being

Since a lot of customer service executives were laid off during the pandemic, the task of handling countless frustrated passengers fell on the few agents who were left. This has taken a huge toll on their mental health.

As the COVID situation gets better, support requests are set to increase drastically. With the use of AI chatbots, airlines can reduce the workload of agents by using a virtual assistant to take care of the commonly asked questions.

Conclusion

Chatbots will become ubiquitous in the aviation industry in the coming years, given the lessons from COVID-19. Further, they are much more than a cost-saving measure; airline chatbots have the potential to boost ancillary sales and bring down support costs, blurring the line between customer experience, sales, and customer support.

With chatbots/virtual assistants, airlines will also be able to retain more customers by allowing them to access instant, personalized, and easy self-service. All airline chatbots are not created equal, though. To maximize customer satisfaction and ROI, Infiniti Software Solution’s airline chatbot is the optimal solution.

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Handling Groups During Flight Disruption

by with No Comment Blog

What happens when you cross a group of business execs on a hectic schedule with a disrupted flight?

The answer is obvious.

You get an angry mob with an oversized influence on your bottom-line queuing up to patronize your competitor while simultaneously berating you on social media.

You can imagine for yourself the nightmarish scenario you will find yourself in if by chance the flights are delayed or canceled for a bunch of religious pilgrims or vacationers. The financial damage will be comparatively less, but your reputation will tank nonetheless from all the negative press you will get on social media.

Sounds frightening?

This may even have happened to your airline, and you may have experienced a mad scramble to provide support to countless angry passengers and deal with their rebooking or cancellation requests.

Can things be better? How can an airline deal effectively with the fallout from disruptions on lucrative group bookings?

It is near impossible to avoid flight disruptions or even predict when one will occur. The solution lies in managing disruptions efficiently, keeping in mind both the profits of the airline and customer experience.

But this is easier said than done.

Traditional Methods Of Managing Groups During Airline Disruptions —And Why They Will Not Work

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic raging in 2020, the number of people who took to the skies was 1.8 billion. The number will steeply rise in the coming months and years as lockdown restrictions are lifted across the world. To keep up with the demand for disruption management solutions, airlines must find ways to tackle the disadvantages of the legacy methods that are as follows:

The highly chaotic manual method of informing passengers of delays or cancellations

When there is a delay of some sort in your flights, the least you can do is inform the passengers so that they will not arrive hours earlier and sit fuming in the airport. Using the old-fashioned method of reaching out to one customer at a time is a tedious process that is also prone to errors.

Near Impossibility Of Dealing With Multiple Channels

When a group gets to know they will not be boarding at the promised time, there is no telling what the reaction will look like. Some will take to venting on social media while others will write long-winded emails to customer support. Some people will give you a call on your customer support number.

If you are not prepared to simultaneously tackle this large volume of customer support requests, you are bound to lose customer goodwill.

Time-Consuming Manual Rebooking/ Cancellation Process

During a disruption, you can be sure that your helpdesk will be flooded with support requests from frantic passengers desperate to know what is going on with their flight. The volume of calls, emails, and social media messages you get will surely overwhelm your customer support agents, create great confusion when it comes to rebooking/ cancelling, and undoubtedly lead to extremely unhappy customers who will think twice about using your services again.

Benefits Of Automation In Dealing With Group Bookings Of Disrupted Flights

When there is a flight disruption and you have a group booking on your hands, the first thing you need to consider is how to prevent the ensuing chaos when the passengers learn that their plans have been spoiled through no fault of theirs. Sending them an email or an SMS with a generic apology will not cut it.

Matter of fact, it is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. A disaster you will remember for a long time.

More importantly, it will be a disaster that potential customers will associate your name with.

Preventing all this requires a lightning speed response to flight disruption along with a level of personalized customer support that is unprecedented.

Now, is that even possible?

This is where automation comes in.

With the right airline disruption management solution that integrates with the group booking software, passengers can be provided with personalized notifications of disruptions, real-time support, the ability to rebook or cancel flights on their own, and the option of instant refunds if they need them.

Here is how such a solution can transform your operations and redefine customer experience.

Instantly Notify Your Passengers Of Disruptions

The last thing you want on your hands is a group of angry passengers in the lobby complaining that they were not informed of the flight delay. Upset passengers busying up your airport staff asking for more information or demanding refunds can throw a wrench in your day-to-day operations.

It is hence prudent to automate the notifications about flight disruptions and ensure customers get the message via multiple channels, such as email and SMS. They will appreciate the effort you put into informing them. Moreover, a timely warning that the flight will not be available will prevent them from coming to the airport earlier and wasting their time.

Make Your Customers’ Life Easy With Automatic Rescheduling And Cancellation Options

A stranded passenger’s biggest frustration is that he lost control over his schedule through no fault of his own. Giving the passenger the ability to automatically reschedule or cancel their flights and get a refund through a self-service portal is a great way to make them feel in control of the situation.

The process must be automatic; the last thing a customer wants when their schedule is disrupted is to wait in a queue to reach customer support.

Leave No Passenger Behind

When it comes to group bookings, you will see two types of passengers—one that proactively uses your self-service portal to rebook or cancel their tickets and another that is blissfully unaware of the flight disruption.

If you can provide automated flight rebooking or cancellation to the first type, then your customer support agents will be free to call the passengers who fall into the second category and take care of their needs, which will invariably delight them.

24×7 Support Across All Channels In Multiple Languages

With group bookings, there is the issue of getting multiple support requests simultaneously for the same issue. Having a dedicated support team is great, but it is no match for an omnichannel, automated support solution that can answer passengers in multiple languages.

Cost Optimization

During disruption, there is bound to be chaos in reassigning passengers to various flights. If you use AI, you can direct passengers to your flights that have low occupancy, which will free up demand on the overbooked flights and add to your bottom-line. Most significantly, you can do so without diminishing customer satisfaction.

Reduced Support Staff Requirements

Automate your customer support with AI-powered chatbots that never tire, no matter how harsh the customers are with their questions. Moreover, you can widen the range of the support questions the chatbots can answer, by using a comprehensive knowledge base with all the common questions that passengers ask during a disruption.

Conclusion

No doubt, the future of airline disruption management, especially for group bookings, is digital. Adopting automation for dealing with the group booking passengers during disruptions with a relatively small investment can go a long way in alleviating their frustration and preventing them from switching over to your competitors.

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Why NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey is very essential?

by with No Comment Blog

1. IDENTIFY DETRACTORS: Now its time to retain our existing customers as they are our biggest asset. Identifying customers who are not happy and solving them will be a key factor

2. GAIN NEW CUSTOMERS: Investing in the acquisition and converting a customer will be a complex task in this pandemic. So identifying promoters in your customer base help you to gain new customers

3. SERVICE QUALITY: NPS survey will definitely give you the bigger picture on the service quality and helps companies to streamline their support system.