The Omnichannel Strategy, Key to Managing the Rise in Daily Claims at Airports

Summer 2022 has been a glimpse of what we already call the new normality and has brought with it the near end of restrictions related to the pandemic.

In this way, users have planned their vacations outside their usual residence and this has caused a collapse in Spanish airports that have recovered 92% of pre-COVID traffic in July, as Aena has confirmed.

To this boom in flights have been added the strikes of the workers of the main airlines that operate in Spanish airports and that have disrupted the plans of some tourists, which has led to the multiplication of claims, up to 133 on average a day, on airlines such as Ryanair or EasyJet. Thus, the platforms that collect complaints requests assure that they have received thousands of demands for delays, cancellations, overbooking and loss or damage to luggage.

With this heated context today, agility and resolution in the first contact with the customer have become priority services for airlines. Enreach, a leading European provider of converged communications solutions for companies, explains that in order for flight companies to achieve a good customer experience (CX) in the incidents they are collecting during this summer, they can bet on a strategy that groups several channels of contact, so that the user decides to communicate with the companies by his preferred way and his case is resolved effectively.

In this sense, an omnichannel platform is one of the most efficient options, so Enreach points out below the reasons why betting on an omnichannel strategy in your customer service is essential for the customer experience at a time claims reviewer:

1) Users Have at Their Disposal Different Ways to Choose

An omnichannel strategy brings together channels such as WhatsApp, WebChat, telephony, Click&Talk, email or SMS so that travelers who have questions can contact the airlines in the most convenient and efficient way, as well as helping to streamline procedures.

According to the CEX Association, 77% of users continue to use the telephone to contact companies, 11% choose email and 4% chatbots. Thus, Vueling assured at the end of 2019 that 80% of customers who contact by phone are attended to in less than thirty seconds, those who do so by mail have the incident resolved in less than twenty-four hours and matters that require more than one process, they close in less than two days.

Likewise, a study by Emplifi has verified that the response time in the comments and complaints of the users in the social networks of the airlines is relatively short. On Twitter 1.7 hours and on Facebook 5.4 hours.

2) Helps to Set Priorities in the Call Queue

Thanks to a smart routing system, airlines can direct users to the agent that is best prepared to attend to their query. This process is very much in line with the needs of these companies, since personalization is associated with a more special treatment, and they need to demonstrate to users who contact them about incidents that their problems matter to them, all in a peak period of claims where an agile and efficient service is required.

3) Monitor in Real-Time What Happens in the Company’s Contact Center

It should be noted that a complete omnichannel solution monitors the activities of the contact center in real-time to, later, make better decisions, for example, based on the level of work that the agents are having. This also improves your productivity and quicker responses to passengers.

4) Integrate Innovative Technologies Such as AI to Improve Management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology helps bots, so common in omnichannel platforms, understand what the customer requires in order to resolve their queries. Specifically, airlines use this service to provide exclusivity in reservations, promotions and travel advice, among others. Thus, the relationship with the customer will be from the purchase of the flight until the passenger has landed, which helps to complete a satisfactory customer experience.

“Customer service is decisive in companies such as airlines, since it is a sector that needs it because it encounters hundreds of incidents every day. In this situation, prevention is better than cure and it is crucial that airlines are aware of the latest technologies that are coupled to contact centers, since it will be what differentiates them from the competition. In this sense, creating an omnichannel strategy is highly recommended because it combines all the necessary tools to meet the needs of passengers and even build loyalty,” concludes Santi Vernet, Enreach Spain CCO.