Customers rely on self-service technology to book flights, check in, change seats, and board their flight.
But when something disrupts their plans, their tech-savvy tendencies tend to go out the window, and they turn to 1:1 channels where they can engage directly with the airline.
NB: This is an analysis by Dave O'Flanagan, CEO at Boxever.
According to Fifth Quadrant, customer preference for phone dropped 15%, while other channels like email, text, and social grew by double digit percentages.
Recently, Twitter became the most popular form of social media used for customer interaction receiving 59.7% of customer comments while Facebook received 40.7%.
Yet why do travellers shy away from the phone more frequently than before?
Long phone menus and robotic voices are annoying, but they’re not the major culprits here. It’s what customers had to go to through before they had to make that phone call.
Making a phone call is a last resort. They’ve most likely been to the airline’s website, downloaded the app, and conducted an internet search. Only after all that self-service searching will they pick up the phone – fed up with technology and longing for a real human being on the other end of the line.
And more often than not, however, calls into customer service result in getting put on hold.
According to research by TalkTo, 85% of callers are put on hold every time they call a business. Customers are so frustrated with hold times that there is now a Twitter-based site, OnHoldWith, that tracks and reports real-time complaints about hold times posted on Twitter.
Airlines hold three of the top ten spots for the most complaints.
So, what can airlines do to make customer service better? One technique is to deliver a personalised experience at every possible touch point.
Customer behaviour is changing
As mentioned above, Fifth Quadrant’s research from last year found that the phone dropped 15% on customer preference charts. Meanwhile, email grew by 13%, text messaging by 10% and social media by 10%.
The most recent Call Center Satisfaction Index published by CFI Group shows that non-phone-based customer service methods now account for more than 30% of engagement. The trick to growing these new methods is to keep them responsive and personalised.
Non-phone-based outlets allow companies to easily, quickly, and efficiently personalize messages and target interaction with customers.
Thanks to social media, a customer is able to instantly contact a company with their exact issue. And when that social interaction is merged into the single view of the customer, the responding service agent can decide – or even be instructed – on the next best action to take with this customer.
No hold time and little to no upfront work, which saves a company time and money, not to mention reputation and credibility.
A phone call, by contrast, requires up front work gathering personal information and issue descriptions so that the automated system or reservation agent can understand what the customer is calling about.
Deflect issues through proactiveness
The best possible scenario for dealing with a customer service issue is to avoid having an issue at all. Never has it been easier to proactively handle customer issues. Big data allows airlines to personalize the customer experience even when a trigger event happens.
For instance, if a ground stop occurs at a major airport and flights are grounded for a few hours, information including the customers’ names, connecting flights, number of checked bags, and final destinations can all be sent to the airline, which can then immediately start working on re-accommodating the affected passengers.
Then, airlines can send a text message to each customer with their new flight information. No phone calls needed.
But airlines can do more than just re-accommodate passengers. Using the data supplied, airlines can offer a personalized incentive for every type of customer.
1. High-value customers?
A reservation agent can personally call the customer to make sure their reservation have been taken care of, as well as offer a pass to the airport lounge.
2. Customers having baggage issues?
Follow up with a text that includes their baggage tracking number and a discount code for a free bag the next time they travel.
3. A family that wasn’t able to sit together on the plane?
Send an email apologising for the inconvenience and a discount at an airport restaurant for their return trip. Not only does this type of tailored customer outreach help soothe any ill feelings, but it also shows a select interest in that customer – making them feel valued and more apt to return as a customer.
It’s also this type of personalized customer service that is being noted for the most recent airline cus-tomer satisfaction ratings.
The J D Power and Associates' 2014 North America Airline Satisfaction Study shows that passenger satisfaction is at its highest level in years. Richard Garlick, global travel and hospitality practice lead at J D Power, explained his theory to the Chicago Tribune.
He believes the top-rated airlines in this years’ study are more focused on the customer experience and customer service, while those ranking in the bottom are solely focused on operations.
Clearly this personalized approach is already improving the customer experience, and it’s also begun to yield an incredible ROI (more on that in the coming posts). This one-to-one customer service is what many people are coming to expect.
So, let’s ditch the impersonalized, mass communications already and give our customers the recognition and attention they deserve.
NB: This is an analysis by Dave O'Flanagan, CEO at Boxever.
NB2:Airline customer service image via Shutterstock.