Is technology improving airline customer service?

The pandemic was a tipping point for the role of technology in airline customer service. The huge rise in service requests and complaints caused by the virtual shutdown of global travel, coupled with travel companies furloughing staff, meant that technological solutions had to step forward.

Customer service requests have grown since the pandemic. A survey of 4,800 travelers by Teleperformance in 2022 found that passengers had contacted airlines 23% more often than before COVID.

The survey also found that while phone and email are still the most popular ways for customers to contact airline customer support services, using a mobile app is now the third most popular channel with 20% of respondents having used an app-based service and 16% having contacted an airline via social media.

The survey also found age differences. It said younger millennial and Gen Z customers were more likely to favor instant messaging, social media, mobile apps, video and automated chat services to older demographics and that airlines needed to prepare for this.

In line with these findings, in November 2022, Frontier Airlines said it was to stop offering customer service by phone.

Airline spokesperson Jennifer DeLaCruz said at the time, “We have found that most customers prefer communicating via digital channels.”

Policy change

Yet the airline reversed the policy this year. It now once again offers live phone support for members of the airline’s Frontier Miles loyalty program and passengers who have traveled within the past 24 hours or are intending to travel in the next 24. A callback service is offered for passengers traveling outside this window.

DeLaCruz told Phocuswire, “While the majority of customer service inquiries are easily handled via our online chat option, we know there are times when people need or prefer live phone support and we have implemented changes to make that support much more readily and easily available. Live support via online chat continues to be available to all customers, regardless of travel date.”

In July, a United Kingdom consumer rights watchdog, Which, said airlines were the third worst performing sector for customer service, only slightly ahead of utility companies. The worst performer was delivery companies. 

Which said that in its survey of more than 4,000 airline passengers, 41% had contacted an airline in the last year with at least one problem with customer services and that that low-cost European carriers Wizz Air and Ryanair were among the worst culprits for poor service. Wizz Air received a satisfaction rating of +13 for overall customer service, 39 points behind the sector average of +52. Ryanair scored +28.

Airline technology provider Amadeus said that one of the frustrations of today’s airline customer service is that it can be hard to identify passengers across different touchpoints, meaning repeated verification is necessary. 

“Not only do passengers find this annoying, as they constantly have to provide the same information only to start from scratch again, but it also hinders airlines’ ability to deliver personalized experiences across multiple channels,” said Meg O'Keefe, vice president airline solutions product and portfolio at Amadeus. 

Amadeus believes its Nevio airline platform that integrates traveler experience management alongside other modules can help overcome this.

Nevio, whose users include Saudia and Finnair, uses open technology to access an existing ecosystem of business partners offering real-time data and uses AI to leverage customer preferences.

O’Keefe said this would allow the airline, for example, to offer a passenger who has previously shown an interest in lounge access and been disrupted on an earlier flight, discounted lounge access using a previously saved payment method, improving the customer experience but also giving the airline a revenue opportunity.

In 2019, Air Canada implemented Amadeus’ Passenger Recovery system to help automate the rebooking of passengers in the event of disruption. Previously, it took the airline’s staff around 10 minutes to rebook each passenger; it now takes around five minutes to reaccommodate an entire flight with passengers offered a range of rebooking options within half an hour in the event of cancelation.

When a powerful snowstorm hit the Maritimes province in eastern Canada in February this year, the airline used Passenger Recovery to rebook 11,500 travelers, and less than 10% required manual intervention, improving customer satisfaction and reducing the resources required by the airline to manage the incident.

Chatbots on the rise

AI chatbots are rising in usage but customers still prefer human interactions in 77% of cases, the Teleperformance survey found.

Yet the rise of AI chatbots holds potential pitfalls for airlines.

In November 2022, Air Canada customer Jake Moffatt booked a flight following the death of a family member. While making the reservation, Moffat used Air Canada’s chatbot to ask about bereavement fares 

In its reply, the chatbot said that if a passenger had already traveled following a bereavement, they could apply for a reduced bereavement rate retrospectively. Moffatt booked the higher rate fare. Later in a conversation with an airline representative he was told that the airline did not permit such applications and that the full fare would be charged, at the same time admitting that the chatbot’s words were misleading. Unable to reach a compromise with the carrier, Moffatt filed a case with a small claims tribunal for the difference in fares.

In the case, the airline argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives — including a chatbot. 

In his judgment, tribunal member Christopher C. Rivers, said, “While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website. It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.”

The airline was forced to pay Moffatt $812 in damages, interest and fees. 

Air passenger rights advocate Gábor Lukács said, “Air Canada cannot walk away from its responsibility to passengers and cannot use creative contractual drafting to evade liability.”

Hybrid future

The future may therefore be a hybrid approach, perhaps like the one taken by technology provider Cielo, which said it has developed what it calls “the world's first monetization engine for customer service” It uses advanced technology “to keep humans (and empathy) at the center of customer service.”

Its FastLane product lets callers to airline call centers pay a small fee or subscription to skip to the front of the call line, for example. The model could also mean additional ancillary revenue for airlines.

Johnny Bosche, founder and CEO of Cielo said airlines have made a huge shift towards digital channels since the pandemic.

“In my opinion this has led to customer frustration in high stress or high complexity scenarios. From a passenger standpoint, our research shows that voice is still the preferred method, and customers resent airlines making it difficult to speak to a human or having to endure long wait times, which is simply a result of the call center being perceived as a cost center.”

He believes that while chatbots are the cheap option and can be good for operational efficiency there is value in offering speaking to a human as a premium service.

But will airline customers be willing to pay?

“There’s a lot of data around willingness to pay for expedited support as well as the option to pay more to speak to a human,” said Bosche.

“OTAs have offered priority support for many years. Companies like Zoom, Twilio, require special ‘plans’ to speak with a human. The trend is undeniable. Lastly, passengers already pay for priority services (boarding, fast track) or earn specialized and faster service by their loyalty status. The mission is to make a customer care, personal, premium, and profitable and we’re excited to work with airlines there, real realizing that we live in a realm of relationships and not transactions.”

Airlines are going to be even more cautious about chatbots after the Air Canada ruling.

“There are so many data points that setting guard rails around every scenario is going to take a long time,” he said. “Even then, waivers and exceptions can happen on a case-by-case basis especially during irregular operations. The important thing is that airlines need to own customer-facing interactions they decide to implement."

With customer service requests rising and technology not yet delivering on its potential, hybrid may be here to stay.