Shipping company Baleària has teamed up with Zendesk to hammer out a new CX offering.
The Spanish ferry operator has ditched traditional channels such as phone and email in favour of WhatsApp and chat.
The decision was made in the wake of the firm boasting a 500% spike in bookings in the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maribel Linares, Project Manager, Partnership, Loyalty and Customer Experience at Baleària, said: “Normally we have this big amount of queries when a boat is cancelled because there’s a storm or an engine breaks down.
“Or you cannot go to the Caribbean because the weather is awful, and we need to offer them a change of boat or do you want to cancel or change the date or change the port. We’re used to these ups and downs.
“When the pandemic started, summer was already sold. There were cancellations and people couldn’t move properly because cities were locked down. The big amount of queries came because all these people needed to get a voucher and the call centre takes on all the managing or changing or cancelling.”
The company said the choice to partner up with Zendesk was not only down to the pandemic speeding up their omni-channel plans, but also because of the sheer scale of Zendesk’s technology.
Baleària is using WhatsApp to deliver boarding passes to customers. This allows passengers to avoid ticket office crowds and keep in line with social distancing.
