While it’s fair to say that every business experienced significant challenges as a result of the pandemic, the travel and hospitality sector has suffered more than most.
By April 2020, around 91% of the global population was residing in countries with restrictions placed on travel. Restrictions on our opportunities for travel and relaxation have led to billions in lost revenue for the hospitality sector.
However, even in these unprecedented circumstances, there are still opportunities for the right organisations to thrive. The following case studies from the travel and hospitality sector highlight how CX innovation can be the key to success in any situation.
AWS and Priceline
Global travel brand, Priceline, experienced a significant three-times increase in call volume during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of travellers flooded the contact centre in an attempt to change, or cancel their trips, wait times to speak to an agent became unreasonably long. Fortunately, by leveraging the flexibility of Amazon Web Services, Priceline was able to adapt.
Using Amazon Connect, the omnichannel cloud contact centre from AWS, Priceline found a way to transform its workflows, and handle the massive spikes in demand. The solution even enabled Priceline’s agents to work safely from home, without compromising customer experience.
Amazon Connect’s cloud-based environment adapted to suit agent needs instantly. Priceline was even able to introduce callbacks for their customers, to enhance satisfaction levels. Read the full case study here.
Freshdesk and G.M. Tour and Travel
Leading wholesale travel agency in Thailand, G.M Tour & Travel specializes in delivering air ticket fulfilment services. The company believes in delivering the most convenient, reliable, and fast-paced support to travel agents and companies worldwide. However, to accomplish its goals, the company needs access to the latest technology for help desk management.
After moving to Freshdesk, G.M. Tour and Travel discovered they were able to manage larger ticket volumes and prioritize specific requests, tackling issues based on agency. Thanks to responsibility assignments, Freshdesk also improved agent productivity on a massive scale.
The well-defined SLA feature from Freshdesk meant G.M could track tickets efficiently and reduce the clutter in agent inboxes. Freshdesk’s dispatch rules even allowed teams to allocate specific customers to agents with the right skills. Learn more about the case study here.
Content Guru and Jurys Inn
The reservation staff for hotel chain Jury’s Inn were dealing with a consistently high call volume, and a highly distributed team before they decided to turn to Content Guru for help. According to the hotel chain, they needed to open a contact centre that would allow them to handle reservations and requests more effectively, but they wanted to do so without losing the “personal touch” in the customer service strategy.
Directing all reservation calls to non-geographical numbers to provide centralized booking services would have made customers feel like they were getting a less personalized experience. By choosing Content Guru’s storm cloud-based contact centre, the company was able to create a more intelligent call routing strategy.
The Intelligent IVR and routing solution meant the company could leverage the cost-savings and other benefits of a centralized system, without compromising on unique experiences for customers. Check out the full case study here.
Genesys and Aeroporti di Roma
ADR, or Aeroporti di Roma, manages the Ciampino and Fiumicino airports, performing all activities connected to airport management for these locations. During 2019, the group registered 49.4 million passengers in transit, offering more than 240 destinations to discover around the globe.
With huge levels of passenger traffic to manage, ADR saw the need to digitize its contact centre and insource to improve the delivery and management of information services. During 2019 and 2020, the ADR environment began the process of insourcing its contact centre on two fronts – the maintenance, and operational line.
Using the market-leading technology from Genesys Cloud CX, ADR was able to quickly implement a solution fully compatible with the technology the brand was already using. The choice of Genesys Cloud CX and the partnership with ComApp proved to be crucial in creating the fast-paced cloud environment the ADR company needed. You can read the full case study here.
NICE In Contact and Delta Airlines
Delta Airlines, one of the biggest airlines in the world today, turned to NICE InContact when it discovered a significant need to upgrade its CX strategy. Using the data-driven benchmarking approach, the airline created a roadmap for improving efficiency on a massive scale. With CXOne Workforce optimization, the Delta Airlines team was able to create amazing outcomes by designing more effective schedules for teams.
CXOne workforce optimization was able to improve total labour costs for the team, by helping with the development of schedules with the highest possible efficiency achievable in the contact centre environment. Proprietary mathematical optimization models and algorithms provided the best possible fit between servicing goals, contact volumes, skills, and agent opportunities.
With NICE inContact’s help, Delta Airlines was able to produce a fully-aligned set of schedules for 6 contact centres in total. You can learn more about the case study here.
Avaya and Selectour Bleu Voyages
Specializing in business, leisure, and group travel, Selectour Bleu Voyages was forced to restructure its entire telecoms system for the future of travel and communications management. The brand installed Avaya’s leading IP Office solution across 10 B2B centres and 30 travel agencies in total.
For the Blue Voyages group, comprising of around 40 sites in total, uninterrupted service during the installation of the new IP solutions was essential to keeping customers happy. Work was carried out progressively by the Avaya workforce, beginning with pilot sites before full integration.
The CEO of the Selectour Bleu Voyages group also notes the characteristics of the Avaya platform helped the brand with meeting the demanding criteria and regulations of the French Standardization Association – which was essential for building trust in the travel industry. Read the case study here.
