Major UK airline uses customer intelligence to bolster sales conversion by 10%

The challenge: Make sales and customer service more effective

The client is a leading airline headquartered in the UK, operating flights across all major cities globally. With a turnover of over £ 2.5 billion, it is supported by a workforce of over 8,000 employees.

The airline faced a major customer service conundrum. On the one hand, customer care costs were rising steadily. On the other, sales and customer satisfaction levels were plummeting. The airline, therefore, wanted to quickly identify the root cause of the problem and augment its revenue growth by improving efficiency across its sales and customer service value chain. However, it did not have the expertise to identify the reasons for driving poor sales and customer satisfaction.

After evaluating several vendors, the airline chose to partner with Firstsource, given its proven expertise in driving transformation using analytics.

The solution: Deploy analytics to improve interactions with customers

Firstsource deployed firstCustomer Intelligence (FCI), an advanced analytics solution to measure customer sentiment, emotions and behavior. The analysis revealed that:

• Nearly a third of customers expressed negative emotions and dissatisfaction during interactions
• 10% of customers reported website issues while booking tickets and viewing seat availability
• Customers experienced inconsistent experience due to several process bottlenecks

Based on the findings, the Firstsource team identified the following opportunities to ensure a consistent experience across channels:

• Process improvements such as enhanced deal pricing and optimized allocation of miles and tickets
• Website optimization to improve transparency, and streamline the process of online booking and miles redemption
• Best practice adoption and associate coaching across critical processes such as:
  • Objection and complaint handling
  • Customer query handling regarding competitor products and services
  • Self-service promotion
• Deployment of self-help and self-service options for customers

The results:

The project identified the potential for:

• 10% increase in sales conversion
• 19% contact avoidance