International airline Cathay Pacific flying high thanks to customer service innovations
Cathay Pacific currently ranks as the world’s 8th most profitable airline and the 17th largest airline in the world by operating revenue. Cathay Pacific flies five times daily from Heathrow Airport to Hong Kong with connecting flights to over 140 destinations worldwide.
Customer service is a particular strength for Cathay Pacific and many of its premium customers still prefer to get in touch by phone. Its UK call centre is in West London where a team of 30 deal with some 300 to 400 calls a day. Whatever their customers are calling about, continuity and quality of service remain paramount.
The Benefits
- Instant control over inbound call routing.
- Customer service maintained even in the event of any disruption.
- Easy for airline to separate its calls such as keeping frequent flyer club privileges during contingencies.
- Call recording available at the touch of a button.
- Extensive call statistics reporting for training and to inform future changes in business processes.
- Mobile app for access to stats and call management at any time, from anywhere.
The Challenge
Cathay Pacific is committed to using innovation to improve the passenger experience. Uncompromising standards of customer service mean the airline needs to be sure its phone lines can always be answered promptly, courteously and consistently. When extreme weather or other events disrupt normal operations at European sites, incoming calls are rerouted to other centres in Vancouver, Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Redirecting phone lines in the London office promptly was proving difficult. It was an all-or-nothing process – either all incoming lines were redirected, or none at all. Call recording was also an issue and investment in costly hardware recording platforms seemed to be the only option.
The Solution
By hosting Cathay Pacific’s 100 DDI numbers in the cloud, our Inbound solution means the airline is no longer relying on a third party to implement redirects on its behalf. It now has complete control over inbound call routing at the fingertips of its own staff either through a simple web interface or via a mobile phone app.
As well as total manual control, Inbound allows for pre-configured business continuity plans. With simple commands staff can execute any one of a number of complex and pre-planned redirect lists depending on the circumstances being managed. Restoring the original configuration once an incident is over is just as easy.
Inbound also gives Cathay Pacific the flexibility to decide which and how many individual numbers go to which destinations. So for example members of its Marco Polo Club frequent flyer programme can always be answered by membership agents regardless of where calls are being handled.
By upgrading to Inbound, Cathay Pacific has a call recording facility available in the cloud without the need for extra costly hardware on site. Inbound also offers a range of statistics and reporting functions which can be used for generating information to help the airline plan for future contingencies. Cathay Pacific can review and control their calls at any time, any place with the Inbound mobile app.
100
Numbers Hosted To The Cloud
