Friday 21st December is expected to be one of the busiest travel days1 over the Christmas period as schools break up and Brits take to the sky for their Winter breaks. The Met Office predicts Storm Diana will wreak havoc across the country, further intensifying the drama and causing widespread chaos for travel providers and passengers alike.
Travellers are to expect numerous delays at UK airports.2 The inundation of travelling families coupled with severe weather conditions means flights are liable to incur delays and cancellations, resulting in numerous passenger complaints.
The complexities involved in manually checking intricate fare rules once a passenger request has been made leaves the process vulnerable to human error. Of these requests, over 85 per cent require agents to scour detailed fare rules to resolve the issue, exposing weaknesses in the complaint handling process and significantly risking customer satisfaction levels.
During these peak travel times when holiday plans are invariably disrupted, travel providers are under intense pressure to streamline communication and fast-track resolution.3
Rajnish Sharma, EVP & Market Leader for U.K & Europe, Teleperformance Digital Integrated Business Services comments: “British families travelling with young children have high expectations from their travel providers and if this expectation is not met, passengers will not hesitate to air their frustrations on social media, often eliminating the possibility of a repeat booking. The challenge lies in transforming the complaint handling process so that passenger requests are dealt with effectively and in a timely manner.
“With delays being inevitable over the Christmas period, the key to managing large volumes of complaints lie in implementing future ready strategies to ease the pressure put on frontline staff. These kind of strategies relieves the pressure that back office systems and staff alike are under, the kind of pressure that leads to errors and the mishandling of complaints, adding fuel to the fire.”
“Rajnish Sharma continues: “Automatically processing high volume of customer requests allows travel providers to better allocate time and resources when engaging with their customers directly, resulting in less human errors and greater customer satisfaction levels to inspire repeat business.”
