What do passengers expect during travel disruption?
A recent study commissioned by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, reinforced that communication from airlines and airports is key to improving consumer confidence in uncertain times.
Respondents commented that they would like airlines to update them on:
- Wait times at the airport.
- Changes to documents needed for flying.
- Refund policies.
- Destinations affected by social unrest.
- Steps they’re taking to reduce environmental impact.
"Trust in airlines and airports has been eroded as a result of perceived poor communication... This has impacted both low cost operators and those traditionally considered more trustworthy, and is likely to intensify with current staffing issues.
Regular, clear and honest communication is essential to improve consumer trust; airlines that have done this best over the past couple of years stand out positively for individuals."
UK Civil Aviation Authority
Two "must-haves" during disruption
1) Keep your customers informed
Act fast and make your customers aware as soon as their flight is disrupted. If your passengers don’t need to come to the airport, tell them.
And they’ll thank you for not making them spend hours in the terminal unnecessarily. This will limit confusion and help to prevent negative feelings developing and, in the worst cases, being shared with friends and family and online.
By providing passengers with frequent updates, you will also prevent your contact centre being swamped with calls and your ground staff having to deal with lengthy queues of angry customers in the airport.
2) Make sure your customers are comfortable
Generating personalised offers and sharing them with passengers as quickly as possible will ensure customers are able to make the best of their situation and any frustrations will be minimised.
Mobile technology allows airlines to add to digital wallets as soon as a flight is disrupted, helping travellers to purchase refreshments, hotel rooms and more.
Ensuring the comfort of your passengers will help you to make the best of a bad situation and encourage those customers to choose your airline again in future.
How are the world’s top airlines managing customer expectations during irregular operations (IROPS)?
Getting the right system in place will allow you to:
- Directly integrate with your reservation system to identify who needs to be contacted.
- Automatically notify passengers of disruption, then process and record their actions.
- Include workflows with business rules to add context to what is being sent
- Handle acceptances, declines, refunds, and credits in a two-way conversation between the customer and the reservation system.
- Automatically update bookings to reflect interaction.
- Enable decision-making from the customer via microsites.
Read more about this in our case study:
Top airlines use the 15below IROPS Dashboard to make sure staff have the ability to recognise how customers are feeling and apply goodwill compensation where required...
This workflow shows a typical travel disruption scenario and how 15below customers use proactive communication to keep passengers informed throughout their journey in real time. Read more about this in our case study:
