Over twenty years in business, millions of passengers, multiple awards for service and innovation, and a hunger to continue to succeed and grow—it is clear why the pioneering airline, AirAsia, aimed high in its quest to improve communications for its staff and customers.
In the past, AirAsia operated a simple call center at its Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia HQ: a basic phone system to receive inbound calls and make outbound calls. With communication technology evolving fast and global demand for enhanced customer experience soaring, AirAsia employees required a modern, function-rich upgrade.
They wanted a powerful, unified communication system that delivered omnichannel capabilities; automated self-service smarts; agent monitoring, analytics, and reporting; ‘work-from-anywhere’ mobility; and a seamless integration with their CRM platform, Salesforce, to centralize and link all interactions.
“When we moved into our new space, we brought over our existing UC solution. We encountered problems with the lift and shift. The system was giving us dropped call issues. Plus, the system had significant functionality limitations, and anything related to agents and reporting like a proper call center system was absent,” says Amarjit Singh, AirAsia Regional Network Manager.
“We discovered that multiple departments within the business were experiencing the same needs. For example, customer service supervisors asked how they could monitor agents, do reporting, and step into a call when required. So, it was clear that it was time to modernize AirAsia’s existing solution.”
In 2017, Deltapath was onboarded to provide a comprehensive call center solution to enhance customer experience, optimize operational efficiency, and leverage advanced technologies focused on accountability, visibility, and training.
Deltapath engineered and deployed an advanced, fully unified communication system in a transformative initiative. The system has been architected to empower customers with the flexibility to interact with AirAsia through many platforms— from traditional voice calling and electronic mail to modern messaging and web chat interfaces. A relevant feature of this initiative is integrating self-service options with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. This innovation autonomously executes tasks traditionally requiring a human agent, streamlining operational processes, and improving customer satisfaction by decreasing call volumes and wait times.
Deltapath continued its focus on customer-centric innovation, introducing web link functionality. This feature addresses the pivotal need for escalating communications from text-based chats to audio calls within AirAsia’s customer service framework. When customers encounter a scenario necessitating direct verbal communication, agents effortlessly send a clickable link to initiate a voice call through chat.
Furthermore, the system’s architecture includes employee-centric features. Employees can access voicemail messages across different devices, making this functionality advantageous for remote and mobile employees. Furthermore, Deltapath Talk, a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) tool, was integrated with AirAsia’s CRM solution, Salesforce, to improve the employee experience. All primary call functions can now be completed in the Salesforce.com window. Existing customer account history is automatically pulled up for the agent with incoming calls, and agents click to call customers without dialing.
“There is now a single centralized platform to take calls, see the tickets each passenger has procured, change flights, and communicate with customers,” says Singh.
“It’s a platform that genuinely focuses on customer happiness. When a customer starts chatting with us, a case is recorded in Salesforce. In addition, passengers can leave voice messages that go to agents’ emails.”
The introduction of critical, real-time analytics and reporting functionality enabled the crucial monitoring of contact center performance, a deep understanding of customer interactions, and data-driven decisions to improve service quality and create and deliver practical call center training.
“The most formidable challenge we addressed was related to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),” says Singh. “AirAsia’s previous UC system could not track the number of incoming calls and how many of those calls an agent managed to answer. For instance, we lacked the insights necessary to understand the reasons behind missed calls. With the assistance of Deltapath, we successfully overcame this hurdle and gained the ability to acquire comprehensive insights into our call-handling processes.”
“Other departments, like the department responsible for crew and pilots, are now also using the reports. These reports, amongst other things, have helped the business achieve visibility and accountability. We are now using reports more frequently to make strategic changes in business operations.”
Equally important, AirAsia’s contact center solution is more than just customer-facing. AirAsia has around 2,000 employees and operates scheduled domestic and international flights to more than 166 destinations in 25 countries, meaning catering to their workforce is critical. For example, a large crew community benefits from using call center-type features. Crew members can call to report they are sick, check their duties, or be called because they are on standby.
The Deltapath UC system deployment and other projects completed by Deltapath have had a transformative impact, simultaneously improving customer and employee experience while delivering unparalleled visibility through KPIs and presenting the opportunity for AirAsia to make business decisions more confidently. AirAsia currently uses Deltapath solutions in many countries, including Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, the US, and South Korea.
