It’s no secret that the aviation industry has been one of the sectors most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unprecedented health and safety concerns in combination with travel restrictions resulted in air traffic coming to a standstill and passengers deserting airports for several months. On top of that, Russian aggression in Ukraine has caused regional travel and economic disruptions, put pressure on oil prices, and hampered the global airline business in general.
But even in this changing landscape, the airline industry is on a growth trajectory again. According to IATA reports, total traffic in May 2022 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was up 83.1% compared to May 2021. Overall traveler numbers are expected to reach 83% of 2019 levels in 2022, 94% in 2023, 103% in 2024, and 111% in 2025.
“People need to travel, and they will when the restrictions are lifted,” we hear from the industry officials. Sure, but people’s expectations when it comes to travel are not the same anymore. While opening borders plays a huge role in the speed of travel recovery, airlines and industry partners need to find a way to build resilience and future-proof their businesses. As McKinsey research on the 2007-09 downturn has shown, companies that prioritize CX during a downturn stand to outperform their competition for years to come.
What do your travelers really want?
Traveler expectations of what great customer experience entails have shifted significantly over the past years and continue to evolve. From better transparency around the fares and services during shopping, to personalized offers, to more flexibility, and to better digital experience on airline websites and apps – there is no shortage of things that air travelers might want. But for your airline to make informed decisions and prioritize investments that will bring the most return in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty, you need to listen to and leverage the feedback of your own travelers.
A modern experience management platform will make it easier to listen to more traveler feedback and give you a real-time visibility into the voice of your travelers, providing data insights to answer a variety of questions such as:
- What goes into providing customer experience?
- What is the sentiment of my travelers around each interaction across the customer journey?
- What parts of their experience with my airline do travelers value the most (from flight shopping to being onboard)?
- Do all my travelers value the same thing?
- What are my travelers willing to pay a premium for?
- What action should we take to improve traveler loyalty (or another important metric you are tracking) by X%?
Intentional listening leads to emotional connection and loyalty
According to the recent Air Travel Consumer report, in March 2022, the Department of Transportation received 18.5% more complaints about airline service compared to February 2022, which is also up 289.3% from the complaints received in pre-pandemic March 2019. Such negative customer sentiment, however, could be mitigated by airlines demonstrating awareness of the situation, starting with a simple question such as “Was there a problem with your checked luggage on your last trip?” Acknowledging it this time and promising to do better might make a significant impression. Our experience management platform SoGoCX can help track customer feedback in real time as it comes in and automate follow-up responses.
Enabling active listening at every touchpoint of your travelers’ journey will result in tangible experience improvements. It will induce travelers to feel an emotional connection with the airline, leading to brand loyalty and helping to sustain your business success in the long run.
Providing your travelers with flexible, intelligent tools that help them find the best days to travel or the ability to choose amenities and benefits is a great move. Creating moments that travelers will remember and share such as providing lounge passes to passengers travelling on their birthday is another great move. Using customer data to send them a personalized message such as, “We are looking forward to getting you home today, Ms. Safronova!” is yet another great move. But what’s really critical here is your ability to hear traveler sentiment inspired by these initiatives and measure the real impact they have on your CX metrics and on your bottom line.
Airlines have a lot to gain from promoting excellent CX, bolstered by the power of modern technology for measuring impact and predicting traveler sentiment and behavior. If you are looking for better ways to collect real-time traveler feedback, if you would like to be able to leverage feedback data to build resiliency in the face of future disruptions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our team to learn how we can help you to meet your goals.
