Why acting fast on schedule changes creates loyal customers

Working in travel can be incredibly rewarding, offering the chance to create memorable experiences and delight customers. However, behind the scenes there’s often a significant amount of manual work required for each booking. These tasks can be time consuming, placing a heavy burden on your staff. With many bookings made far in advance, customers may be surprised to learn that schedules can change multiple times due to factors like booking volumes, availability, and peak seasons. These complexities can lead to backlogs, slowing down operations and taking valuable time away from delivering outstanding customer service.?

Managing time sensitive tasks?

Some bookings, particularly those with closer start dates, naturally take priority. However, with a high volume of bookings, identifying these urgent tasks can be difficult, especially when agents are overwhelmed with manual tasks. With limited time to manage their inboxes, crucial updates or schedule changes can be overlooked, meaning updates that arrive outside of typical working hours, such as over the weekend, are often delayed, heightening the issue and leaving little time for agents to act.?

The impact on your customers?

The effect on your customers can range from minor inconvenience to serious disruption. Timely communication of schedule changes is essential to give customers enough time to adjust their plans, preventing unnecessary delays and complications.?

When updates are delayed, customers may face significant issues. For example, if a schedule change notification is sent late on a Friday afternoon, it may not be seen until Monday, leaving little time for the customer to adapt if the change affects a Monday morning flight. In such cases, customers may arrive at the airport too early or, worse, miss their flight altogether.?

These types of issues create stress for your customers, potentially overshadowing their entire trip. The resulting frustration can damage your reputation, with negative word of mouth or online reviews harming your business if customers feel let down by poor communication.?

A Solution to the Problem?

Managing all of this can be incredibly stressful, putting significant pressure on your staff. Fortunately, there is a solution... By introducing AI and RPA powered automation into your schedule change process, you can streamline and automate the entire workflow. The system can automatically scrape relevant information from emails, search your internal systems for the affected flights or services, identify all impacted customers, and notify them of changes without any manual intervention. The best part? Automation operates outside typical working hours, providing 24/7 updates and ensuring your schedule changes are always up to date.?

What are the benefits??

An automated schedule change solution offers numerous benefits for your business and back-office processes, bringing positive impact across the board, including...?

Free up staff time?

With automation handling schedule changes, your staff can focus on more important tasks that add value to customers and help your business grow, rather than spending time on repetitive administrative work.?

Ensure real time notifications?

Automation processes schedule changes quickly, reducing the risk of backlogs. This ensures customers receive real time updates, keeping them informed and eliminating delays.?

Eliminate human error?

Automation isn’t prone to human error. This means schedule changes are handled quickly and accurately, improving productivity and reducing the need for staff to correct mistakes.?

Help you gain a competitive advantage?

Clear and timely communication is essential for strong customer relationships. By ensuring that schedule changes are communicated promptly, you give customers more time to adjust their plans and avoid last minute disruptions. This leads to smoother experiences, increased customer satisfaction, positive word of mouth, and improved online reviews, giving you a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace.?

How will this affect the customer experience??

Automation ensures that schedule change information is promptly communicated to affected customers, keeping them informed of changes and cancellations as soon as possible. This gives customers ample time to adjust their plans, which is a significant advantage for your business. Timely communication enhances the customer experience, helping them enjoy a stress free trip with no unexpected disruptions.?

Conclusion?

In travel, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. The ability to respond to schedule changes efficiently not only improves internal processes but also has a direct, positive impact on customer satisfaction. By embracing automation, you can ensure smoother operations, reduce manual workloads, and enhance the customer experience, helping your business adapt and excel in the growing competitive environment.?

Want to transform your customer experience??