Rising CSAT scores highlight American Airlines' commitment to innovation, omni-channel
American Airlines, Inc. is one of the world’s largest airlines, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Their stated purpose is to care for people on life’s journey.
Customers increasingly prefer not to use the phone for contact, favoring digital channels instead. The American Airlines Customer Experience Innovation Delivery team didn’t want to simply add digital technology. Rather, they aspired to enable digital engagement as part of a holistic strategy with an aim to serve American Airlines customers well across channels.
Main goals
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Add interactive messaging as an option, to serve today’s customer needs and stay competitive. Meet customers on the digital channels they choose. Drive digital adoption.
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Manage asynchronous customer-agent interactions and full bot automation in a unified platform, enabling more customer self-serve for simple issues and more agent focus on complex issues.
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Provide a best-in-class experience for American Airlines customers.
Following extensive market study and an RFP, American Airlines selected the ASAPP platform to serve their omni-channel strategy, citing these key reasons:
Strong technology, true AI
“Everyone says they do ML—but at ASAPP it’s the foundation, not 20-year old technology with an ML bolt-on,” Kevin MacFarland explains.
Great UI for agents and customers
The team was particularly impressed with the ease of use of the agent desk.
Consultative engagement
They appreciated that ASAPP actively listens, takes feedback, and works collaboratively.
Implementing the ASAPP platform
American Airlines opened ASAPP AI-powered digital channels for all three main business lines: Reservations, Advantage Customer Service, and Customer Relations. Initially they made digital contact available through the American Airlines mobile app, then broadened to other digital touch points.
“Implementation was so fast. We were up and running in just a couple months. After just 4 hours of training reps were very comfortably using the agent desk—and we started to see immediate value,” notes Cara Kettler, responsible for Customer Experience Innovation.
Most importantly, customers love it. American Airlines saw CSAT scores improve immediately and rise 11% within the first 6 months. That came in tandem with growing efficiency, as more than 50% of customer inquiries were addressed by automation alone, and agents handle more complex needs more effectively.
Additionally, they are making good use of the rich analytics available to them. “So much better than other products in both breadth of data and ease of use,” says Batul Aboukar, Product Manager, Digital Platforms. “Our supervisors use the live dashboard to monitor active chats and coach their teams. Operations checks performance against KPIs. And, my digital team can quickly see how customers respond to new things we roll out and make decisions about what’s working, what’s not.”
Whats Ahead
The American Airlines team is excited about continued collaboration with the ASAPP team to optimize their program. Plans include integrations with other systems to provide both machine learning models and agents with more context to serve customers.
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