IndiGo - Contact Center of the Year

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2019, Click to Enter The 2020 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service

Company: IndiGo, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Company Description: IndiGo is India’s largest passenger airline with a market share of 53.9% as of December, 2020. We primarily operate in India’s domestic air travel market as a low-cost carrier with focus on our three pillars – offering low fares, being on-time and delivering a courteous and hassle-free experience. IndiGo has become synonymous with being on-time.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats) - All Other Industries

Nomination Title: Contact Center of the Year (Over 100 Seats) - All Other Industries

-Enhanced customer experience,improved CSAT score from 4 to 4.6 and service levels of 99%
-Improved efficiency by 25% through process improvement
-Automation & Digitization to reduce manpower by 30%
-Covid-19 response management

Enhanced customer experience:
-Know your customer: Empower agents with relevant customer information such as upcoming flight details, past travels etc. for a hassle-free experience
-Operating specialised deskse.g., mishandled, payment desk etc– helps in customised, personalised experience.
-Closing the loop conversations: Follow-up with customers to ensure the query was adequately resolved

Process improvements:
-Robust empowerment to solve customer queries
-Standard operating procedures
-Real time updates and monitoring.

Automation & Digitization
-Drove Automation through enhancements in IVR process
oOptions to choose WhatsApp
oAnnouncement of travel guidelines during pandemic
oAnnouncement of booked flight for registered callers
oOption to select specialised desks

-Digital platforms: Constant review of volume led to below enhancements
oEffective handling of payment failure issues
oProactively revalidated existing travel vouchers.
oDigitised usage of credit shell to book new tickets online
oIssuance of bag tag for contactless journey.
oDisruption management

Covid-19 Response Management: We received unprecedented volumes with 500% increase. Given the agility of our staff and state-of-technology, we diverted calls to chats and enabled every resource to access chats even on mobile, not waiting for computers to reach home. In true sense, call center services were simply shifted from voice to chats with no customer impact.

Briefly describe the nominated team: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):

IndiGo call centre commenced its operations in the year 2006 at Gurugram with 50 seats. In last 15 years, it has spread its wings to over three domestic and one international location. Currently the call centre is approx. 1100+ seats providing 24*7 service to 14 different line of businesses. The call centres are enabled with state-of-the-art technology to help customers.

The critical line of business besides taking inbound calls include:

-Special Assistance Desk–To assist passengers with special needs like wheelchair, stretcher etc.
-Priority Service Help Desk–Proactively call customers in case of any identified service failure even before customer complaints.
-Centralised Payment Help Desk- Resolve payment issues.
-Mishandled Baggage Desk- Specialized desk for tracing lost, misplaced/mishandled baggage expeditiously.
-Disruption Management Desk– To re-accommodate every customer in case of cancellation or rescheduling
-Other business are dedicated services for travel agents, corporates, Live chat, 6E rewards, Air-Sewa &Code share.

The key performance indicators are: Service levels, Customer satisfaction score and complaints per flown passenger.

Before July’2019 average call vol per month was 6.5 lakhs, with service level of 95% and customer satisfaction score of 4 on 5-star rating scale & internal quality scores at 89%.

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):

Change in consumer behaviour: Steering the customer behaviour to adopt digital channels was one of the key achievements especially in country like India, where consumer prefer to talk to agents. Digital platforms were enhanced to ensure self-service of the customers thus reducing call volumes.

Improved customer service performance even during COVID-19: IndiGo has been a pioneer in offering customer services, in a hassle-free manner. This was further enhanced during the pandemic through innovation, agility, and automation

Quick changes were made befitting the situation. E.g., IVR announcements on health regulations, introduction of tele-check in, WhatsApp on IVR. With these fast-tracked transformations, the contact center lines were more available for those who truly needed help to resolve queries.Customer Satisfaction levels reached an unmatched score of 4.6 on 5 star and achieved highest ever answering service levels above 99%.

Best in Industry: IndiGo call center has the best in the industry stats in India not only in aviation but other service industries also with the lowest connect time of 16 seconds for the customers

Improved efficiency and cost reduction: Through digital efforts and automation, overall volume moved down by 25%, thus bringing in efficiency, and reducing the manpower cost by 30% without any impact on customer service levels.

 With all these enhancements, there is reduction in manpower by 30%, improved efficiency, better digital support, customer reach out, thus reducing overall operating cost & improving customer experience.