Transforming Customer Service via the Cloud with US Airways

To keep up with today’s consumer, contact centers are seeking solutions that incorporate the newest technologies. Before moving to the cloud, US Airways’ phone-based reservations system was old and proprietary. In keeping with its brand, US Airways wanted a new self-service system that was the industry’s friendliest and most intelligent, and determined a cloud-based system would deliver this vision and ensure it never got left behind the competition again. The new US Airways voice system is impressive. Designed with Natural Language Understanding technology (NLU) developed specifically to meet the needs of the airline, US Airways customers can now speak the reason for their call using their own words rather than having to choose from a predetermined set of customer care options. NLU uses an intelligent blend of speech recognition technology that not only understands what the caller is saying, but the intent of the call as well. This creates a higher quality experience for callers, and gets them to their destination quickly. In addition, the system greets callers by name proactively and provides upcoming flight information creating a more personalized experience. Contact center agents are also provided with caller information prior to being helped in order to reduce call times. All of these improvements have dramatically transformed US Airway’s customer service, and the airline is already seeing the results through positive customer feedback and higher containment rates (rate at which callers stay within the automated agent vs. needing help from a live agent) - a transformation that came via the cloud. By switching to a cloud-based model, US Airways now has access to the latest technologies enabling them to service their customers better and keep up with the competition, and it only took days to set up rather than months to install the technology on premise. During this presentation participants will learn about the benefits and value of switching to a cloud-based model from a real life case study that will showcase: • How US Airways is experiencing millions of dollars in savings through benefits derived from the cloud; • How the cloud can be used to transform phone-based customer care; • Why speech recognition is a technology that is well-suited for the cloud; • How the cloud fosters innovation and the real business result of that innovation, and; • Get familiar with the less discussed savings provided by cloud-based customer care.

- by Dena Skrbina