Traveling in the right direction

Facing technology barriers

Etraveli Group is a worldwide online travel agency and leading global provider of flight technology. It operates in 80 countries — serving customers in 35 languages. With around 1,000 employees and 500 outsourced agents, the Swedish company prides itself on being the fastest, most precise way to plan a trip regardless of distance or complexity.

Following years of sustained growth, Etraveli urgently needed to consolidate an array of standalone on-premises contact center technologies. It had been using a patchwork of Mitel and Avaya systems throughout its global operations, but wanted to enhance its customer experience and improve efficiency with new features and functionality. It determined that a cloud-based solution would meet those needs.

“Technology had become a barrier to improving customer experience and efficiency,” said Mikael Örtelind, CTO at Etraveli Group. “We could not integrate our flight systems and had multiple IVR services. There was no clear omnichannel roadmap and without workforce management it was hard to see into workloads, especially with our outsourced partners. So, we decided to create one global platform through a single investment that would benefit all parts of the business.”

Handling off-the-scale traffic spikes

After considering its options, Etraveli decided to standardize on Genesys Cloud CX. “Genesys met our requirements and gave us the biggest bang for our buck,” added Örtelind.

Connecting seven contact centers in Greece, Sweden, China, Egypt, and India, Genesys Cloud CX enables 900 agents to efficiently serve the travel needs of customers through inbound, outbound and email communications — all managed from one desktop application.

While rolling out the new solution, Etraveli felt the full force of the COVID-19 pandemic. “During the crisis, most people were forced to work from home,” said Örtelind. “We got great support from Genesys and our partner, GlobalConnect, and switched over to Genesys Cloud CX market by market — in some cases over a weekend. We normally sell 20,000 tickets a day. Although sales fell, our agents were amazing throughout and dealt with twice as many calls and three times more email as customers sought refunds or to amend travel plans.”

Speeding up innovation

Etraveli has largely automated basic customer inquiries through self-service menus that extend to more requests and languages. “We can now prioritize customers based on their travel date and use text analysis to rank email conversations,” said Örtelind. “Payments will be automated shortly via IVR as well.”

Tapping into Genesys AppFoundry^® Marketplace, Etraveli integrated its IVR system with Shelf knowledge automation, reducing training and onboarding times for new hires. Automation has also reduced the time and effort needed for frequent back-office tasks like reporting and scheduling.

“Even though we hired specialists to manually gather data and prepare resource plans, our outsourced operations were a blind spot,” added Örtelind. “Now, with Genesys Workforce Engagement Management, all customer service sites and channels are on the same system. So, it’s much easier to spot bottlenecks and move people around or swap outsourcers.”

Staying competitive

Etraveli has come through one of the most difficult periods the travel industry has known — and it’s strongly positioned for success. As the market evolves, Örtelind believes customers will be less price-conscious as they look to online agencies to enhance their travel experiences.

“We’ve improved customer experience. Our employees are 15% more productive and we’ve made a 10% savings on IVR systems and call transfers,” concluded Örtelind. “Next, we intend to add chatbots for frequently asked questions and introduce Shelf Agent Assist to detect customer intent and surface relevant information faster to agents.”