Contact center innovation sees productivity take off

Keeping the travel sector moving

SITA helps 2,800 airlines, airports and government agencies deliver hassle-free passenger journeys — from check-in and security to boarding and baggage tracking. Eight service centers, with 400 agents who handle calls from more than 150 countries, support these critical services.

Advances in technology, such as the Internet of Things and ever-faster cellular speeds, continue to lower barriers to entry and disrupt IT service provider models. To stay ahead, SITA elevated its customer experience with technology innovation. Rather than continue to invest heavily in on-premises systems, the company moved to a cloud-based contact center model that offers more agility and omnichannel features.

Voice migration for 150 countries in five minutes

SITA chose the Genesys Cloud platform for ease of use and high availability, enabling calls to be collected worldwide transiting through their regional point-of-presence — from Montreal, London and Singapore — with IT operations managed centrally from a 24/7 SITA command center. The company also wanted to make service easier for customers with new options like email and chat. Integration with existing SIP trunks, voice gateways, phones and web portals was another major consideration.

“To get our old system to support digital channels with the same level of integration that we have with Genesys Cloud, we would have needed to spend another $2 million, plus huge amounts of engineering man hours,” said Vichaig Douangpaseuth, Senior Manager, Service Improvement SDN Network and Voice Practice at SITA. “The changeover was remarkably simple. It only took us five minutes to switch SIP traffic from 160 numbers and 150 countries — resulting in improved call quality.”

Creating new possibilities for service innovation

While it’s still in the early days, SITA is excited by the initial results. The Genesys Cloud platform gives SITA the perfect blend: a follow-the-sun model with seamless handovers between its main SITA command center in Singapore and Montreal, along with nonstop contact center service for 24/7 service desks in multiple geographic locations.

“It’s very easy to spin up virtual teams or re-route traffic between sites, so we’re in a much better place when it comes to capacity planning and disaster recovery,” said Douangpaseuth.

Making life simpler for 200 back-office support staff members and 200 service desk agents has increased voice team efficiency by up to 50% on change management. Moreover, SITA can access more data and adjust call flows better than ever before. Managers always have their fingers on the pulse with an instant view of customer queues and service desk performance.

Response times have also improved. “Now, with Genesys Cloud, if there’s a power outage at an airport or an airline loses its network, we can get onto the problem sooner, ensuring passengers aren’t inconvenienced and their flights depart on time,” said Douangpaseuth.

Leveraging the open APIs of Genesys Cloud, SITA can introduce click-to-call features on its check-in kiosks, enabling airline agents to resolve issues within minutes. This will reduce calls to the SITA service desk from other airline agents who report the same fault. Similarly, new customers are issued PIN codes faster. These are two examples of service innovations that weren’t achievable previously because of integration barriers.

SITA plans to make further integrations with ServiceNow and Salesforce; and it’s looking to build the Genesys Cloud product into its customer value proposition. “Moving to Genesys Cloud has been a happy experience so far as we look forward to the next stage of our journey,” concluded Douangpaseuth.