Christian Draeger, who runs passenger experience there, talks about it in a way that’s surprisingly down-to-earth. “We’re not just starting at the airport door,” he says. “We’re already looking at customers, how they can get prepared for their travel, even days ahead of the actual travel plans.”

That’s a different way of thinking about travel, one where the airport is part of the journey, not a pause in it. Draeger’s rule is simple: “Put the passenger in the center.”

That idea is becoming more important. Around two-thirds of travelers now use AI tools to plan their trips, and most say they want services that adjust to them, not the other way around. Berlin’s answer is to mix technology with empathy, using automation to remove hassle, not humanity, and turn the everyday airport routine into something that actually works for people.

Understanding & Designing for the Modern Traveler

Christian Draeger has spent a lifetime around airports. More than thirty years in aviation have given him a deep sense of how people move, wait, and connect. During his time with Star Alliance, he helped shape what millions of passengers now recognize as the modern travel experience. When he joined Berlin Brandenburg Airport, he came in ready to rethink that experience from the ground up.

Berlin handles around 25 million passengers a year, so it’s big enough to be busy, but small enough to still care. “We also operate our premium services: two business-class lounges and an ultra-premium lounge where you get à la carte dining and a chauffeur service to the aircraft,” Draeger said.

That same care for detail extends to the parts of the journey most people barely notice. The airport also took control of its own security operations, because, as Draeger puts it, “We felt that the mandate of the federal police didn’t provide enough attention towards the passenger experience.”

Now there are 32 security lanes, 24 fitted with advanced CT scanners, so passengers can keep laptops in their bags and carry small amounts of liquid without delay. “It’s about having a consistent experience across the whole area of the airport,” he says.

Every choice is made with the passenger in mind. “It starts really by knowing our customers,” Draeger says. “If we have a family that’s traveling once a year on holiday, their prerogatives are different from a business-class customer focused on getting through as efficiently as possible.”

That balance, efficiency for some, discovery for others, is at the heart of personalization in travel, and it’s essential. A recent study found that 93 percent of travelers now expect some form of tailored service. Berlin’s approach proves those numbers translate into real-world design decisions: better security flow, less queuing, and even duty-free areas reimagined as “specialized marketplaces.”

Dual-Terminal Strategy: Two Philosophies, One Vision

A walk through Berlin Brandenburg Airport reveals something a bit different. Its two terminals don’t just separate airlines; they reflect two completely distinct types of travelers. One is designed for comfort, the other for speed. Together, they show how personalization in travel can be built into the physical space, not only into digital systems.

“The level of automation that you will find with low-cost carriers is more in focus than with a legacy carrier,” says Draeger. Terminal 2 is the efficient, minimalist one: smaller, sharper, and geared toward travelers who value simplicity and price over perks. “Terminal 2 is geared to simplicity and generating additional revenues through add-on services,” he explains.

Think self-service kiosks, intuitive wayfinding, and a layout that helps people move quickly from curb to gate. “The utilization of busses is less, you have more walk boardings,” he adds.

Terminal 1, meanwhile, is a different rhythm altogether. “It’s about efficiency and comfort, both guided by digital tools.” Business and frequent flyers pass through airport automation that’s designed to make the process seamless. Over a hundred self-service kiosks are spread across the terminal, complemented by digital signage and premium lounges.

It’s the physical version of a digital truth: no two passengers want the same thing. Some want to breeze through with a coffee and a boarding pass on their phone. Others want time, space, and a glass of something cold before they fly. Both deserve an experience that feels intentional.

That’s what Berlin is building, a new kind of airport customer experience where infrastructure itself becomes a form of personalization. Different terminals, different tools, same philosophy: know who’s traveling, and design accordingly.

AI and Automation Enhancing Personalization in Travel

Like most airports, Berlin once relied on a traditional call center. It worked, but just barely. “We were looking at our call center and we weren’t completely happy,” says Draeger. “It was limited, inconsistent, and expensive.”

That frustration turned into an opportunity. Berlin decided to replace its call center entirely with a generative AI-powered system. The result was “Berry”, Berlin’s always-on virtual assistant.

“Customers can call the AI hotline and have a conversation just like we’re having right now,” Draeger says. It took just six weeks to build and launch, and within a few months, the results were striking: satisfaction above 85 percent, costs down 65 percent, and service available 24/7.

The human element didn’t vanish; it just found a new home. Instead of waiting in phone queues, travelers get answers right away. Lost something? Need flight details? Berry, the airport’s AI agent, takes care of it and loops in a person if the question needs a human touch. It’s simple to use too: one phone number on Berlin Airport’s website connects straight to Berry.

Building the AI Layer with Berry

Behind the scenes, Berry learns fast. “After six to eight weeks we reached an acceptable level… then you could see week-to-week improvements as GenAI learned,” Draeger explains. His team fed the system with real passenger questions and prioritized the most urgent topics first, like the classic “I left my laptop on the aircraft.” “We prioritized major customer concerns to ensure correct routing from day one,” he says.

Now the airport is preparing for the next step, chat. “We want to also offer the ability to get in touch with our AI agent through chat functionality,” says Draeger. QR codes will soon appear throughout the terminals, linking passengers directly to Berry via chat, integrated into the website and app. “If you’re standing in the arrivals hall, we’ll know based on the QR code where you are, and tailor the information accordingly.”

The idea is to build truly contextual assistance: a passenger in departures might ask about gate directions or restaurants, while someone at baggage reclaim could get help locating transport or lost luggage. “Customers can switch between voice and chat depending on environment or age. My children would prefer to talk; someone in a crowded terminal might prefer to chat,” Draeger says.

Operational AI and the Quest for Seamlessness

A lot of what makes Berlin Brandenburg Airport work isn’t something you can see. It happens on the tarmac between the terminal and the runway, where planes turn around for their next flight, and timing is everything.

“We also have others more on the ramp side,” says Draeger, referring to a system the airport now uses to track ground operations in real time. Cameras watch every stage of the turnaround, feeding data to an AI that predicts how long the process will take and where it might go wrong. “They can predict turnaround durations and steer additional resources if required,” he explains. “If a baggage belt is missing upon arrival, they can autonomously act on that and resolve bottlenecks.”

This is the kind of work that truly shapes the airport customer experience. When flights leave as scheduled, lines move faster, and connections fall into place without drama. Most travelers never think about the coordination behind it all. Yet every new piece of technology adds a layer that must fit perfectly with the rest.

But every new layer of technology brings its own challenge. “We always want to have this seamless experience for our customers,” Draeger says. “As we introduce more technology, we’ll have the challenge of combining it with legacy systems.”

Airports, after all, are built to last, and that means old baggage systems, decades-old software, and miles of wiring that can’t just be swapped overnight. “Traffic is increasing significantly, and we have limited infrastructure,” he adds. “We need simpler processes and better technology to absorb growth.”

Behind the polished front end of any airport automation project lies a balancing act: new tools talking to old systems, innovation working around concrete and cables.

The Future for Personalization In Travel: Digital Handholding

When asked what he thinks the future of travel looks like, Christian Draeger doesn’t mention drones or driverless terminals. He talks about something far simpler: help that is steady, thoughtful, and personal. “We always like to call it digital handholding,” he says. “A digital entity that’s completely informed, taking the customer by the hand and guiding them through the journey.”

Many agree that this is exactly where AI in the travel industry is heading. Gartner predicts that more than 80% of all customer interactions will be AI-assisted by 2029. The difference now is how personal that assistance can become.

“In the future, we see customers having their own personalized digital agents,” Draeger says, “on mobile, VR glasses, or other interfaces.” Those agents will be able to do a lot. “They’ll be able to rebook flights, change hotels, handle issues,” he explains. “We’ll need to provide them with the knowledge base and interconnectivity so they can act.”

He describes a world where these personal assistants talk to each other. “We’ll see a marketplace developing for agent-to-agent interaction,” he says, a network where your digital travel companion can speak directly to an airline, a hotel, or even the airport itself to smooth out the details before you notice them.

Some of that is already visible in small ways. Berlin is already imagining using augmented reality to help people find their way through the terminal. “If you come to Berlin Airport, sometimes you’ll find too many information boards,” Draeger admits. “Imagine augmented reality guiding you through the airport.”

It’s easy to see where this leads: toward an airport customer experience that blends technology with intuition. The idea isn’t to overwhelm passengers with data, but to take away the stress of travel entirely.

Personalization in Travel and Airports as Experience Ecosystems

Christian Draeger talks about air travel the way some people talk about music, not as noise and movement, but as rhythm. Airports, he says, are meant to keep that rhythm steady. When they do, everything else feels effortless.

“It’s all about making travel easier,” he says. “Like when you take a train, you just arrive and go, that’s the overarching ambition.”

Mostly, Berlin Brandenburg Airport is just pushing for a calmer travel experience. From the moment a traveler checks in to the moment they leave the gate, the goal is to take away the small frictions that make airports stressful. Berry, the AI voice agent, is part of that. So are the self-service kiosks, the CT-scan security lanes, and the quiet bits of software that keep aircraft turning on time.

“It’s not about one technology: Gen AI, robotics, biometrics, or AR,” Draeger says. “It’s about combining them to make travel much simpler.”

That line sums up Berlin’s whole approach to personalization in travel. It isn’t about showing off what technology can do; it’s about how little the traveler has to notice it.

That’s the real future of airport customer experience: an ecosystem that looks complicated underneath but feels beautifully ordinary on the surface, the kind of simplicity only achieved when someone’s been obsessing over every detail on your behalf.

In a vertical that relies on quoting to attract and gain customers, AI agents can analyze historical data, customer behavior, and patterns to optimize pricing and speed.

“You have customers who are going to make a decision off of how fast you return those quotes,” Foster Kaman, VP of Industry, Transportation & Logistics at consultancy Bridgenext told CX Today in an interview. “A lot of times it will come down to people losing [the business] because they’re too slow to the draw.”

T&L organizations can set up AI-based quoting agents that automate the process to respond as soon as a request comes in. Kaman said:

“You’re taking it from losing business because you weren’t the first to the table to now getting opportunities you’ve never had the ability to get.”

“As it learns your customer, it will be able to help make those quotes more accurate so that you’re not having those billing disputes.”

In addition to automating quotes, AI is helping sales teams spend less time on prep and more time on actual customer conversations, providing them with actionable insights and structured guidance for each customer interaction.

“We’ve had customers that have put call plan creation into action to where it eliminates the time that those great reps are having to spend on prep… and for those reps that have not ever done it, it teaches them how to be better at a sales call,” Kaman said.

AI is also making it easier for teams to pull together documents and quickly get summaries of accounts, opportunities, and cases, Kaman said. “If we can speed that process up and make it easier for everybody, that’s going to change the way people work in the market.”

How Logistics Firms Can Tackle Siloed Systems

The first issue to address for T&L firms to get started with AI is preparing their data strategy to get the most out of it, as they tend to struggle with cleaning up data that is scattered across systems, siloed and inconsistent.

“One of the big things that I found for T&L companies is being able to take their data out of silos and truly pull their data into one spot so that they can take action upon it,” Kaman said.

“Yet for AI, clean data is the foundation of every decision it makes. The reality is that AI is only as powerful as the data and processes behind it. If your data is fragmented and your processes are broken, your insights will be too.”

When various departments are working independently with their own datasets, “it’s very hard to put a complete 360 of a customer together to where you can move forward,” Kaman added.

“The good news? You don’t need to be perfect to begin. If perfection were the starting point, we would never get started. What matters is taking that first step with intention and as you move forward—improving your data and processes with each step you take—will uncover more value. This is because with every improvement in data quality, your AI becomes more insightful and impactful.”

For enterprises concerned about letting AI loose on customers—particularly given high-profile instances of customer-facing agents making costly mistakes—Kaman advises starting with internal use cases to speed up processes, so that teams for more comfortable.

“Internal agents are a great way to get started, so that you recognize what’s working well, what’s not working well, [and] what needs to be tweaked so that you can take that and continue to move it forward.”

Focus on Outcomes, Not Just Use Cases

Some T&L companies are making the mistake of taking disjointed approaches to AI projects, in part because they’re being sold a plethora of solutions based on use cases rather outcomes.

“There are a lot of players in the AI world right now,” Kaman noted. “We all know that, and some are going with—instead of doing it as an overall tool itself and looking at it and saying we need something that’s going to pull all of our data together… and then be able to give us insight into our customers—they’re going based off of what the use case is, instead of what the outcomes are that they’re looking for.”

But vendors are responding by adapting their approach, to help tech buyers identify the right tools to achieve the outcomes they’re targeting, Kaman said.

“Some of the leaders in the AI space are coming back and recognizing that maybe that was not the best approach to take, because they’re recognizing now that when we ask you, ‘what is your use case, what are you wanting to solve for?’ at the end of the day, it’s, ‘what are you wanting to accomplish, and how is it going to help you accomplish your goals?’ And if you don’t know… then how are you going to get there?”

Enterprises need to avoid the trap of assuming that AI agents are out-of-the-box solutions, “that you just put an agent in there in the first day, and then it’s just miraculously going to it’s going to change your business.”

“AI is not going to be something that you put in, and then you don’t ever get to touch again. It is going to continue to evolve,” Kaman advised. “There’s going to be tweaks that you need to make, because you didn’t go in there and give it the directions the way that you should have, or you may not have put the guardrails on.”

“It’s going to take a whole team, and it’s going to have to take a focus on,’ how are we truly going to get to that outcome?’ And it may not be in the very first time that you’re introducing that AI agent.”

Proving ROI on customer experience can be tricky. Everyone agrees that better service matters, and logistics leaders know that improving service often pays off in loyalty and efficiency, but putting a number on that isn’t always straightforward.

The trick, Kaman said, is to “start building backwards.” In that way, leaders can avoid the mistakes of some companies that have been unable to produce measurable results.

“A lot of them are putting solutions in place, but don’t even understand what they’re trying to measure against,” Kaman noted. “You’ve got to truly understand… what does success look like, and ultimately, how is it going to help you hit your goals? What are you expecting out of it?”

Turning Compliance from Burden to Advantage

For industries like T&L, where compliance is critical and time consuming, there are also opportunities to integrate automation and AI into compliance processes in ways that can enhance customer interactions as well as business performance.

Leaders need to work together to understand how to modernize their systems without increasing complexity. “Start with a phased approach that allows for a gradual transformation,” Kaman said. “You use AI or automation to reduce the manual errors and improve the audit readiness.”

In the process of ensuring systems are compliant, enterprises can create systems that provide actionable insights that feed into improved customer experience.

“Centralizing your data so that you can get that better visibility, that better reporting, and it allows you to take action on it quickly, is so very important,” Kaman said.

Working with teams throughout the process of introducing AI is critical for projects to be effective.

“Change management and training is essential, because if you’re not doing that, you’re not ensuring a sustainable adoption.”

Communicating with and training employees on AI use is crucial, because they are likely to use AI tools in some form even if there is no corporate policy providing guidelines.

“The longer you wait, the more unsecure your company is,” Kaman warned. “People use AI whether or not they recognize that they’re using AI.”

“For you to think that your teams aren’t using it, you’re probably kidding yourselves, because they are. They’re not using it under a secured arena.”

For logistics leaders, AI isn’t a question of if but how. Embracing it strategically, and securely, can mean the difference between keeping pace and getting left behind.

The vendor touted these deals during its quarterly earnings and has since shared more information as to why three of its biggest new customers chose eGain. 

According to Ashu Roy, CEO of eGain, these enterprises are typically “struggling with content silos and fragmented knowledge,” which makes it harder to ensure that AI systems provide correct and consistent answers. 

Naturally, if trustworthy information is hard for human and AI agents to acquire in contact centers, then this may cause slower response times and unnecessary frustration for customers and reps. The CEO continued:  

“Having a single source of truth in a knowledge central hub across the business is becoming critical.” 

Consequently, this is creating a trend of businesses sourcing solutions for knowledge centralization.  

Such knowledge centralization is critical for many generative AI (GenAI) use cases contact centers are experimenting with.  

For instance, over half of contact centers already use generative AI (GenAI) to draft customer responses that human reps can review, edit, and send.  

The Big Wins 

First, eGain signed a megadeal with an interactive entertainment company with around 800 million international player accounts. 

The company wanted a knowledge base for its players but struggled with the existing platform, as “it did not provide the necessary APIs and functionality to implement [their] vision.”  

eGain offered the company its “innovation in a 30-day pilot” program to experience the platform’s capabilities, which helped push the deal over the line.  

Another deal was with a global money transfer company with 150 million customers from across 200 countries.  

This company tried to implement a customer knowledge platform twice before turning to eGain.  

Finally, there’s the deal eGain secured with a prominent US airline company that is “one of the largest” in the world. 

With contact center locations spanning the globe, the airline wanted to modernize and streamline its customer service operations. 

As such, it built up many knowledge silos over time and wanted a single platform for use across multiple customer touchpoints, languages, and business units.  

Here, eGain can leverage its knowledge management heritage, accompanied by its “hub-based” approach, which the provider believes is unique.  

Why Might Big Customers Choose eGain? 

In the customer service CRM space, eGain competes with the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and several other tech giants.  

So why would CX leaders choose eGain? 

Last year, Gartner acknowledged eGain as a market “visionary” in its 2024 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Centers. 

The report pinpoints “AI-led innovation pace,” “composability,” and “knowledge management” as core strengths, positioning it as a strong contender in the CRM market. 

As mentioned, a background in contact center knowledge management – delivering “trusted” and “compliant” answers for customers, agents, and employees – is key. 

eGain built on this in 2024, introducing the capability to automatically capture emerging intents, understand how agents solve those queries, and auto-draft knowledge articles. These then power its customer-facing virtual agent for a more autonomous contact center.  

Brands may also bring their own virtual agent, perhaps leveraging a third-party conversational AI solution from Cognigy, Google, Kore.ai, etc.  

According to Roy, such possibilities are attracting new prospects, with the number of seven-figure deals in eGain’s pipeline doubling. 

However, the CEO  noted that “the side effect of this trend is more scrutiny on these projects, and the vetting process now includes groups like the AI office. So these bigger deals are taking some more time to close.” 

That’s a trend an increasing number of CX vendors are calling out.  

British Airways, a leading travel company from the UK, carries more than 40 million customers per year to their desired destinations, while also constantly addressing concerns, queries, and questions presented by their customers. To develop deeper relationships with their consumers, British Airways International leveraged the Salesforce CRM landscape, to unlock new insights and data.  

Here’s what happened when British Airways invested in the Salesforce ecosystem.  

Enhancing the Sales and Service Landscape 

British Airways International serves a variety of consumers, from everyday travel fans to Business professionals. As part of its growth plan, the company believes in the importance of delivering personalized, engaging experiences to each market segment. With Salesforce, the company was able to create a centralized sales planning and operation environment, where users could more effectively leverage customer data for improved interactions.  

The Salesforce ecosystem and the Sales Cloud has enabled British Airways to reduce some of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks distracting their workforce. The “digital platform”, as it is referred to by the company, ensures employees can plan, collaborate, and execute deals in the same, informative environment.  

Additionally, Salesforce Community Cloud has given the organization an opportunity to streamline interactions with clients, through self-service options. According to the brand, the Community cloud has reduced the time for publishing new far options from two weeks to 72 hours. It has also empowered travel management companies to manage their own offers more effectively.  

The Salesforce ecosystem is even helping the company to make the most out of the customer data it captures. Revenue streams, pending deals, and call volumes can all be tracked in the same environment, offering comprehensive visibility into risks and opportunities across the landscape. 

Creating a More Efficient Workforce 

The B2B focused arm of the British Airways brand has discovered a multitude of ways to implement the technology offered by Salesforce into its daily workflows. The end-to-end platform has provided the company with a level of visibility and agility they couldn’t achieve before. According to the brand, with Salesforce, the team can now check in an instant whether an individual’s ADPs align with business strategies, and pinpoint opportunities for growth.  

Salesforce has also helped to boost collaboration among the British Airways team, through the use of Chatter groups. These groups are bringing colleagues together from around the world, to ensure they can centrally manage accounts in one environment, regardless of where they are.  

Plus, British Airways has also integrated Salesforce with its deal modelling platform and data warehouse, as well as various AppExchange tools for contract management and authorization. Overall, the collection of products available rom Salesforce has helped British Airways to maximize productivity and efficiency, while building better experiences for customers.  

In a 1937 letter to U.S. governors in which he responded to devastating extreme weather events dubbed the Dust Bowl, Roosevelt wrote, “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”   

Drumbeats Increase: Drought, Floods, Fires, and More

For decades since Roosevelt’s climate warning, climate scientists have warned about the impact of increased greenhouse gasses on the planet.    

In a March 20 statement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comprised of the world’s leading climate scientists, delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis. “Rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert.”   

But the response to previous warnings remains mixed. Some experts say the collective effort to mitigate extreme climate changes needs to be more urgent and faster than the current pace. 

There are bright spots. Today, businesses, governments, and individuals worldwide are rallying to do their part to reduce greenhouse emissions, especially in the trucking industry.   

Can Big Trucks Deliver Small Carbon Footprints?

Trucks are the backbone of the U.S. transportation industry. Our supply chain chiefly depends on them. But their carbon footprint is massive.    

An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on the environmental impact of transportation said, “Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation account for about 27 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest contributor of U.S. GHG emissions. Between 1990 and 2020, GHG emissions in the transportation sector increased more in absolute terms than any other sector.”   

Truck emissions negatively affect human health, particularly the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Long-term exposure to these pollutants can increase the risk of chronic illnesses such as asthma, lung cancer, and heart disease.    

While truck manufacturers build engines with a smaller carbon footprint, the most immediate way to reduce truck emissions is to use fewer trucks. We face hard realities.    

Remote Video. Reduce Truck Rolls. Reduce CO2.

Remote video technology can help reduce truck rolls and, with that, reduce air pollution. Indeed, its acceptance is on a solid growth path often spurred by consumers that expect companies to embrace a carbon-neutral future.   

According to a report by Fortune Business Insights, the remote support video tool market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2021 to 2028.    

Instead of dispatching a technician to a customer location for a simple issue, by using remote video tools, technicians remotely view, diagnose and troubleshoot problems in HVAC systems, household appliances, and other equipment in remote locations.   

It also saves time and reduces the cost of dispatching a technician. Fewer trucks mean lower truck emissions. It improves operational efficiency. Technicians handle more service calls in less time.    

Remote video support offers a range of benefits, including:    

• Adding a human dimension to customer service and establishing customer rapport and trust.   
• Extending technician expertise to remote locations means increasing their resource value and the ROI the company has in technical staff.   
• Improved first-call resolution rates, reduced truck rolls, and reduced fuel costs.   

A Use Case to Remember

By using remote visual assistance video tools like StreemCore®, companies can positively impact the environment and reduce their carbon footprint by decreasing indirect GHG emissions, such as carbon dioxide released from contractors’ vehicles.   

Streem significantly helped reduce truck rolls for American Home Shield’s (AHS) network of contractors.  

Streem technology leverages augmented reality and video collaboration tools with robust data capture and storage to facilitate remote service calls and reduce the need for in-home visits. By using video communication to support more service jobs remotely, AHS was able to limit the number of service vehicles on the road and reduce carbon emissions.  

From October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022, AHS surveyed appliance contractors to confirm that the implementation of Streem into their workflows reduced the need for truck rolls.   

Contractors were requested to complete surveys after each Streem Call to validate that the call resulted in a reduced truck roll.   

Contractors demonstrated strong adoption of Streem technology, with a reduced truck roll reported at least 70% of the time.  

Based on this information, AHS estimated that using the Streem technology across this population of appliance service dispatches resulted in a 5-6% reduction in truck rolls during the same period.   

Streem cannot provide a specific amount of reduced carbon emissions for reduced truck rolls. But consider the following:  

A contractor that drives a 2015 Chevrolet Express 3500 Auto-6 2WD gasoline-powered van and who avoids just two 15-mile trips per week would reduce more than one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Apply that to all contractors; the carbon emission reductions would be massive.  

Aside from the environmental benefits, remote video support also allows contractors to see the issue first-hand without relying on the customer’s description of the problem.   

Using video instead of only hearing or reading about the issue can lead to a more accurate diagnosis and faster resolution. That’s particularly important for essential appliances like refrigerators and ovens.  

Streem Means Green

StreemCore® is an enterprise-class, remote visual assistance tool using out-of-the-box augmented reality (AR) capabilities. By adding an interactive, no-download video collaboration tool, companies can quickly see and solve issues remotely and accelerate diagnosis and support resolution times.   

Visit the Streem website to learn more about our remote support video tool and how it can help your organization reduce truck rolls and improve the environment.    

As the landscape continues to evolve, and the way businesses interact with customers continues to transform, transportation brands need to consistently look for ways to remove friction from the buyer journey. This means implementing the latest tools for customer service, and payment processing.

When National Express discovered a new demand for simple contactless payments and enhanced digital services among its customer base, it knew it was time to upgrade its CX strategy. Working with 8×8 to create a new CX platform, and implement integrations with Salesforce and PCI Pal allowed National Express to stay on top of the UK market.

An Evolving Transportation Landscape

National Express stands out as one of the largest coach operators in the UK. The company serves hundreds of cities and towns, and millions of passengers across the country every day. It’s also on-hand to help with transportation to events, airports, sporting events, and tourist destinations.

Maintaining a position as the top choice for customers travelling throughout the UK, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and North America requires an excellent CX strategy from the National Express Group. To deliver experiences which adhere to customer expectations, the company needs the best technology and the most efficient, optimized team members.

Before switching to 8×8’s solution for CX and workplace management, National Express had already begun a transition into the new age of cloud communications. However, the cloud contact centre solution implemented by the team had some limitations. It didn’t support the data privacy requirements of the organisation, and lacked adherence to crucial PCI DSS regulations.

To secure the business and protect customers, National Express needed a new solution. The business began looking for a contact centre offering capable of supporting agents in accepting payments over the phone, without putting private data at risk. The need for this contactless and frictionless environment increased during the pandemic, when employees needed to continue serving customers from home, rather than working in a secure workspace.

Finding a Compliant CX Solution

According to Lawrie Neal, the Salesforce System Administrator for the National Express Team, the company had already begun re-evaluating its CX strategy a couple of years prior to interacting with 8×8. However, a transformational strategy hadn’t been implemented before the pandemic arrived. When the challenges facing the company evolved, Neal decided it was time to connect with 8×8.

Lawrie had heard of 8×8 in the past, and considered its flexible cloud environment to be a powerful tool for the business. He met with an 8×8 sales rep at a trade show, who gave a fantastic demonstration of what the platform could do. Neal was particularly impressed by the integration 8×8 offered with Secure Pay (from PCI Pal).

At the beginning of 2021, National Express began its transition into the 8×8 Contact Centre ecosystem, bringing more than 100 customer service professionals on board. The company also accessed 8×8 Work for its administrative team members, to boost collaboration and efficiency. Plus, the team leveraged 8×8’s University training capabilities to onboard new team members.

During the transition to 8×8, National Express added the “Secure Pay” service from 8×8 to the contact centre implementation, offering customers a safe and reliable way to provide credit card and bank information to agents over the phone. The “Secure Pay” service makes it quick and easy to manage transactions through 8×8, while keeping customer data secure.

Clients can enter their payment details through their phone keypad, and the 8×8 ecosystem automatically masks the DTMF tones, while routing the information through PCI Pal to process the payment. The agent can see when the transaction is successfully completed within the in-house booking system, without ever having access to the card number.

Enhancing Business Productivity and Performance

Thanks to 8×8’s partnership with PCI Pal, National Express has delivered a more convenient, straightforward, and risk-free payment option for customers reaching out to the contact centre. This has become increasingly valuable now that the majority of the team’s employees are working from home on a full-time basis. The PCI Pal integration provides a crucial layer of security, compliance, and protection for teams accepting payments in any environment.

After taking part in a beta program, National Express also became an early adopter of the new agent-friendly contact centre environment for agents, “Agent Workspace”.

The solution was designed by 8×8 to streamline everyday customer interactions, automate workflows, and keep agents productive, efficient, and engaged. According to Neal, the UI is clean and simple, and agents appreciate the simplified design. As part of their new strategy with 8×8, the National Express Team also took advantage of an available integration with Salesforce.

The Salesforce integration with 8×8 allows the team to leverage the best of both platforms in one convenient environment. National Express customised its integration to track all incoming conversations in the Salesforce environment, allowing for stronger customer relationships. The remote agent team for the company can now access valuable customer information to improve relationships with greater security and flexibility.

New Opportunities for National Express

Not only has the move to the 8×8 contact centre improved the security of the transactions handled by National Express, but it has also had a direct impact on team performance and productivity. The 8×8 Agent Workspace environment offers agents a simple and intuitive landscape where they can access valuable information and process conversations at speed.

According to Neal, by reducing the amount of time involved in handling a call, the 8×8 ecosystem has helped to boost customer satisfaction and reduce call queues. What’s more, syncing the call data collected through the contact centre with Salesforce leads to more valuable insights and improved decision-making strategies.

With 80% of its employees now working from home full-time, National Express believes 8×8 has become an essential part of its strategy for serving customers securely and efficiently from anywhere.

As customer expectations continue to evolve transportation brands are spending more of their time looking for ways to engage their user base. Logistics organisations, public transportation vendors, and a range of other businesses are beginning to infuse more of their day-to-day processes with CX tools. The top CX vendors are on-hand to assist companies in delighting their clients.

Today’s case studies offer an insight into some of the most impressive initiatives implemented by companies in the transportation sector, with a focus on CX.

National Express and 8×8

One of the leading coach operators in the UK, National Express serves hundreds of cities and towns throughout the country. The company serves over 21 million passengers per year, and still manages to support a workforce of 80% remote employees. The biggest challenge the organisation faced in recent years was figuring out a way to maintain PCI compliance, in a changing environment.

When the transportation and customer communication space began to evolve, National Express found itself searching for a contact centre solution capable of integrating with the existing tools the teams were already reliant upon. The team needed something which enhanced PCI compliance, while also allowing for personalised experiences through the use of the Salesforce CRM.

The flexible 8×8 platform delivered a range of attractive benefits to the National Express brand, including a secure payment system, and a range of new tools for connecting with clients in an omnichannel digital environment.

MakeMyTrip and Avaya

An innovative online travel company, MakeMyTrip, experienced a sudden surge of calls and queries from customers when the pandemic began. The company already had an Avaya ecosystem installed to help with managing customer service. However, the new challenges of the pandemic placed this system under significant strain, prompting the need for an upgrade.

Working with the dedicated specialists at Avaya, MakeMyTrip updated its IVR systems to prioritise callers more effectively, while implementing a platform to empower remote workers. The introduction of new Avaya tools within the OneCloud CCaaS environment allowed the company to drastically improve customer experience and reduce repeat calls.

The company was also able to reduce resolution time for customers with urgent requirements, and minimise the number of calls left in the customer service queue.

Avis Budget Group and Genesys

The rental car giant, Avis, needed a new way to enhance its customer response times and improve productivity among team members to meet with its CX goals. The company assessed a number of solutions to address its issues, before settling on the Genesys DX solution, with integrated Natural Language Processing capabilities for self-service.

With Genesys technology, Avis has been able to reduce the number of calls coming through to team members, as the AI system manages around 30% of customer inquiries. What’s more, the implementation of the new technology means the company can now answer questions faster, and deliver 24/7 support to transportation customers.

According to the Avis Budget Group, introducing Genesys DX has allowed the brand to speed up customer waiting times, reduce the number of calls coming through to agents, and improve team performance. The technology was particularly valuable to Avis during the pandemic, when calling numbers began to spike.

Arrive Logistics and Talkdesk

Arrive Logistics is one of the top freight brokerage companies in the world today, promising phenomenal customer service, strategic solutions for customers, and powerful technology capabilities. However, the previous technologies implemented by the company weren’t as flexible as the business had hoped. The tools lacked scalability, and required significant IT attention.

Arrive Logistics decided the best way to deliver exceptional service going forward, was to integrate a new customer communication environment into their technology stack. With Talkdesk, the company was able to reduce the complexity of their CX solution, and access more of the visibility and insights required to make improved business decisions.

According to Arrive Logistics, the ability to scale the CX ecosystem, allow employees to work remotely, and access end-to-end visibility was crucial to the team, particularly during the pandemic. The Talkdesk environment even integrated with essential tools like Salesforce.

HopSkipDrive and Kustomer

An innovative future-focused company, HopSkipDrive delivers a safe and reliable rideshare service to children over the age of 6. The company ensures children get fully-vetted and finger-printed care givers for their transportation experience.

To deliver the kind of secure and reliable service customers were looking for, HopSkipDrive needed a way to unify its CX data, and allow for better communication with drivers and parents alike. With Kustomer, HopSkipDrive was able to create a customised platform for dealing with three different communities: parents, schools, and drivers.

The company also accessed better insights into its CX data, gathering more information about CSAT scores and First-call resolution rates. As a result, HopSkipDrive began making more intelligent decisions about how to enhance its services and outshine the competition.

Addison Lee and Salesforce

Addison Lee is a transportation company dedicated to delivering premium travel experiences to customers in a range of different environments. The company believes its customer service and focus on delivering exceptional support is what sets it apart from other brands. However, the team also feels technology is the key to delivering the right CX results.

Addison Lee embraced the Salesforce platform, to create a comprehensive environment for customer acquisition, retention, and engagement. With Salesforce, the brand can track everything from onboarding, to customer loyalty metrics in the same convenient place.

Salesforce makes it easier for Addison Lee to connect with passengers on the channels of their choice, create secure bookings, and keep track of new opportunities. There are even built-in AI solutions to help provide insights into which strategies can drive better customer retention.

For transportation companies, CX is essential to ensuring consumers continue to take advantage of transport services and solutions. Deloitte notes today’s transportation agencies, as well as the broader mobility ecosystem, are beginning to place more emphasis on the importance of CX to business success. Fortunately, these companies are rapidly gaining access to a wide variety of innovative tools, perfect for enhancing customer interactions.

With intelligent virtual assistants to automate journey planning, in-depth analytics and reporting tools, and platforms for managing the workforce, transportation companies can stay one step ahead of the evolving trends. Here’s how CX is evolving in the transportation space for 2022 and beyond.

The Potential for CX in the Transportation Sector

Today’s consumers are searching for safety, simplicity, and efficiency in interactions with every brand. Whether it’s a B2B company interacting with logistics brand, or a B2C client leveraging a public transportation forum, every consumer wants a streamlined experience. This means transportation companies need to double down on their CX investments.

The right Customer Experience tools, from contact centre as a service solution, to state-of-the-art CRM tools, provide transportation vendors with more opportunities to delight their user base, and attract new customers. At the same time, these tools can allow for deeper insights into business operations, leading to more lucrative investments.

Here are just some of the biggest benefits of implementing CX in the transport sector.

• Improved customer engagement: With access to CX tools like CCaaS software, companies in the transportation field have more ways to connect with their audience. A contact center in the cloud makes it easier to address customer concerns and requests across multiple channels. Companies can even send mass SMS messages to users letting them know about changes in travel plans, or potential logistics issues. This allows for better customer engagement.
• Enhanced team productivity: Like any business, transportation companies are reliant on an efficient and productive workforce to deliver excellent results. CX solutions can assist in enhancing and empowering members of staff in a variety of different ways. Customer service teams can access omnichannel communication tools for interacting with clients, while gathering insights into segments from CRM technology.
• Better team management: CX solutions can also include workforce management and engagement tools, designed to help companies make the most out of their labour resources. With workforce engagement tools, business leaders can ensure the right professionals are on-hand to deal with the correct shipments and services each day. Useful real-time and historical insights can even make it easier to prepare for spikes in demand.
• Enhanced decision-making: A comprehensive CX environment provides insights into the customer journey and experience through every stage of the funnel for transportation companies. Since the majority of organisations today are competing on the basis of customer experience, these insights can be extremely valuable in making crucial decisions about how to enhance services and support.

Trends Driving CX in the Transportation Sector

Like many sectors in the last few years, the transportation industry is currently moving through a period of rapid transformation, innovation, and discovery. The rise of new AI-enhanced vehicles, the Internet of Things, and even 5G connectivity are all having an impact on how businesses can understand and serve their customers.

In a post-pandemic landscape, transportation companies will need to leverage the latest trends in the CX space to ensure they’re keeping up with customer expectations on a massive scale. Just some of the critical trends likely to influence CX in the transportation sector include:

• 5G and IoT: Better mobile connectivity and smart devices and tools will likely play an important role in the future of transportation. 5G-connected IoT sensors and beacons on public transportation systems, for instance, can provide data directly to the customer service team in a CCaaS environment. This will allow companies to give their customers real-time feedback on when a vehicle or service is due to arrive at its destination.
• Artificial Intelligence: AI is quickly having a massive impact on virtually all companies in today’s evolving world. A transportation system enabled with artificial intelligence and linked to the CX environment can allow companies to leverage better insights into the customer experience journey, and how it can be improved. Data and analytics may even assist with providing real-time insights into journeys and travel time, to help business leaders devise plans of improving customer service.
• Detailed analytics: The analysis of customer conversations, with access to sentiment analysis tools and AI will help business leaders to create more effective systems for customer service. Detailed analytics can help with the development of personalised service and support solutions for different audience segments. These analytics can also assist with the management of teams, to make professionals in the transportation sector more efficient, productive, and timely.
• Self service travel: Self-service solutions in travel are becoming increasingly common in a post-pandemic environment, where users are trying to reduce face-to-face interactions. According to some research, around 74.8% of consumers in the transportation landscape are looking forward to the wider use of self-service tools. What’s more, over 3 in 4 respondents say they are looking forward to biometrics for passenger identity verification and touchless technologies for safer travel.

Looking Ahead with CX in Transportation

While the transportation environment hasn’t always moved as quickly as other sectors when it comes to new and innovative CX solutions, this could be about to change. As consumers become more demanding, and expectations continue to evolve in the transportation space, many vendors will be embracing new technology at a rapid scale.

The transportation companies with the best customer experience strategies will be able to outshine the competition, and maintain high revenues in a competitive industry.

Primarily, this involves streamlining the nationwide flow of digital evidence used in investigations and charging decisions.

Thanks to the platform’s integrations with other digital evidence systems, BTP can collect and manage vast amounts of digital evidence through a single login.

Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE, said: “Crime solving increasingly relies on digital evidence, but a lot of time and effort is wasted getting digital evidence into the hands of investigators. Part of our Evidencentral platform, NICE Investigate is helping BTP and forces around the world remove the obstacles around collecting and sharing digital evidence so they can get to the truth faster.”

The platform also sources data from systems like RMS, computer-aided dispatch, and CCTV video. Furthermore, BTP can share digital evidence with the Crown Prosecution Services electronically to shorten the time needed for charging decisions.

Russell Holloway, Senior Project Manager for Digital Policing, British Transport Police, said: “Our aim is to provide every BTP officer with everything needed for investigations, all in one place.

“NICE Investigate is at the heart of everything we’re doing in relation to managing our digital evidence ecosystem moving forward.”

NICE has recently helped other law enforcement agencies – including the San Diego Police Department’s Communications Division – which has implemented NICE Inform Elite to automate metrics tracking, QA reviews, and incident reconstruction.

However, with restrictions now easing and life returning to normal, it seems the travel industry has an incredible opportunity at hand. As Jonathan Allan, Chief Marketing Officer at Puzzel, declares: “They can be the businesses that bring joy back to peoples’ lives.”

Indeed, a 2021 McKinsey & Company study found travelling is one of the top activities people want to get back to now the pandemic is petering out (beaten only by dining out). So if travel firms can act quickly, they can seize on this demand to rebuild customer relationships and restore trust in the sector.

What Steps are Travel Firms Taking to Win Back Trust?

Many travel companies are now proactively communicating with customers, accepting their customer service failures during the pandemic and promising to do better.

Here are two snippets of emails sent to British Airways (left) and Finnair (right) customers.

Specifically, British Airways notes that they will implement a new contact centre system and recruit more personnel to: “Ensure your calls are answered, social media messages are responded to and problems are solved in the moment, wherever possible.”

As such, it appears delivering true omnichannel service and improving response times is central to the industry’s strategy. But the execution isn’t quite there yet, as Allan states:

“I recently tried to contact a travel company, yet they refused to answer calls for amending bookings, didn’t offer chat, and insisted I email them. After taking seven days to respond, what I wanted was not available anymore. So, while this company is trying to digitise its service, in reality, it was less efficient, and my feelings towards that brand have certainly shifted.”

What this story underlines is a lack of understanding around customer needs. CX is not just about implementing the latest innovations. Instead, it is about designing customer journeys that best fit the task, offering a blend of digital, self-service, and human support.

Of course, that is much easier said than done, yet an excellent chance emerges for brands that get this right. For example, if British Airways makes good on the CX promises set out in its letter, it could be a huge differentiator from its budget competitors.

What More Can Travel Firms Do to Win Back Trust?

Alongside optimising their digital proposition and bolstering recruitment, travel companies can also win back trust by:

Subverting the Primary Focus of Leaders

Too often, the c-suite sets cost-related metrics as primary measures to assess the performance of customer service leaders. However, this strategy encourages department heads to consider the customer in the sense of “how can I serve you for less.” Such an approach is not conducive to achieving the ideal customer outcomes.

Consequently, many contact centres implement automation solutions that divert customers away from human support rather than automation that primarily aims to improve the customer experience and utilise agent know-how and empathy at the right moments.

The solution requires a change in c-suite thinking. A 2021 Harvard Business Review article highlights this as a necessity, arguing that digital and tech-savviness needs to reach the top tier of businesses.

As the article states: “Financial literacy is a baseline qualification for any top executive; we need to think about technological and digital literacy in the same way… These capabilities that used to be nice-to-haves are now must-haves: Companies can’t afford to have an executive who might confuse discussions about the cloud with small talk about the weather.”

As such, if travel companies wish to improve their digital strategies, they should invest in technologies that will add value to the customer experience as well as help to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Increasing Cross-Function Collaboration

The responsibility of finding and implementing a new contact centre solution often falls to IT. But for best results, it should be a collaborative process between IT, customer service, revenue and privacy teams.

This is a common stumbling block on the path to achieving successful customer experience transformation. Allan adds:

“Unless these departments converge into one overall head of customer, a company will likely never unlock the system’s full potential and enhance CX. Instead, everybody will focus on their own goals, as opposed to creating mutual aims for the customer and their journey.”

Forrester research supports this sentiment, suggesting that now is the time to stop these siloes around the customer and focus on a more holistic customer vision.

Indeed, in a thought-provoking article, Su Doyle, CX Executive Partner and Senior Analyst at Forrester, encourages companies to: “Start thinking of CX as a team sport, and tap alliances to accelerate your transformation!”

Maximising the Human Factor Within CX

According to McKinsey & Company: “Great customer experience depends on the human factor. That has major implications for how the customer-experience organization operates.”

As brands automate more experiences, this trend of humans becoming the differentiator develops.

Therefore, ensuring that agents are well-informed, supported, and coached has become a significant priority for companies.

Moreover, agents no longer want to sit in a contact centre for eight hours every day. So, companies are also offering hybrid working and more flexible shift patterns to attract and retain staff.

Allan builds on this point in a video interview that he recorded with CX Today, as shown below.

Heeding such advice is perhaps critical across every industry. But, as one in eight UK jobs in travel and tourism were reportedly left unfulfilled at the beginning of this year, the importance of enhancing the employee experience ramps up further.

Partner With Puzzel

Puzzel provides contact centres with a suite of tools to deliver first-class digital customer service and maximise the value of the human touch.

As such, travel firms may wish to engage with a member of the expert Puzzel team to develop a strategy that rebuilds trust through digital and human-led customer experiences.