Bringing customers back: CX workshop co-hosted with AFRAA

At AFRAA’s (African Airlines Association) customer experience workshop on October 7th, 2021 Lufthansa Consulting provided insights into how to recover the aviation industry through measures directed at the customer. Based on the findings of Lufthansa Consulting’s white paper “Bringing customers back – trends in customer experience in times of Covid-19” published in early 2021, Wolfgang Bublitz, Associate Partner and Head of Solution Group CX and Julian Wildtraut, Consultant, explained the importance of creating an environment of comfort for customers while making use of digital technologies on the way out of the crisis.

As the aviation industry is only slowly recuperating executives around the globe are eager to find the right measures to help boost the sector’s recovery. In times of crisis, marketing and customer experience budgets are usually tight as the bottom-line profit margin stems from operations rather than customer experience. However, even during the worst times of the Covid-19 crisis it has been paramount to cater to customers’ needs and expectations. Airlines had to win back customers’ trust and did so through quickly implementing health measures by realizing a comfortable and safe travel experience for customers. Most of these measures were aided by digital technologies that helped largely to minimize human contact and facilitated processes along the customer journey.

In today’s fast-moving world, it is about being the quickest to adopt customer measures and adapt to trends and the market environment rather than just being the biggest player. Looking a few years into the future, airlines which invested into customer experience measures during the crisis will be rewarded with customer loyalty and a lucrative return on investment (ROI). In a poll during the workshop the participants votes reflected this: more than 50% predict a substantial recovery of passenger numbers only toward the end of 2022 and beyond. Another 70% think digital solutions are the key factor to contribute to recovery.

“Main drivers for creating a positive environment for customers are trust, a level of carefreeness and using the digital potential in service development” commented Wolfgang Bublitz. In order to reap benefits as quickly as possible, airlines should put the customer first, experiment with measures directly reflecting customers’ expectations, collaborate with all relevant stakeholder, such as airports and ground handlers and find their sweet spot in the adoption cycle to find the right balance between innovation and adoption.

White Paper: Find out more about customer trends and customer experience measures in Lufthansa Consulting’s white paper. Get in touch with us to receive your copy.

Podcasts: Tune into our Lufthansa Consutling Aviation Talk podcasts about Customer Experience on Spotify, Apple Podcast and Amazon Music Get in touch with us to receive your copy.