British Airways has increased traffic to its Internet booking pages by approximately 3,500 hits per week following a series of best practice recommendations and implementations with RightNow Technologies.Ê A further 60% reduction in inbound email traffic has also been achieved, while the percentage of customers resolving their enquiries online has risen to 99%.Ê

During a software upgrade on www.ba.com , RightNow provided BA with several best practice recommendations.Ê These included adding a ‘book now’ button to the customer service and support area of the web site so that customers can easily navigate through to the booking facility.Ê This was advisable because customers often have a query they need to resolve before making a booking.Ê Also added was a ‘manage my booking’ button enabling customers to quickly and simply tailor their bookings by requesting special meals or seat changes.

The inbound email reduction has been possible by implementing RightNow’s Smart Assistant, a function that reads a customer’s question, before they submit it, and proactively pushes additional answers to the customer.Ê RightNow also provided best practice guidance as well.

“The returns from implementing the Smart Assistant best practice have been astonishing,” said Nick Doran, Head of Global Direct Operations at BA.Ê “It’s exceeded expectations and now our future goal is to have every inbound email come in via the Smart Assistant tool.”

www.ba.com
  enjoys over 1.2 million unique visitors per week so it’s imperative that information can be found quickly.Ê A third RightNow best practice suggestion was to have the ‘Search BA’ entry point to the customer service and support section on the home page, and each subsequent page navigated.Ê From here customers can now experience an integrated search that searches the RightNow knowledge base of answers, the entire ba.com site and www.baholidays.com, heightening the probability of the customer finding the answer to their enquiry.Ê This approach has doubled the number of site searches.

“When we began our relationship with RightNow back in 2001, we achieved strong returns on investment,” said Nick Doran.Ê “So we weren’t expecting such significant gains from the best practices.Ê The click through from the ‘book now’ button and the reduction in email has been beyond anything we anticipated.Ê The success is testament to the RightNow team’s commitment to helping us maximise our investment and capitalise on what the software can do.”

“Competition is fierce within the airline industry, so a strong customer service proposition is mission critical,” Sean Forbes, vice president of marketing and business development at RightNow Technologies, said.Ê “BA’s decision to build on their already successful relationship with us, and to implement our tried and tested best practices has proven that customer service is not a static, one time deployment but something that changes and develops overtime and which can always be improved upon.”
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