EuroManx - How Success Almost Grounded One Small Airline....

EuroManx, like many of the smaller airlines formed to do battle with the then complacent major carriers, soon found it faced a major problem in the form of
. . . success.

Set up on the Isle of Man to take on BA - after the industry giant had swallowed up Manx Airlines, so creating what many regular commuters saw as an arrogant and expensive monopoly arrangement - EuroManx was at first almost overwhelmed by popularity.

The first and most irritating sign that all was not well was when people could not get through to book by telephone. And, as EuroManx, had set itself up to have personal contact – rather than BA who had annoyed regulars by hiding behind web bookings – this certainly didn’t help customer relations.

Secondly – and even more damaging in its financial impact on an organisation which maintains strict budgetary controls – lay in the cost of having to forward customer phone calls that got through to a call centre in the UK. At around 50p a time, this was proving a considerable drain on operating funds.

Then EuroManx called in Capital 21 – a specialist telephony system developer – for help and the rest (as they say with all success stories) is history. Well not quite. EuroManx is still battling BA but at least the small airline’s popularity is no longer under threat – and it is not losing customers to its bigger rival due to any beep, beep, beep of a constantly busy line.

Today, thanks to its customised call management system and sophisticated interactive voice technology, all controlled by an intelligent network platform –

• Every call to EuroManx is answered 24 hours per day and no caller ever hears a busy tone
• Every telephone call is filtered to allow specific departments to be selected, any callers for the reservations call centre can be queued if necessary until a member of the reservations team becomes free, but at all times a caller is informed of progress
• There is just one number for all callers – and the fact that EuroManx has selected an 0870 number, this generates additional revenue – and can be used across multi sites
• Calls can be redirected to any UK location if necessary at no cost to customer or EuroManx
• Announcement messages can be changed instantly such as for alerts or flight cancellations
• Callers are offered a choice of deals such as car rental, hotel accommodation and travel insurance and these calls are connected directly to EuroManx business partners – generating incremental revenues
• In-depth, ‘live’ and accurate data is available on all incoming calls via a secure web link, enabling the management to identify busy patterns and so allocate more – or reduce - staff when necessary
• Marketing data from all calls can be identified, so response to any specific marketing initiatives can be tracked accurately
• Calls into specific departments can be instantly switched to alternative premises should an incident befall the call centre, calling a disaster recovery procedure into place.

And this custom designed service was achieved without any capital expenditure on behalf of EuroManx. The airline simply opted for a pay as you go, low cost rental, with no changes or upgrades to existing telephone equipment and retaining the same number of lines it had previously.

“Capital 21 has improved the ticketing process dramatically and there is no comparison from how we are operating now to the service that was provided by our call centre previously,” says EuroManx Reservations Manager Karen Watterson.

“In terms of customer service we have improved 110 per cent by installing the Capital 21 system. That is very important to us as we want to build our reputation for putting the passenger first.”

Karen and her colleagues, now all based at Ronaldsway Airport in the Isle of Man, can access the Capital 21 system’s live data to view and download statistics to see when and where calls are coming from and how efficiently the call centre is performing against set objectives.

EuroManx has yet to decide on another Capital 21 service – Call Recording – in which every call can be recorded and easily accessed for training purposes.

Despite the fact the system is feature rich, Karen was pleasantly surprised by the fact it was easy to get to grips with once it was installed with a minimum of inconvenience to the company.

“This system has been really easy to grasp, yet it has so many sophisticated features that provide essential hassle-free functions,” enthuses Karen; “We were also surprised by the fact that there was hardly any disruption - due to the fact that we continued to use our existing equipment to link up with Capital 21’s system.

“There was no real work on our part during the installation – we just recorded the messages and supplied the details that we wanted to go onto the system before it was launched.

"Now Capital 21's system is in place I don't know how we coped without it."

For futher information, please call 0870 787 0490.