The travel and transportation industry, covering travel and cargo, is extremely interaction intensive. Large networks of service providers, channel partners, customers and other support organizations are involved in this business, making management of the interaction processes a challenging task. Competition is increasing, market shares are fragmenting, margins are shrinking and retaining customers through great service experience is the focus.

Some of the challenges institutions in this domain face are:

Differentiated customer service - To optimize each customer relationship through differential treatment. For an organization today the foremost challenge is to cut through the clutter of the existing product and service offers. The next logical step for the organization is to train and enable its agents to be able to use the information in the most appropriate manner. For instance, the organization can have real-time suggestions appearing on its agents' screen, prompting them to interact with the customer in a specific way.

Customer interaction - Is it easy for the customer to transact business with the organization? Do callers face long hold times? Is relevant information about callers available to the agents in no time? Customers are increasingly demanding fast, convenient, reliable access to information, like updated accounts or order status details.

Consistency - By nature, the customer experiences the service provided by businesses in this vertical across multiple touch points. For example, an airline customer is likely to interact with a travel agent, airport staff at more than one location, self-service applications for flight timings, ticket alterations, seat allocation, reconfirmation and providers of support services like car rentals and hotel accommodation. The customer would look for consistent service that matches his / her expectations.

Recognition - Because of the dispersed nature of the interactions across various touch points, the organization needs to be able to present information to these touch points in a manner that enables agents, partners and employees to recognize the customer and deliver appropriate service.

Convenience - Customers should be able to transact their business with the organization in the quickest and most painless fashion possible – be it booking an airline ticket, tracking a freight container, or delivery status of a courier consignment. They expect information to be available in real-time and presented through a channel of their choice.

Revenue generation - Every time the customer interacts with the organization, there is an opportunity to generate more revenue. Value-added services can be offered in a personalized fashion, based on the tracking and presentation of customer data at the touch points. Presentation of such information to the touch points in real-time will aid this. For example, when a customer buys an airline ticket, the agent could package in a preferred rental car and hotel accommodation, based on the history of that customer – giving the customer convenience and personalized service.

Our experience of providing solutions to organizations across multiple, widely dispersed customer touch points, often spanning across countries, brings value to businesses in this vertical. We have provided best-of-breed service providers in this domain with services ranging from consulting to application development and maintenance.