AirAsia, a trailblazer in the Asia Pacific (APAC) aviation industry, has embarked on a remarkable digital transformation journey. The airline, renowned for its low-cost fares and efficient operations, has leveraged technology to enhance customer experience, streamline processes, and stay ahead of the competition.
Importantly, they boast a 90% delivery rate for SMS and Email notifications that has contributed to a remarkable Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 50, compared to the industry average of 26.
To learn more about their digital transformation journey, latest trends in the aviation industry and their partnership with Infobip, we had a tête-à-tête with Air Asia’s Head of Preflight Maurice Robin.
The state of aviation customer experience in APAC
The aviation industry in APAC is experiencing rapid growth, especially post pandemic, making it a highly competitive market.
Aviation market forecast:
- $423.8 billion: increase in market size between 2023 and 2028
- 12.48%: CAGR between 2023 and 2028
(Source: Technavio)
The stakes for airlines are high if they want to excel in this competitive market, and to have the larger share of this market size, aviation companies must invest in customer experience.
Factors such as seamless online booking, personalized communication, and efficient flight management are just some of the customer experience essentials for success.
It’s not just about offering a great value service — but about creating an unforgettable experience.
This is where, AirAsia continues to revolutionize the aviation industry with numerous new innovations to further improve the customer experience and make flying not only safe and affordable, but also seamless.
AirAsia’s digital transformation
At the heart of AirAsia’s digital transformation is their strategic partnership with Infobip. Our conversational customer experience platform empowered AirAsia to deliver personalized, timely, and effective communications to millions of their passengers.
Maurice Robin, Head of Preflight at AirAsia, shared insights into the airline’s digital journey: “We’ve always been at the forefront of innovation in the aviation industry. Our partnership with Infobip has been instrumental in helping us deliver exceptional customer experiences and to further streamline our operations.”
Enhancing customer communication
One of the key areas where our platform has made a significant impact is in delivering timely travel notifications via SMS and Email. AirAsia has transitioned from basic text SMS and Email notifications to more sophisticated rich media notifications, including hyperlinked SMS messages that connect to chatbots and interactive HTML emails.
At AirAsia, as one of the largest low-cost airlines in the world, we rely heavily on the use of Email and SMS notifications. Though some people might say it’s quite traditional, statistically it has a strong delivery rate of over 90%. And the data speaks for itself, it delivers the message accurately and it drives our customer satisfaction, which can be displayed through our NPS. Our year to date, we are standing at 50 points which is well above average industry levels.”
Maurice Robin
Head of Preflight, AirAsia
This partnership has not only helped improve engagement rates, but also ensured that passengers were always kept well informed with:
- Travel alerts: For example, if there are changes to a flight, AirAsia will send an email with a new itinerary and an SMS to the customer’s registered phone number.
- Sending newsletters: AirAsia sends regular newsletters to customers via email with the latest destinations, customized offers and flight routes.
Talking about the importance of digital notifications, Maurice says, “We also have many other services that we embed to our notifications, so that guests can access information easily with the power of their hands. And adding on also, we also have voicemail services where we call out to the passengers to inform them if their flight has been changed and refer them to their email and SMS to help them self-opt any of our service recovery provisions.”
In addition, AirAsia also uses these channels to ensure enhanced user security by:
- Verifying phone numbers: AirAsia sends a one-time password (OTP) via SMS to verify phone numbers.
- Verifying email addresses: When updating an email address, AirAsia sends an OTP to the customer’s registered email address. The customer then enters the OTP to verify the new email address.
Leveraging AI for enhanced personalization
As one of the largest low-cost airlines in the world, leveraging AI is critical to stay ahead of the digital transformation curve. AirAsia knew that they needed to invest in AI to provide more personalized services and not just rely on their core channels.
“By leveraging AI, we can provide more personalized and efficient support to our passengers,” Maurice explained.
This prompted AirAsia to further collaborate with Infobip to develop a Voice Assistant that can handle outbound messaging and voicemail notifications.
Maurice expands, “We’re heavily invested in AI. We are currently working with Infobip for a voice bot for voicemail and outbound messaging. Voicemail is more for client support where we reach out to our clients, whereas outbound is more for passenger disruption.
“The reason we’re moving towards this is also to keep up with the market trend. And with the voice bot enhancement, we will also build more brand loyalty and customer integrity that translates to loyalty and customer satisfaction.”
Providing a unified customer journey across a diverse product portfolio
Beyond flight notifications, Infobip has played a crucial role in helping AirAsia create a seamless customer experience across its diverse offerings, including digital banking, online travel agencies (OTAs), and others.
“We started off as just an airline business. Now we have expanded to many entities such as digital banking, OTAs, and so on. Leveraging customers interactions our goal is to have a single platform, and this is where Infobip comes in.
“So, from a single platform we are able to identify the profile of our customers. For example, based on customer profiles, we send out travel advisories, flight disruptions, and have pushed marketing campaigns. So, from there we’re able to understand the profile of our customer more diligently,” explains Maurice.
By leveraging data, AirAsia can train their chatbot to identify keywords and sentiments within customer messages and categorize them into topics such as:
- Ancillary services: baggage, seats, meals
- Flight operations: on-time performance, delays, cancellations
- Customer service: complaints, compliments
Data in action:
A passenger sends a message complaining about a delayed flight and the lack of available food options. The chatbot would automatically categorize this message under the topics “flight operations” and “ancillary services.”
This automated data categorization would increase operational efficiency and help AirAsia immediately resolve the issue, improving on-time performance and customer satisfaction.
AirAsia x Infobip: Transforming the aviation industry, together
As AirAsia continues to grow and expand its operations, they’re also investing heavily in AI and data analytics. The goal is to further optimize processes, improve customer satisfaction, and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving aviation industry.
And partnering in this goal is Infobip, providing a single platform foundation for the digital transformation.
At AirAsia, we’ve partnered with Infobip for many years and throughout that we have built our brand loyalty with each other. So firstly, I would like to highlight on Infobip’s platform stability. As airlines we have a lot of changes taking place for disruption and travel advisories, whether it’s involving changes in countries regulation or notifying passengers. These messages don’t go in hundreds or two hundreds, it goes for thousands. And with Infobip’s platform, we see that it’s very stable, it’s able to sustain the load and deliver the message in timely, manner.
And, when we approach Infobip, they are able to pivot us and guide us through the challenge to help us to navigate how we can still stick to our goal to communicate with guests seamlessly.”
Maurice Robin
Head of Preflight, AirAsia
