Transforming Customer Service in Air Travel: A Case Study on PLAY Airlines

PLAY Airlines is a new challenger airline based in Iceland. The company is committed to providing superior customer service and recognized the need for a digital, chat-first approach to meet the demands of today's on-demand world. PLAY Airlines serves a diverse customer base, with passengers expecting instant, personalized, and 24/7 service. The company's commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction led it to replace its traditional phone-based customer service model with a virtual agent, Playfin. This move has allowed PLAY Airlines to handle a high volume of inquiries efficiently, provide round-the-clock support, and scale up its operations as necessary.

The air travel industry has become increasingly complex, with customers demanding instant, personalized, and round-the-clock service. PLAY Airlines, a startup airline based in Iceland, recognized the need for a superior customer service solution that could handle a high volume of inquiries efficiently, provide 24/7 support, and scale up as necessary. The traditional phone-based customer service model was proving inadequate, leading to long wait times and customer dissatisfaction. The challenge was to replace this outdated model with a solution that could offer a frictionless experience, even during peak times or during disruptions like the Covid-19 pandemic.

PLAY Airlines decided to adopt a chat-first strategy, replacing inbound telephone calls with a 24/7 virtual agent named Playfin. Developed in collaboration with boost.ai and Advania, Playfin was designed to be a fun, playful, and innovative virtual agent that could handle a wide range of customer inquiries. The implementation of Playfin did not require any programming knowledge, with the boost.ai platform guiding the team through the process. Playfin was launched in May 2021, even before PLAY had any flights in the air. The virtual agent was designed to handle FAQs, direct customers to the right answers quickly and accurately, and create support tickets for issues that required human assistance. Over time, Playfin's capabilities were expanded to include informing customers about delayed flights and updating specific flight times.

• The implementation of Playfin has transformed customer service at PLAY Airlines. The virtual agent has been warmly received by customers, who appreciate the quick and accurate responses to their inquiries. The chat-first strategy has also proven more efficient for the airline, allowing it to handle many more support requests and bookings than it could with a traditional phone-based model. Importantly, Playfin's ability to handle a high volume of inquiries has freed up human agents to assist customers with non-standard or complex queries. The airline has also gained valuable data insights from analyzing the conversations, enabling it to better understand common issues and improve its service. The success of Playfin has been instrumental in allowing PLAY Airlines to scale up its operations and increase its number of destinations.

• Playfin has handled over 100,000 conversations in just over a year, with only 15% being transferred to a human agent.

• Since the beginning of 2022, Playfin has nearly quadrupled its traffic, reaching a peak in May with over 15,000 conversations for the month.

• Only 5% of customers that require human assistance want it outside of opening hours.