IndiGo automates service, closes more than 1.2 million cases per month

Since its runway debut in 2006, IndiGo has emerged as India’s largest airline. The carrier, which runs 2,000+ daily commercial flights connecting 110+ domestic and international destinations, has repeatedly been named the Best Low-Cost Airline in India and South Asia.

“Our customer proposition is built on four pillars – affordable fares, on-time flights, an unparalleled network, and a hassle-free travel experience,” says Neetan Chopra, Chief Digital and Information Officer, IndiGo. “We show that low cost doesn’t mean low quality.”

With customer volumes soaring, IndiGo couldn’t keep managing customer service manually. Also, service information was being captured in silos – email service requests on one system, call centre requests on another, customer feedback in a separate tool, and so on. This fragmented the airline’s view of customers, and hindered service efficiency.

“Today’s customers expect prompt digital service – and we want to be able to give them that,” says Chopra. “Our goal is threefold – meet customers on their preferred channels; resolve their queries faster through automation; and use data to forge emotional connections. That calls for a single, unified service platform.”

With Salesforce Service Cloud, IndiGo has automated and streamlined its service processes for optimal efficiency.

Service requests from multiple channels are now consolidated on a single platform – so, agents have a unified customer view. They can see which channels the customer has reached out on, what their query was, whether or not it was resolved appropriately, and more. This single source of truth makes it easier to manage and track cases. It also helps agents deliver seamless omnichannel experiences across the call centre, emails, and social media.

“Earlier, our teams would have to toggle between seven different windows to find customer information,” recounts Charu Verma, Vice President, Digital, IndiGo. “But now, all the data they need is available on one screen to help them work faster.”

The airline captures an average of 685,000+ voice calls in a month, 400,000+ emails, and 121,000+ social media related cases. That’s a total of over 1.2 million monthly cases handled by just 1,280 active agents.

Each case that comes in is automatically categorised based on keywords. For example, flight cancellation cases are segregated into one group, refund cases into another, and so on. This allows for automated replies to be sent to the customer with targeted answers to their queries.

The ability to reply to customers rapidly and at scale is invaluable, especially when case volumes skyrocket. For instance, during the 2023 Chennai floods which grounded multiple flights, IndiGo was able to close almost 10,000 cases in an hour simply by automating case classification and replies.

IndiGo is now expanding service beyond the call centre into other departments such as airport operations and customer services (AOCS), admin, airport management, Digital and cargo management. So, every employee feels empowered to resolve customer issues.

No longer are service tickets routed to a centralised team that then works with the concerned departments to close the issue. Instead, cases are directly routed to the concerned department, saving time. For example, a mishandled baggage claim goes to the baggage services counter, a refund request to the ticketing counter, and so on. All departments have a shared customer view to speed up service resolution.

“With Salesforce, we’re empowering our last mile teams across airports and aircraft with data to serve customers better,” says Verma. “We want to bring the physical and digital worlds closer together, offering our customers connected service.”

To make service even more exceptional, IndiGo is finding ways to resolve issues proactively i.e., before customers even think to ask. Let’s say a customer tries to book a flight on the IndiGo app, but abandons the process due to a payment processing issue. Before they can raise a complaint, a ticket is automatically logged on Salesforce, prompting an agent to reach out to the customer with a solution.

With Salesforce Feedback Management, IndiGo can easily capture feedback on customers’ pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight experiences. The system processes almost 50 lakh customer responses a year.

“Our net promoter score (NPS) is tracked on Salesforce,” says Verma. “This makes it easier to identify the customer’s pain points, as well as our own strengths and opportunities for improvement.”

If a customer hasn’t had a satisfactory experience, then the next time they fly IndiGo, proactive notifications are sent out to the ground staff, agents, and crew through Salesforce. This helps them take actionable steps to turn around the customer’s experience.

Meanwhile, powerful reports and dashboards transform NPS data into meaningful insights. Management can measure customer intimacy (how well teams connect with customers), productivity (how quickly teams deepen customer connections), and product engagement (how customers interact with new products).

Such insights strengthen decision-making, and enable IndiGo to continually raise the bar on service.

IndiGo’s Salesforce deployment was ably supported by TechMatrix Consulting.

“Whenever we had an issue, TechMatrix would proactively come up with solutions,” says Verma. “They were committed to working seamlessly with Salesforce and our internal teams, staying up nights if necessary, to deliver the project on time.”

IndiGo now plans to use Salesforce Einstein to automate case prioritisation, while also empowering agents with next best action recommendations, case summaries, and knowledge articles. This will help them reduce average handle time (AHT).

The airline has also built a customer-facing AI chatbot (6Eskai) on a different platform to provide quick answers to routine travel queries. The goal is to make service as autonomous as possible.

“We’re constantly innovating to simplify both customer and employee experiences,” says Chopra. “The idea is to keep doing what we’ve always done, but at a higher level and greater scale.”