JEDDAH: Saudi Arabian Airlines announced Sunday its decision to increase the capacity of its call center to 200,000 calls per day by the end of this month. “We’ll also develop the automatic response system, so that customers can receive most services without talking to an employee,” said Mohammed Yousuf Jan, the call center’s general manager.
Speaking to Arab News, Jan disclosed the airline’s plan to launch a major media campaign to encourage people to use the airline’s website for various services such as booking reservations, purchases, selecting seats and getting boarding passes. “At present only three percent of sales are done through the website,” he said.
He said upgrading the call center would take place on Aug. 25, increasing its capacity from 60,000 to 200,000 calls per day. “This will solve most of the problems as people have been complaining that the lines at the center are always busy,” he said, adding that the center receives about a million calls a day.
“We expect that 25 percent of sales would take place through the website by the year 2013,” he said, adding that the increase in website use would also reduce pressure on the call center. He said most calls received by the center were unrelated to bookings or cancellations.
“Our website is much developed now and you can do your booking, get your ticket and your boarding pass within five minutes, especially for domestic flights,” Jan said. People can also check seat availability through the website. “They need not call us if there are no seats available on the website”. By the end of May, 1.89 million reservations were made through the website. Arab News
