Venari Partners was recently instructed by a large European carrier to identify a senior professional to oversee the airline’s call centre strategy. The objective was to find a candidate who was experienced in designing call centre strategy and delivery, in addition to being bilingual (Spanish).
This position required supervision of several call centres spread throughout multiple geographies with the goal being to improve overall customer satisfaction and engagement, in addition to enhancing the sales process and post-sale services. Another significant element to the role that we were asked to consider was the potential for implementing new omnichannel measures to assist the customers such as bots, webchat and other digital/technological innovations. Candidates with demonstrable experience in the area were of great interest to our client.
This search proved to be particularly challenging as the airline had unsuccessfully explored this candidate demographic previously with another executive search company. Through our rigorous search methods, we promised to cover the entire aviation market but we also discussed with the client the need to explore adjacent industries including the wider travel sector, telecommunications and financial services.
Put simply, we were not convinced that any airline can boast a world-class and technology-innovative call centre strategy when compared to other sectors. We ensured that the shortlist comprised not only of aviation specialists, but also those individuals from the aforementioned industries who possessed a passion for aviation and a desire to utilise their experience in our industry.
The successful hire came from outside of the aviation industry, from telecommunications. She was able to demonstrate that her experience would be valuable to the airline; that she could challenge the existing assumptions in the strategy and successfully identify innovative technologies to be implemented. We are pleased to report that she has bought a fresh perspective to an area of the customer journey in much need of change, not just in this airline client but arguably across the entire airline industry.