KPI Focus: AHT, FCR, CSAT, SLA
The Situation
An airline needed stronger support control during irregular operations. When disruptions hit, booking changes and baggage inquiries surged and the queue became difficult to manage.
What Wasn’t Working
- Wait times rose quickly during disruption spikes.
- Priority traveler cases were not consistently routed first.
- Refund and baggage escalations moved too slowly.
What We Changed
We helped the team run disruptions with a clearer operating playbook:
- Introduced severity-based routing for disruption contacts.
- Built dedicated escalation lanes for refund and baggage exceptions.
- Established intraday coordination for staffing and queue balancing.
- Focused quality reviews on policy clarity and next-step communication.
What Happened
The operation became more resilient during high-pressure periods.
- Disruption queue wait times improved by 29%.
- Same-day refund closure improved by 24%.
- CSAT increased by 9 points during peak disruption windows.
Leadership adopted the same model for future disruption planning.
A Real Moment From the Engagement
During a disruption event, leaders realized queue volume alone was masking traveler urgency. Prioritizing impact level over order-in gave immediate control.
Before vs After (Operationally)
- Before: High-impact traveler cases could wait behind lower-risk requests.
- After: Severity routing pushed critical travelers to faster paths.
What Changed for the Team
Agents had better clarity in high-stress periods, which reduced escalations caused by uncertainty.
Constraints We Worked Within
- Limited time to redesign workflows without disrupting live service.
- Existing tools and reporting structures that could not be replaced immediately.
- Need to improve performance while maintaining day-to-day SLA commitments.
Tradeoffs We Made
- Prioritized highest-impact workflows first instead of trying to fix every queue at once.
- Chose repeatable process controls over one-off optimizations.
- Deferred lower-priority enhancements until baseline stability was proven.
If We Were Starting Again Today
We would still start with ownership clarity and a fast governance cadence, but we would add earlier frontline shadowing in the first two weeks to accelerate practical workflow adjustments.