Multi-and Omnichannel – A Current State Analysis of Customer Service Management in the Airline Industry
With the adoption of digital devices, the way customers wish to communicate with companies is changing. Nowadays, customers expect to interact with companies seamlessly across multiple channels. Although the majority of customers still chooses phone calls for communicating with companies, digital channels such as email, live chat or social media become more popular. Especially the airline industry has to cope with a large number of customer inquiries such as cancelations or changes of reservations every day. This thesis aims to understand the trends of omnichannel customer service management and to investigate how companies respond to these trends using the example of the airline industry. By using data collection methods, I want to analyze which channels airlines provide to their customers for seamless service experiences and to identify, how they try to influence their customer’s choice of channels. Moreover, I want to draw conclusions how the implementation of omnichannel management differs across the industry by comparing my findings.