Centrecom Call Centre, a leading contact centre provider for airlines extends operations to assist stranded travellers.
Centrecom has extended its call centre operations in order to meet the high surge in distressed calls by passengers stranded all over the world as a result of the volcanic ash crisis that has crippled most of Europe’s airports.
Centrecom, a business unit of World Aviation Group is a leading multi-lingual Contact Centre catering for a number of international clients including Air Malta, Luxair, Afriqiyah Airways and Air Italy. Over the last 5 days the company has been receiving thousands of calls not only from Malta but also from most countries in Europe, South Africa and various other places.
“We normally handle between 1500 and 2000 calls daily but during the last days calls have surged to around 7000 daily” said Roberta Cilia, Head of Contact Centre Business. Within hours of the start of the crisis Centrecom put into action a crisis plan which meant that the maximum possible number of staff had to be redeployed to cover long hours. “In normal circumstances we service around 98% of calls received with around 90% answered in 30 seconds. However during this crisis we could not provide the same level of service particularly since most of the calls were far much longer than usual. Moreover we had to extend the hours that we cover from 13 to 19 hours daily”.
Commenting on the experience during the last days Dominic Attard CEO of the World Aviation Group commented that most of the calls received were distressed calls from people stranded both in Malta and all over Europe. “Our staff have performed magnificently in spite of the stress and the pressure. They have been working long hours and they gave their best. Moreover our airline clients are appreciating the service that our Centrecom teams have been providing to distressed passengers without losing sight of the revenue implications for the airlines”.
Centrecom is a provider of contact centre services which includes various forms of communications including voice, email, faxes, white mail and chat. It has made substantial investments in staff resources, training, facilities and technology. The Group which employs 160 staff and operates also a Business Process Outsourcing operation as well as an Airline Representation business.