Earlier this week, TCS launched its CrewCollab Solution at the Singapore Aviation Festival. The sector has attracted a lot of investments from service providers lately with companies like NIIT Technologies, Pactera, Hexaware and others strengthening their portfolio of software assets for airlines. The TCS CrewCollab mobile solution – co-developed in partnership with Singapore Airlines – fills an important gap in the digital transformation strategy of airlines globally. Why is that?

  • The in-flight experience remains disjointed from the rest of the customer journey. Airlines like Delta, United and Emirates have already invested in developing successful digital customer experience initiatives covering the pre- and post-flight phases of the customer journey. However, airlines typically struggle understanding and serving their customers as they board the flight, customer data being seldom available to the cabin crew.
  • Existing crew management solutions focus mainly on automating internal processes. While crew management software suites exist – including Jeppeson’s – they are good at just this: managing the crew roster and minimize the airline’s operation costs. Cost savings are important for companies operating on razor thin margins. However, this does not help them win, serve and retain their customers in a very competitive global market.

TCS’s CrewCollab solution helps airlines both expend the digital customer experience into the cabin as well as increase operational agility in service of customers:

  • Empower customer-obsessed employees with the relevant information. Singapore Airlines is already known for its customer obsessed employee culture delivering a great on-board experience. CrewCollab brings the right customer information in the right context on iPads to help the crew delight customers throughout the trip. They understand their past experiences, previous actions leading to the current flight and are able to serve them based on their preferences. They are also empowered to take initiatives and repair a potentially bad experience.
  • Digitize cabin crew processes for higher agility and employee satisfaction.TCS worked with SIA to digitize all the on-board manual, paper intensive processes – including filing complaints, and taking orders. The underlying data architecture allows for an effective integration of the mobile front-end to the back-end systems. Additional collaboration and enterprise social capabilities also contribute in transforming the work experience of cabin crews.

For airlines like Singapore Airlines, customer loyalty is won or lost at the day of travel. Having the adequate engagement platform throughout the customer journey helps them ensure the different stakeholders create value for customers each step of the way. TCS CrewCollab provides the platform to enable both digital customer experience and digital operational excellence during a very important phase of the lifecycle. Airlines can then focus on differentiating their branded experience by focusing on changing their culture and operating environments into customer-obsessed ones. Which is easier said than done!