The Client

The client is one of the world's 20 largest airlines.

WNS manages specific customer interactions – service calls and queries - through a multi-channel customer contact center for the airline's reservations team, which caters to customers and general sales agents, primarily in the UK, the Netherlands and Ireland.

Abstract

One of the leading air traffic communications specialists found that 20 percent of its sales target came from its small and very small customer base, while the time and effort invested by its regional direct sales force was immense. The client wanted to push the small and very small customers up the value chain and capture the significant revenue represented by 20 percent. The client also wanted a centralized sales support framework for its regional direct sales personnel. WNS leveraged its Sales Center of Excellence (Sales CoE) and set up direct sales teams across the client's geographic locations, and a robust and centralized sales support team. Over a decade of engagement with the client, WNS helped the client close more than USD 350 Million in Total Contract Value (TCV) through direct sales and sales support.

The Client

The client is a one of the world leaders in air transport communications and IT solutions, and deals in infrastructure, global communications, and outsourcing services.

The Challenge

The client had a huge customer base of 3000 plus belonging to categories of varying ticket sizes. The client's direct regional sales force was entrusted with the responsibility of achieving their target by engaging with customers of all ticket sizes.

It was found that 80 percent of the target was achieved from large and medium customers, and 20 percent of the target came from small and very small customers. Since 20 percent seemed a small figure in the overall context, and the time and effort required to derive sales from this group was immense, the client's regional sales force preferred to engage with the large and medium customers to achieve their targets. Hence, the client's direct sales force was unable to devote enough time to this small set of customers.

The client, however, was aware of the significant revenue that it had to forego by not focusing on the small and very small customers. The client, therefore, wanted to push the existing small and very small customers up the value chain to possibly become large or medium in the future. Hence, the immediate challenges for the client were:

1. Addressing the small and very small customer segment through a separate sales channel and creating an additional revenue stream

2. Establishing a robust 'sales support system', which would not only cross language barriers and align organizational goals and policies, but also be a strong support system for the regional direct sales force

The WNS Approach and Solution

The client liaised with WNS, its existing Business Process Management (BPM) service provider and leveraged WNS travel domain expertise to address it’s challenge.

WNS supported the client in establishing an Inside Sales process in 2005. The team's objective was divided into two parts:

• Direct Sales to end customers

• Sales Support to the client's regional sales force

The team continues to serve approximately 2,000 key customers of the client spread across the four geographic locations (APAC, MEIA, EURO and AMER) through the following business strategies over the years:

• Direct Sales
  WNS defined the client's Total Contract Value (TCV) and leveraged its global delivery footprint to set up direct sales teams at some of the client's geographic locations of strategic importance:

  • The client's multi-lingual and multi-cultural customers were catered to across three locations in Europe and Asia and were provided language support through seven different languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, French, Romanian and English)

  • Consumer behavioral patterns spanning product purchase history and product usage history were used to identify the client's potential customers

  • Contracts nearing renewal were proactively reviewed to identify probable opportunities of upgrading and cross-selling / up-selling of services, and were re-offered to existing customers

  • Existing services that were offered without correlative contracts were identified, and contractually-bound services were offered to customers with a view to book business on the sales CRM

  • Revised contract tenures and service usage trends were factored into the process of pricing and proposal creation

  • A centralized governance and reporting process was established to better manage and monitor sales progress for all the direct sales locations Overall, the sales TCV was maximized by effectively managing sales campaigns.

  Overall, the sales TCV was maximized by effectively managing sales campaigns.

• Sales Support
  WNS also set up a robust and centralized sales support team to bolster and sustain the activities of the client's regional direct sales teams. Key highlights of the sales support system were as follows:

  • Key focus areas across the client's geographical locations were identified, and a standard training module with corresponding regional customizations was created

  • Sales support team facilitated the direct sales force by preparing pricing proposal, contract creation, opportunity management on sales CRM and customer engagement

  • A central governance plan was instituted for multi-cultural employees working at multiple locations

  • Dashboards, trackers, internal reviews, analysis reports and service incentive schemes were introduced to record and manage transactions, track opportunities, and leads, and attain deal closures

Benefits Delivered

• Since the inception of the system in 2005, more than USD 350 Million in TCV was closed through direct sales and sales support

• Since 2005, more than USD 80 Million worth of TCV was closed through direct sales and over 7000 opportunities were identified across direct sales and sales support functions

• In the last five years, while the TCV achieved through sales and sales support has increased by 216 percent, the cost of achieving the TCV has decreased by 57 percent

• A low-cost sales channel has been created, which sells to and supports the client's lower tier customers who, in future, may turn into high value customers

WNS and the Travel Industry

WNS is the world's largest travel Business Process Management company, with a legacy of having started out as a captive for British Airways. Today, WNS is a BPM partner for some of the leading global airlines. WNS provides the airline industry with the latest, top-notch solutions to create opportunities from challenges. Whatever the business trend, WNS has a solution for your business. Our solution suite that can help you ride the new waves in business include:

Social media management and social customer service

The WNS Sales Center of Excellence (CoE) that integrates the online and offline channels and adopts a 'sales through service' model to cross-sell and upsell relevant services based on customer data

An end-to-end Analytics Solutions suite (including our award-winning analytics framework WADE^SM) that leverages a huge team of domain experts and expertise in social media analytics, contact center and speech analytics and revenue model analytics that help you take informed decisions

Proprietary and industry-leading platforms such as Verifare Plus^SM , Jade and SmartPro^SM that help enhance revenue generation for airlines

Process re-engineering techniques and a team of domain specialists that help airlines comply with industry regulations and standardization directives