Update on the tense situation at Lufthansa Service Centers: reasons and solutions

The doorbell rings, the neighbour stands at the door and complains: “What’s the matter with you? I’ve been on hold with you for hours and just can’t get through! Why don’t you do something about it?” By “you” he means the Service Centre of Lufthansa Group and by “not getting through” he describes the waiting time on the phone because he wants information about a flight. Many colleagues are currently experiencing this: Friends, family members, or neighbours complain about the waiting times at Service Centres. One explanation for the currently extended waiting times is that the number of calls to the Service Centers is far above the forecasts, and the duration of the calls is much longer than usual. The complexity of customer enquiries has increased significantly; this is due to complex rebooking requests, constantly changing travel regulations, flight schedule changes that again force rebookings, and various document checks.

“The workload has increased significantly in recent weeks and months. I know that we are currently nowhere near the level of service we want to offer our customers. Unfortunately, most rebookings or questions about travel restrictions are asked directly over the phone, which means that we sometimes have 80 percent more calls than expected”, says Carsten Wirths, Head of Customer Servicing B2C, Lufthansa Group.

Possible solutions

Wirths and his team have recognised the situation and are working on solutions at full speed: For several months, a major recruitment wave has been underway at Lufthansa InTouch (LIT), the organisational home of the Service Centres worldwide. So far, more than one hundred new colleagues have been hired and trained. They are still in the induction phase, but are becoming more confident and thus faster. By the end of the year, more than 300 new positions will be filled worldwide. Recruitment is also taking place within the Group, as well as with service providers, to help cope with the increased demand. All available resources in all internal Service Centres are currently fully utilised, in some cases even overloaded. In addition, voluntary overtime is being worked, colleagues have postponed their holidays to assist in the current situation. At the same time, the call-routing strategy is being optimized by adjusting the greeting announcements, where customer are asked to call later if the request is not urgent or asked to use the self-service options on the Lufthansa Group websites. The websites are constantly being adapted to the current situation.

“We want to serve our customers on the channel that is most relevant for them, also on the phone, but at the moment we have to set priorities”, says Carsten Wirths. With this he means improved communication, for example in the rebooking information to customers and self-service options should lead to the avoidance of calls. “Through recruiting efforts and the multitude of measures, the joint efforts of all Service Centre colleagues, we hope to have stabilized the system after working through the winter schedule cancellations”, the manager is certain. And when the neighbour rings the doorbell in the future, hopefully all he will be missing is some sugar or comes over for a chat.