Industry: All Clients
Travellers: 1-100, 1000 - 5000, 250 - 500, 25000 - 50000, 5000 - 10000
All travellers were accounted for and either returned home safely or continued their travel safely
¹Source: American Express Global Business Travel reporting
Managed over 20,000¹ calls globally. In Europe, inquiries increased by 174%¹
130%¹ additional hours worked to alleviate customer issues
It is especially in times like this that we truly support how American Express GBT steps up, mobilises your staff and is relentless in making sure that our employees and their families are contacted and communicated with.
American Express GBT Customer
In November 2015, Paris was targeted by a series of terrorist attacks that initiated a state of emergency and created substantial impact in France, across Europe and the wider world. And as a Travel Management Company (TMC), our customers—and their travellers—always come first. Part of our mission is to provide exceptional traveller care and we knew instinctively that we had to make sure our customers’ travellers were safe.
Crisis management is a critical component to our front line servicing. An event as impactful as the Paris attacks means we have to be more than prepared to help our customers.
We have emergency processes in place to instantly respond to a crisis. Our Global Service Delivery organisation increases staffing levels in all regions to handle the large volume of inquiries. All trained customer service team members that can help, do, including working extra hours to handle all of the inquiries. Additionally, we send our customers crisis messages that detail the level of impact it has on travel plans and employee safety.
On 14 November, our customer servicing teams put in long hours to provide services to travellers affected by the attacks. When customers called, our teams located travellers and provided guidance on their welfare and safety. Our travel counsellors, as well as our Joint Ventures and Travel Partner Network, helped accommodate travellers around the clock.
Our crisis management didn’t end after that weekend. We made sure customers who had travellers with future plans in Paris were adequately prepared. Because there was a travel ban in Paris, we worked with travellers and adjusted their itineraries to alternative airports or other means of transportation. We had to work with numerous cancellations but, in the end, we still made sure travellers got to where they needed to be – even faster than planned.