Salesforce.com Cloud Computing Solution Helps VLM Airlines Soar Above the Clouds

Challenge

• Carrying more than 750,000 passengers each year, VLM Airlines is a business airline that focuses on flying to regional European airports, located close to city centers.  The airline is owned by the Air France-KLM group and cooperates with CityJet
• This fast-growing, Belgium-based airline operates from multiple points of presence, but was reliant on overlapping, disconnected databases and customer management systems
•  A large proportion of airline passengers are business customers – which required the airline to adopt a particularly professional, cohesive approach to customer communications.  Without a unified, company-wide system for customer sales, marketing and service, this was a demanding challenge
• VLM Airlines required a cost-effective and easy to use CRM system offering rapid time to value

Solution

• VLM Airlines deployed Salesforce CRM SFA to each of its sales staff in the UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium to create a single, unified view of passenger leads, opportunities, corporate accounts and contacts
• Salesforce CRM SFA has been configured to support the airline’s charter flight services. Launched last year and supported by two staff, the solution enables VLM to automate the process of quoting on charter services, manage offers, and complete and confirm contracts 
• The airline is also using Salesforce CRM Customer Service & Support among its Customer Care team to underpin responsive, rewarding service.  This on demand solution is used by the team to manage customer compliments and complaints. 
• A ‘web to case’ solution means that when a customer contacts the airline about the service they’ve received, they receive an automated response acknowledging their email from Salesforce CRM; the Customer Care team use pre-defined templates to prepare a reply; and email prompts to ensure responses are forthcoming within a pre-determined period.  
• The Marketing team are using the Vertical Response AppExchange application to co-ordinate mailing and response to airline’s customer newsletter

Results

• Salesforce.com has supported the continued growth of one of Europe’s fastest-evolving regional airlines with an outstanding track record 
• The airline uses the unified customer view to cross-sell and up-sell services, such as charter services
• Salesforce.com helps reflect a highly professional, organized and efficient airline in customers’ minds and contributed to VLM Airlines winning the Skytrax award ‘Regional Airline of the Year 2008’  
• The multi-tenant solution has transformed the quality of the customer experience, via functions such as web to case, automated escalations, and unified communications