American Airlines will improve its customer service department by laying off employees. This is quite a surprising plan for the U.S.-based travel company.
Most organizations and companies tend to increase their customer service representatives to ensure that all their consumers are being accommodated properly.
This can give them numerous advantages, such as reducing the wait times that customers need to go through when calling the customer service department.
But, American Airlines has another thing in mind. Unfortunately, its effort leads to a mass layoff that will affect hundreds of staff.
American Airlines To Layoff Hundreds of Customer Service Reps
On Monday, Jan. 29, American Airlines confirmed that it will be laying off 656 employees in its customer service department. Among the affected staff are those in Phoenix, which will be 335 staff, as well as another 321 customer support employees in Dallas-Fort Worth.
These AA staff are part of the Customer Relations Central Baggage Resolution, as well as the AAdvantage Customer Service group. These groups are under American Airlines' Service Recovery Team.
For those who are unfamiliar with this department, it is responsible for assisting customers of AA with their concerns. Most of the queries they resolve are after-flight issues.
These include damaged baggage, loyalty program problems, and lost items. Since they mainly focus on after-flight issues, they no longer handle reservation processes.
American Airlines promised that it would work closely with affected employees to support them through the transition. Those who are lucky will be offered exclusive access to job openings throughout AA.
"The immediate impact will be on roughly 600 jobs, but the company is looking to accommodate employees in other roles, which will mitigate the impact," said AA Reservations and Service Recovery Vice President Carolyne Truelove via CNBC.
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How Layoff Can Improve AA's Customer Service Department
According to Fox Business' latest report, American Airlines' customers are being handled by multiple team teams to handle their issues.
This could be stressful for passengers since they have to talk with different AA employees just to solve one concern. Because of this, American Airlines plans to eliminate the inconvenience of reaching out to multiple AA staff.
The Texas-based airline said that it will do this by launching its new Customer Success team. AA said that this new team will be dedicated to offering "more convenient, elevated support" to their customers, especially on most complex travel needs.
