Amadeus Asia Pacific provides IT solutions to the tourism and travel industry, focusing on three key  customer segments – travel providers such as airlines, hotels and tour operators; travel sellers, including travel management companies and agencies; and corporate and individual travel buyers. Amadeus’ technologies range from booking and distribution systems to IT and point-of-sale solutions.

Amadeus first entered the Asia Pacific region in 1995. Fourteen years later, and with its regional headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, Amadeus Asia Pacific has expanded to include 15 Amadeus Commercial Organizations (ACOs), servicing 39 countries in the region.

The challenge: delivering premium customer service to a dispersed client base

A significant part of Amadeus Asia Pacific’s business is providing a distribution system to almost 20,000 travel agents within the region. With a widely dispersed customer base, the regional technical department faced the challenge of supporting customers on a variety of technology issues. Providing onsite support to the different geographies consumed significant resources and could sometimes require extended time frames to reach resolutions. The challenge for Amadeus Asia Pacific was to support its entire customer base – and support them in a timely manner.

“Our technical teams needed to handle a wide range of support situations over the phone, often requiring travel to the customer’s location as promptly as possible,” said Pierre Giordano, Regional Technical Department Manager at Amadeus Asia Pacific. “We didn’t want customers to experience any time delays.”

Tony Carter, Vice President of Operations, added, “At Amadeus Asia Pacific, we focus on maximizing our customers’ success through the provision of technology. We wanted to improve our services and response time to customers through a more efficient technical department.”

Amadeus Asia Pacific went in search of a remote-support solution that would allow the company to provide the most efficient, effective and timely customer service.

Implementing GoToAssist for remote IT support

Amadeus Asia Pacific first heard about Citrix® GoToAssist® Corporate™ through their global headquarters, which had already deployed the solution. GoToAssist provided a simple way for customers to connect to support staff in the technical department. Prior to the implementation of GoToAssist, Amadeus Asia Pacific’s remote support was predominantly phone based. The organization considered other remote-support solutions, but chose GoToAssist because it was simple and easy to use and initiated support sessions faster than competing products.

Amadeus Asia Pacific purchased 50 GoToAssist organizer seats, which have been allocated to each of the ACOs across the region. An immediate benefit was seen in the deployment itself – Amadeus reported that the implementation process for GoToAssist was seamless.

Dramatic improvement of key metrics and customer satisfaction

Through the implementation of GoToAssist, Amadeus Asia Pacific was able to raise key metrics, achieving an impressive increase in efficiency and customer service. The technical support teams now resolve 90 percent of IT contacts within one hour of receiving a call for assistance.

Giordano explained: “We’ve been able to improve the effectiveness and the quality of support for our customers. Now with GoToAssist, 80 percent of IT contacts are handled remotely and 20 percent are handled on-site. Previously, this ratio was 47 percent over the phone and 53 percent on-site. In addition, we have been able to increase the number of supported terminals by 46 percent, without increasing the size of the support teams.”

“We’re in the business of providing the latest technology solutions to our customers to ensure they are increasing their revenues, enhancing their productivity and improving their customer service. GoToAssist allows us to provide a superior quality of customer service so our travel agency partners can offer their clients the best level of service as well,” said Carter.

“To date, customer feedback has been very positive across the region,” added Giordano. “This is particularly significant given the culture across Asia Pacific, preferring in-person support. Initially we did receive some resistance from a small number of customers, but today our customers are embracing remote support because it enables us to support them very rapidly and minimize any disruption to their business.”

Boosting productivity and raising staff morale

Amadeus Asia Pacific needed to find a way to do more with the same resources. “It was a lot more costly to send someone on-site than it is for us to do a remote-support session,” said Carter. With GoToAssist, Amadeus Asia Pacific has doubled the productivity of the team, absorbing the additional support required from new customers without increasing the size of the support team. “We are now able to take more calls with less staff,” said Carter.

The collaboration features of GoToAssist also enabled the transfer of skills within the technical team. “Junior technicians are able to see how senior support staff resolves complex issues by using the collaboration feature, building on their own skill sets and expertise,” Giordano said.

GoToAssist has also contributed to a boost in staff morale, due to the quality of service on offer. “Our staff take pride in the feedback received from clients, via end-of-session surveys,” said Carter.

Streamlining process and expanding the geographical footprint

GoToAssist has helped Amadeus Asia Pacific to increase the number of markets it is able to support from regional locations.

“We have been able to regionalize our IT support, providing numerous countries across the region with access to support where it’s needed and where it’s appropriate.”

“The real impact to the business is how fast we can service our customers with GoToAssist through streamlining our IT support. As a leading technology provider to the travel industry, we talk to our customers about the need to adopt advanced technologies to operate most efficiently. Using GoToAssist ensures we’re using cutting-edge technology ourselves in order to give Amadeus the same competitive advantage,” said Carter.

About Citrix Online
Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to work from anywhere with anyone. Whether using GoToMyPC® to access and work on a remote PC, GoToAssist® to support customers or GoToMeeting® to hold online meetings and Webinars, our customers – more than 35,000 businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals – are increasing productivity, decreasing travel costs and improving sales, training and service on a global basis. A division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), Citrix Online is based in Santa Barbara, California. For more information, visit www.citrixonline.com or call +1 805 690 6400.

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