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How AI chatbots are transforming the travel sector

Just as the covid pandemic started waning, another crisis hit the travel industry—massive staffing shortages that have grounded thousands of flights in the last few weeks. Undoubtedly, this disruption too will come to an end. Still, there is a worrying pattern of the travel industry’s disruptions causing countless passengers a great deal of anxiety and loss of capital.

Even when the industry returns to normal, there is the issue of airlines and travel agencies having to spend millions to rehire, train, and deploy customer support agents, which can often be a death blow to companies struggling to survive after incessant lockdowns.

One of the best ways airlines and travel agents are coping with these issues is through travel chatbots powered by AI. Here, we explore whether they are worth the hype.

AI chatbot applications that are disrupting the travel sector

Seamless and cost-effective customer support 24X7

To provide the best possible support for your customers, you don’t have to hire an entire fleet of customer support agents who must work through the night to satisfy globetrotting travellers.

All you need is a powerful AI-based chatbot that can identify even vague queries using Natural Language Processing to produce perfectly satisfactory, preprogrammed responses to even vague queries, such as “flights to Dublin” and “roundtrip to Paris’”, etc.

Besides, most support requests can be automated; the chatbot can be programmed to respond quickly to frequently asked questions.

To ensure that customers don’t miss the human touch, advanced chatbots can be deployed to answer after performing sentiment analysis.

For instance, if the customer is frustrated, the bot can respond with a discount and an apology or offer a refund/cancellation option for the flight ticket or travel package.

It is also worth mentioning that an AI chatbot can help you utilize the human support agents better; they can focus on challenging tickets while the bot ensures that trivial issues or commonly asked questions don’t clutter the helpdesk.

Owing to all these benefits, travel chatbots are a great cost-cutting measure.

Personalized upselling

Amazingly, some chatbots can read the customer’s moods and analyze buying data to make personalized buying recommendations to help travel agencies and airlines generate extra revenue.

For example, just as the customer is about to checkout, the bot can send a message asking if they would like to upgrade their seat at a discounted price. Often, the passenger consents. Similarly, airlines can upsell ancillaries, such as travel insurance, specially wrapped luggage to minimize covid risk, free cancellations, etc.

Resourceful reservation agent

Airlines and travel agents can delight their customers with travel chatbots that can provide them with the best deals while booking by comparing thousands of hotels, flights, car rental, and food options.

This level of customization for the customer based on their budget and interest is not something that a human can match. Interestingly, using a travel chatbot, customers can book flights, tour packages, and other services from the channel of choice, whether it is social media, your app, or the website.

Apart from providing quick and personalized recommendations, travel companies can impress their customers by having the chatbot provide useful insights, such as the best day to visit the place or the top five destinations to visit.

Also, the travel chatbot can provide functions, such as notifying customers when the price for a flight ticket has dropped, via an SMS.

More importantly, the AI chatbot can assist the customer throughout the journey. This feature is quite useful given how customers can get frustrated if their ticket or enquiry gets passed on to another support agent when one person’s shift has ended. However, with a bot, the customer can easily claim discounts for lost luggage, get the best deals on local hotels, etc.

Unparalleled disruption management

Imagine if a flight is cancelled, and all the passengers take to social media at the same time to complain about your airline and get a particularly damaging hashtag trending. Having a handful of support agents doing damage control will lead to slower responses, which would add fuel to the fire.

To take control of the situation, travel chatbots powered by AI are the perfect solution. They can instantly send out thousands of messages across channels, addressing every customer by name before resolving their issues.

Moreover, the bots are tireless; they can work through the night and up until the crisis is resolved. If the chatbots are taking on all the straightforward requests, you can focus your support team’s energy on delighting the passengers by personally handling complicated requests.

As a result, the chatbots are, in a time of crisis, lifesavers that can help you deal simultaneously with countless angry passengers and provide them with seamless cancellations, refunds, or other issue resolutions.

Conclusion

As you can see, AI-powered chatbots for the travel industry are incredibly versatile and help with various applications, including customer support, trip planning, lead generation, and even upselling. Notably, it can handle customer requests throughout the year without a break and ensure that no customer leaves your website, app, or social media page frustrated that they didn’t get the necessary resolution.

Consequently, AI chatbots have emerged as a surefire way for travel companies to optimize revenue and enhance the customer experience. To know more about how such a solution can be implemented for your travel company, reach us for a demo or trial.

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How can airlines prepare themselves better for massive flight disruptions in the future?

Yesterday it was 9/11.

Today it is the novel coronavirus.

Climate change, fuel shortage, geopolitical conflict are all candidates for causing the next major disruption.

While it is hard to predict what will cripple the airline sector next, there is also no excuse to be unprepared.

Real-time notifications

Since delays or cancellations are unpredictable and inevitable, airlines need to automate their responses to disruptions. When an airline learns that a flight will be delayed or canceled, it is recommended to reach out to affected passengers via multiple channels.

Importantly, if there is reason to believe that the automated channel was ineffective for someone, customer support agents can call up that specific individual rather than calling up everyone during a crisis, when high support request volumes are expected.

Proactive communication

Airlines need a system in place that automatically sends a message to people whose flights have been disrupted. If the airline finds that the customer hasn’t responded by replying or rebooking, a customer support agent needs to reach out to ensure that the passenger got the message.

Crucially, the passenger must be notified through all possible channels to prevent him/ her from coming to the airport. One of the most important channels in this regard is the mobile phone, which can be used to track or communicate with the passenger in real-time.

Self-service portal

While an airline needs to call up or email a passenger during a disruption to make sure they rebook or cancel or get to know their flight is delayed, it is equally important to have a self-service portal for the customer to take these actions. Doing so will allow the airline to save time and focus only on customers who haven’t used the self-service portal.

Also, it will prevent customers from feeling a lack of control, which is quite common when someone has to miss a flight through no fault of their own.

Enhanced data exchange

Airlines need to be in close contact with the relevant national air traffic control authorities, baggage handlers, etc. when disruption strikes, so the passenger is not affected. The passenger must be notified of the status of the ticket, luggage, and next similar flight from the beginning so that he/ she can make optimal decisions.

Safety precautions

If the disruption or delay is caused by health issues, such as the coronavirus, passengers may have to sometimes quarantine in places they don’t know. It is recommended that airlines provide extensive insurance coverage and other safety-related ancillaries to make sure that passengers remain safe and financially secure if they are stranded in a less than ideal location due to flight disruption.

Emergency accommodations

If flights are delayed or canceled, and another flight isn’t readily available, passengers need to be provided with food and a temporary shelter. Airlines can partner with various service providers to ensure that their passengers are taken care of when disaster strikes.

Conclusion

There’s no predicting what will hit the airline sector next. But a lot can be done to ensure customers are not left unattended when there is the next major disruption that causes flights to be canceled or delayed.

Having an automated, foolproof system like VoyagerAid in place can go a long way in safeguarding your customers from the fallout from the next flight disruption. Reach us if you want a demo or a free trial.

Omnichannel

Omnichannel customer relationship management – the future of customer management

“Alexa, find me the best prices on flights to London.”

Gone are the days when customers reached airlines and travel agents through only phone, email, or the company website. Everyone’s house is filled to the brim with “smart devices” that can be used to make inquiries, book tickets, or even raise complaints. There are numerous instances of customers reaching out via WhatsApp, social media direct messages, and even the comments section of a promotional post on social media.

Customers seamlessly switch between devices, and they alternate frequently between various modes of search, so they expect you to be reachable no matter what channel they use. Further, they expect to be served in the medium in which they reached out to you. For instance, they’ll be upset if they reach you via Facebook Messenger, and you send them off to fill a Google Form or redirect to a website.

But most importantly, they expect personalization; customers wouldn’t appreciate any automated messages that say you will look into the matter or directs them to your website or gives them an email/phone to reach when they want a resolution through social media.

If you are eager to cater to modern passengers and provide them with a delightful experience, getting an omnichannel CRM is the way to go.

With an omnichannel CRM, you can handle customer interactions from all channels in a single platform, resulting in a seamless customer management process.

Why omnichannel CRM is the future

A specialized travel CRM can go a long way in bolstering your customer management efforts by helping you connect with clients across multiple channels, help them make bookings, get relevant travel information, and resolve any queries they may have.

Equipped with such a tool, you can:

Provide exceptional customer experience:

You can delight customers by rapidly responding no matter which platform they use to reach you. It is possible to configure the CRM to automatically assign agents to handle the customer or person inquiring or respond with a personalized canned message.

Owing to fast response times, and the ease with which customers can access the information they want, it is undeniable that you will get more bookings with minimal effort.

Capture customer data in a pain-free manner:

With a travel CRM that uses AI, you can rest assured that the tool will capture important customer details to build a profile for them that can be leveraged by you to offer personalized products. Also, you can use this contact information to reach the customer with relevant offers and information about travel.

Make the life of customer support agents easier:

Since requests from all platforms will be accessible in a single place, customer support agents don’t have to waste time searching for customer information. Since the CRM can also send personalized messages, the support agent can spend his time dealing with complex requests that can’t be automated.

Enable self-service and buying:

With the right CRM, you can improve your sales drastically by providing customers with the ability to serve themselves. You can do so by making use of canned responses and AI-powered chat and even knowledge bases filled with necessary information.

Automate time-consuming, tedious work

When it comes to serving customers, speed is key. Using a powerful CRM, you can deal with customer requests easily, as the tool will automatically assign the best possible agent. The software will further take care of preventing agent collision, which can be something that slows down work and serves to embarrass the company.

Conclusion

VoyagerAid travel agency CRM is equipped with all the necessary features to take the customer engagement efforts of airlines and travel agents to the next level and prepare you for the future when travel is set to pick up exponentially. With it, you can make sure that you leave no customers behind and upsell to the maximum extent possible via all your channels.

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How can airlines boost ancillary revenue post covid?

Since budget carriers— such as Ryanair —entered the fray and began competing for market share in the airline sector, they have thrived by selling ancillaries. In 2019, before covid was a factor, ancillary revenue for airlines stood at a staggering 109.5 billion U.S. dollars.

With covid throwing a wrench in the workings of the airline sector for nearly two years and costing billions of dollars in losses for airlines, ancillaries have retaken the spotlight. However, airlines can’t expect to return to profitability by focusing on the same ancillaries as before.

Airlines need to focus on the following ancillaries to increase revenue by taking advantage of the post-pandemic desire among customers for personalization, flexible pricing, and higher safety standards.

Personalized tours

Given that over half of business travelers are reluctant to travel in the next few months, tourists and religious pilgrims will be the critical drivers of airline revenue in the near term. Careering to them with competitively priced flight packages that include ancillaries, such as car rentals, food, hotels, etc., will go a long way in optimizing your revenue.

Airlines can further offer tours centered on the emotional and physical wellbeing of passengers, given the toll the pandemic has taken on everyone. This can mean a vacation at a hotel with a spa or a beachside resort, or a hill station.

Safety focused ancillaries

Ancillaries ranging from immunity boosting kits to travel insurance to baggage wrapping can go a long way in inspiring customer confidence in travel and increasing your bottom line. Airlines also need to make sure these safety measures offer comprehensive protection at an affordable rate.

Airlines can even take a cue from travel operators offering trips to Russia that include vaccinations on arrival. Also, airlines can capitalize on the need for social distancing and offer passengers the ability to buy the seats near them to leave vacant.

Another ancillary that airlines can sell is the ability to cancel tickets without any penalty if the passenger gets covid.

Corporate rewards

Airlines can team up with credit cards companies to offer frequent flier rewards and other bonuses. This leads to credit card users becoming patrons of the airline. There are also various loyalty programs that airlines can roll out for both retail customers and corporate travelers that are guaranteed to increase brand loyalty and drive revenue.

For corporate travelers, airlines can offer on-demand services, such as Wi-Fi, in-flight meals, business class lounge access, extra legroom, transport facilities once they reach the destination airport, etc.

Conclusion

Personalization and innovation in ancillary offerings are the keys to an airline’s post-pandemic success. When these are prioritized across all channels and touchpoints, airlines will undoubtedly gain a competitive edge in these turbulent times.

If you are unsure about how to offer customer-centric ancillaries that will bolster your revenue, feel free to reach us at [email protected].

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What Is Airline Disruption Management Software?

“If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars, and launch a new airline.”

This quote from Richard Branson perfectly encapsulates how volatile the airline industry is. There is simply no telling when an airlines’ operations will be disrupted due to unforeseen reasons.

Given how much money this costs the aviation industry annually ($60 billion) and how much ire it draws from customers, airline disruption management is a topic worth exploring in detail.

As you read, you will be enlightened on:

What Is Airline Disruption?

Airline disruption is when a scheduled flight is either delayed for two or more hours or canceled within 48 hours of its departure time. Every year, millions of passengers (140 million) suffer because of irregular operations (IROPs) of airlines. When flights get canceled, consumers, on average, must shell out $250 per person to rebook their flights. Besides, for every journey, an airline must fork out $4,000 on average when there is flight disruption. Apart from this, there are also other costs to consider, such as passenger accommodation that heighten the loss incurred by the airline.

Owing to the ability of disruptions to drive up airline operation costs through the roof, their effective management has become mission-critical for flight operations over the world. Also, given how unpredictable they are, the aviation industry is yet to reach a point where they can quickly mitigate the effects of a disrupted flight.

The most common causes of airline disruption.

Disruptions are quite common in the airline industry and are caused by a host of reasons, namely:

Air Traffic Control (ATC) restrictions

Only around half a billion passengers took to the skies in the ‘80s. But nowadays, the number exceeds three billion annual passengers. Due to this incredible increase in the air traffic, which also happens to be concentrated in a handful of global hubs, there is always the possibility that a few flights will be delayed.

A key reason for flights being delayed is the regulations that the ATC has for long flights. Flights sometimes must change the route at the last minute due to weather and jet streams, which is further complicated because the airline’s focus is to increase fuel and cost-efficiency.

Further, in places with shoddy radar coverage, flights take longer to take off and land safely, which causes a ripple effect; when one flight is delayed, everything else in the route is affected.

Bad weather

Institutions, such as the FAA or Federal Aviation Authority in the US, are tasked with determining the optimal conditions for a flight to be operated. If these conditions are not met, there may be disruptions. Surprisingly, the weather is not a common reason for flight delays around the world. For the weather to be a factor, it needs to be something severe, such as a blizzard, tornado, or hurricane.

Bird hits

An aircraft’s collision with an airborne creature, usually a bird, often leads to delays in flights. Called bird strikes, this phenomenon occurs 13,000 times every year in the US alone. The primary reason for bird strikes causing delays is that there are regulations requiring airline companies to perform certain procedures once their aircraft have been struck by a bird.

Mechanical issues with the airplane

Technical maintenance delaying takeoff is quite common, as airplanes are subjected to strict evaluations, failing which they will be grounded. Issues that often lead to disruption are fuel contamination, problems with the engine fan blades, parking issues, contamination of the air conditioning system or the drainage system, etc.

Aircraft preparation

Work on the aircraft to prepare it for the next flight starts the moment it lands, which may sometimes cause disruptions in the schedule. While rate, it is certainly possible for a flight to be delayed for something like refueling, cleaning, etc.

Runway obstructions

This may be one of the rarest reasons for a flight being canceled or delayed. An example of this is the turtles obstructing the runway at the JFK airport in New York. The turtles were drawn to the sand surrounding the runway, which was ideal for them to lay eggs.

Miscellaneous reasons

Complaints about airline service, complaints about discrimination, missing luggage, etc. are also issues that lead to airline disruptions more often than you think. Besides, customers might also be made to wait due to missing crew members or missing connecting passengers.

Maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) violations

Before takeoff, airplanes are checked for one crucial thing—whether it complies with the regulations relating to the maximum weight allowed on it.

Protests/strikes

Since the industry relies heavily on professionals with specialized skills, they are largely at the mercy of their employees, such as pilots. When these employees go on strike, like the 2-day-long one organized in September 2019 by British Airways’ pilots, the business can come to a standstill, enraging legions of customers.

Airline disruption’s impact on aviation

Lacking a coherent strategy to deal with disruptions, which are quite common in the industry, can lead airlines to face the following issues.

  • Mega revenue losses

According to a study by T2RL, disruptions cost the travel industry roughly $35 billion every year. Apart from the ‘hard cost,’ which is paid to the customers for flight cancellations, airlines also must bear a ‘soft cost’ that is the amount the airline will lose in the future owing to a lessening in customer loyalty and trust. Further, there is also the issue of the support staff becoming unproductive in the absence of efficient airline disruption management software.

  • Bad press

Social media has become the most preferred location for frustrated customers to vent their unhappiness about various airlines that either had overbooked or canceled flights. A case in point is the fact that United Airlines received a ton of bad publicity due to their attitude towards the passengers of an overbooked flight. Notably, they were the most-talked-about airline between June 11- July 9, 2017, proving how essential proper airline disruption management is.

  • Inability to deal with the rapidly expanding customer base.

It is said that by 2035, the number of people who take an airline for their travel needs will double. This is a steep increase from the roughly 3.7 billion passengers who use the mode of transport. Also, it is said that the Asia-Pacific region will give rise to half the passengers who use airlines in the next twenty years. Presently, twenty percent of flights are delayed, and the effects of disruption are already adverse. When the number of flight user’s increases, there are bound to be even bigger consequences for disruption.

  • Being passenger-centric during disruption

Although there are a lot of complications that an airline must deal with during a flight disruption, it would serve them well to prioritize their customers for the reasons mentioned above. Most customers expect prompt updates about delays or cancellations and failing to do this will lead them to leave bad reviews all through the internet.

To provide passenger-centric service, airlines need to implement multi-channel customer support that is provided by a multi-lingual team that specializes in airline disruption management.

What is airline disruption management?

Airline disruption management involves providing customers with real-time updates on cancellations and delays in their flight schedule and enabling them to rebook or get a refund on their tickets during flight disruptions either on their own or by interacting with a customer support representative or chatbot.

From the previous section, it must be clear that handling disruptions without much escalation from the customers is a crucial aspect of ensuring an airline’s sustained success. Here are a few means employed by airlines to ensure that customers can access quick support or even help themselves if they choose to.

Means of providing stress-free customer support during disruptions.

Social media

Even in this digital age, many airlines use social media only for promotion. They spam customers incessantly with news of discounts and new destinations that they cover. However, what they are missing is the potency that social media has for effective disruption management for airlines. With the right strategy, companies can leverage social media to inform customers about irregular operations (IROPs) promptly. Also, the airlines can respond to feedback given by customers.

A few things to bear in mind while dealing with clients on social media are:

  • Speak with clarity.
  • Speak with empathy.
  • Speak with honesty.

When this is done, the customers feel like they are in control of the situation and that you are doing everything in your power to address their plight. Already, large players in the airline space, such as Southwest Airlines and Qatar Airways have a dedicated team to address their customers’ concerns on social media.

Chatbots

In the travel industry, chatbots are already the rage. Travel firms have already started answering customer queries via Facebook Messenger and other social media platforms where chatbots are enabling them to respond promptly to the customer after automatically going through their details.

The rise of chatbots has enabled companies to free up their customer support staff and use them only for customer requests that are beyond what the chatbot can handle. Amazingly, the chatbots of today can make reservations and answer frequently asked questions

Airline companies have a great opportunity to employ these intelligent chatbots for offering customer support via online messaging apps. This is because customers will overwhelmingly prefer to use an interface that they are familiar with when it comes to customer support rather than download a new app.

For airline disruption management, chatbots can be of immense use in responding to customer messages rapidly, informing them of delays and cancellations, and updating them of alternative flights. In addition to getting communication from the company, the customer can use the chatbot to book/rebook tickets, seek a refund, find a place to stay, etc.

SMS

Another way to empower customers through real-time and personalized notifications is through SMS. Real-time alerts can be sent to customers about severe delays, which will stop the customers from arriving at the airport too early.

Due to the versatility of this channel of communication, airlines can directly interact with customers, track down individual passengers, and thereby minimize the effects of airline disruption. Moreover, it can be used to alert passengers if they are late, provide them with details on how to reach the gate, how to use the self-check-in systems and alert customers of modifications to any relevant flight information.

This is also a great way for airlines to save on time and money by avoiding the large influx of calls into customer care as the result of a disrupted flight.

Airline Disruption Management Software Par Excellence for Airlines’ Stress-reducing communication with customers

Provide your customers with a hassle-free rescheduling, rebooking, or cancellation experience by leveraging the power of our advanced AI chat-bots and self-service portal. When it comes to dealing with airline disruptions, Voyager Aid brings you enhanced agent productivity, self-service, and customer satisfaction.

When there is any disruption in the airline schedule, your clients will be instantly notified via personalized email and text. From there, your clients have the option of rebooking, rescheduling, or availing a refund to the payment method of choice—all in a seamless manner.

Features of Voyager Aid Airline Disruption Management Software

Do not lose out on customers, revenue, and operation efficiency because of delays in notifying customers of airline disruption. Keep your customers informed of flight cancellations and delays and cater to all their airline disruption-based needs with these amazing features:

  • Easy to use integrated booking engine.

Due to the solution’s integration with the reservation system, your customers have the luxury of rebooking or getting a refund on their tickets on the same platform. It does not matter where the request came from; whether it is email, Chat, phone calls, websites, or social media accounts, Voyager Aid can bring it all under one platform for your team to deal with.

  • Unparalleled user management and smart ticketing system

Seamless user management allows you to create and manage different users with distinct privileges based on your need. Given how efficiently our software sorts the complaints based on the type, you can also provide exceptional support to your customers with a small team, saving you a lot of money.

Owing to the smart ticketing system, you can further avoid the embarrassment of having two different agents answering the same ticket—the system detects and warns you if two agents are occupied with the same request.

  • AI-powered chatbot for effortless Airline Disruption Management

Our airline disruption management solution is equipped with powerful AI that instantly caters to your customers’ needs based on the query. Notably, your customers can have their complaints, feedback, and queries attended to using an agent or a robot no matter what channels they are using to reach you. Due to the software’s ability to send messages that are tailored to the mood of the customer and the exact grievance, your team is assured to be hyper-productive.

With the intelligent system that can automatically send messages and create tickets, you will never miss an email or message from your customer. Save substantial amounts of money on manpower and soft costs resulting from the lack of trust that will come because of bad customer service.

  • Advanced reporting features to gauge customer satisfaction and support team performance

To bolster your airline disruption management efforts over time, Voyager Aid provides you with customizable reports and a live interactive dashboard of your agents’ performance, and details of how satisfied the customer was with the interaction. Cost-effectively, you can also track the status of customer requests at any stage.

Moreover, you can accurately track the SLAs set by various customers and even put your customer support data to good use for creating the optimal experience for your customer.

  • Comprehensive knowledge base

With Voyager Aid, you can store, manage, and disseminate vital information within seconds to your customer, clarifying their pressing queries.

Make your agents’ life easy and serve customers with quick and automated responses. Using the knowledge base that includes how-to guides, use cases, travel advisory, etc., you can instantly give your customers what they are looking for when it comes to commonly asked questions. You can further personalize these canned responses with the customers’ names and ticket status.

Undoubtedly, this will drastically bring down the number of customer complaint calls and emails. As your company grows, you can expand on your knowledge base to provide customers with the best possible resolutions.

Benefits of streamlined airline disruption management for airlines and customers.

  • Both the crew and the passengers are more satisfied.
  • With the right disruption management solution, airlines can leverage real-time flight data and crew schedule data to map out the effects of the disruption.
  • Seamless scalability based on the requirement is another highlight.
  • Further, airlines have the option of providing the support that their customers require, i.e. it is flexible.
  • There are also huge cost savings that occur because of using effective airline disruption management software according to IATA Research.
  • Also, the airline can make better decisions that are crew and passenger-friendly.

Conclusion

According to a whitepaper by Forbes Insights and Sabre, leveraging newer, more potent technology for customer experience and operational performance is at the top of the list of priorities for airline executives around the world. As more and more tech-savvy companies enter the fray, airline companies will be increasingly drawn to boosting customer loyalty.

Discover the best-in-class airline disruption management software specially designed to delight your customers.

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Can Chatbots/Virtual Assistants Help Airlines Bounce Back When Travel Revives?

According to Forbes, 86% of consumers prefer humans to chatbots.

This should not be surprising, given how many of us have reached out to customer support, hoping to get to a sympathetic human, only to be faced with a chatbot that seems determined to annoy us with either nonsensical answers or the infamous message: Sorry, I cannot help you with that.

But what if we told you that chatbots will RESCUE your AIRLINE?

That it will turn the limp that COVID-19 has given your airline’s growth into an unstoppable sprint?

Sounds unbelievable?

Allow us to show you how ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE makes that possible. As you read, you will see how AI-powered customer service chatbots will not just save you money but also leave your customer delighted.

The situation to date

While chatbots with basic functionalities have been implemented by the airline sector, most of the customer support work is still being done by humans. To cut back on costs, airlines have taken to outsourcing their customer support needs, but there is a limit to the money that they can save.

Making matters worse, the COVID-19 outbreak has forced airlines to cut back on support staff. This has, to a large degree, left the airline sector vulnerable to surges in customer support requests as the pandemic subsides and travel resumes.

That raises a serious question.

How will airline support teams scale up when travel volume picks up?

Like many other sectors, the aviation industry has sought to leverage AI to enhance their passengers’ travel experience.

AI chatbots, which are self-training systems that can remember user preferences and the context of conversations to provide a human-like experience, can go a long way in enhancing customer satisfaction and bringing down costs.

Owing to its immense potential, airlines have been quick to tap into AI-powered virtual assistants/chatbots to both replace and facilitate the working of customer support executives. In many instances now, airline companies employ AI chatbots to provide customers with personalized care and flight information.

Key trends in airline chatbot implementation

Increasingly, airlines have implemented their chatbots on popular social media apps, allowing customers to get their issues resolved at their convenience. Here are a few stats that prove that the airline chatbot revolution is here to stay.

  • Iceland-based carrier, Icelandair, now provides 24×7 customer support via Facebook Messenger thanks to its bot.
  • Air Asia’s implementation of AVA ensures that 10 times the normal number of tickets are cleared daily.
  • WestJet’s Juliet resolved 87% of the cases coming from Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp owing to its machine learning capabilities.
  • During the peak of the pandemic, Iberia’s IBot resolved 72% of the incoming queries. Further, on other platforms, it had a success rate of 88% while dealing with 250,000 messages. Notably, the issues it dealt with included booking management, voucher requests, and flight status inquiries.
  • The rebooking bots from KLM saved agents’ time by resolving 10% of the issues instantly and automatically and only diverting complex requests to their human counterparts.

It is beyond reasonable doubt that airline chatbots are here to stay. If the examples are not convincing, maybe the SITA report, which found 68 percent of airlines and 42% of all airports use chatbots/ virtual assistants to keep customers notified of important developments, will do the job.

Why the newfound popularity?

Given how unpopular ordinary chatbots are, it may be surprising to see AI-based bots taking over the industry. But what you are missing is that AI chatbots have a variety of features that give them an edge over all the other means of customer support that airlines have been using since the industry’s inception.

These features are what will help the industry bounce back when travel volumes go up.

  • Stay on top of customer support requests regardless of volume

With AI, airlines have the option of resolving tickets extremely quickly with a limited budget even as support request volumes go through the roof. AI is tireless, so chatbots employing the technology have what it takes to scale up rapidly to meet demand. This is especially beneficial because airlines do not have to go through the tedious process of hiring and training lots of customer support executives in a short duration when travel volumes go up.

Even the ones that you do end up hiring will be more productive given how they do not have to deal with repetitive tasks all day thanks to AI-enabled automation of ticket resolution. This is a surefire way to save a ton of money.

Besides, these highly intelligent virtual agents can be used to provide quick resolutions across multiple channels, which will save you and the customers a lot of time.

  • Identify and solve trending issues during flight disruptions

Even after we put the COVID-19 crisis slowly behind us, it will take time before we know its full ramifications. Consequently, new issues in travel will keep cropping up, just like the necessity for social distancing that came up amidst the worst period of the pandemic.

New challenges that may come up in the wake of the pandemic, such as government regulations or related disruptions in flight services can be found out quickly and tackled using AI. Promptly informing passengers of issues when there is a disruption in flights is a great way to prevent tickets from coming in.

  • Revenue optimization through the sale of ancillaries

The fact that AI chatbots can automatically sell ancillaries through a passenger’s journey is a point in its favor. Ancillaries are a key driver of airline revenue, so the ability of chatbots to offer personalized ancillaries, such as priority boarding, seat upgrades, and extra checked baggage, answer queries instantaneously, and facilitate easier purchases justifies their use as travel picks up.

  • Retain more customers with stellar customer support

Steadily, travel volumes are going up, and you can capitalize on this by consistently providing customers with a delightful travel experience. According to a study from Applied Marketing Science and Twitter, customers are willing to pay more for a flight if they have had a positive experience with the airline’s customer support team.

With an airline chatbot, you can make sure that your customers are taken care of round the clock and attended to instantly. Amazingly, you can do this without hundreds of support staff stationed around the globe.

  • Safeguard your customer service executives’ mental well-being

Since a lot of customer service executives were laid off during the pandemic, the task of handling countless frustrated passengers fell on the few agents who were left. This has taken a huge toll on their mental health.

As the COVID situation gets better, support requests are set to increase drastically. With the use of AI chatbots, airlines can reduce the workload of agents by using a virtual assistant to take care of the commonly asked questions.

Conclusion

Chatbots will become ubiquitous in the aviation industry in the coming years, given the lessons from COVID-19. Further, they are much more than a cost-saving measure; airline chatbots have the potential to boost ancillary sales and bring down support costs, blurring the line between customer experience, sales, and customer support.

With chatbots/virtual assistants, airlines will also be able to retain more customers by allowing them to access instant, personalized, and easy self-service. All airline chatbots are not created equal, though. To maximize customer satisfaction and ROI, Infiniti Software Solution’s airline chatbot is the optimal solution.

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Handling Groups During Flight Disruption

What happens when you cross a group of business execs on a hectic schedule with a disrupted flight?

The answer is obvious.

You get an angry mob with an oversized influence on your bottom-line queuing up to patronize your competitor while simultaneously berating you on social media.

You can imagine for yourself the nightmarish scenario you will find yourself in if by chance the flights are delayed or canceled for a bunch of religious pilgrims or vacationers. The financial damage will be comparatively less, but your reputation will tank nonetheless from all the negative press you will get on social media.

Sounds frightening?

This may even have happened to your airline, and you may have experienced a mad scramble to provide support to countless angry passengers and deal with their rebooking or cancellation requests.

Can things be better? How can an airline deal effectively with the fallout from disruptions on lucrative group bookings?

It is near impossible to avoid flight disruptions or even predict when one will occur. The solution lies in managing disruptions efficiently, keeping in mind both the profits of the airline and customer experience.

But this is easier said than done.

Traditional Methods Of Managing Groups During Airline Disruptions —And Why They Will Not Work

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic raging in 2020, the number of people who took to the skies was 1.8 billion. The number will steeply rise in the coming months and years as lockdown restrictions are lifted across the world. To keep up with the demand for disruption management solutions, airlines must find ways to tackle the disadvantages of the legacy methods that are as follows:

The highly chaotic manual method of informing passengers of delays or cancellations

When there is a delay of some sort in your flights, the least you can do is inform the passengers so that they will not arrive hours earlier and sit fuming in the airport. Using the old-fashioned method of reaching out to one customer at a time is a tedious process that is also prone to errors.

Near Impossibility Of Dealing With Multiple Channels

When a group gets to know they will not be boarding at the promised time, there is no telling what the reaction will look like. Some will take to venting on social media while others will write long-winded emails to customer support. Some people will give you a call on your customer support number.

If you are not prepared to simultaneously tackle this large volume of customer support requests, you are bound to lose customer goodwill.

Time-Consuming Manual Rebooking/ Cancellation Process

During a disruption, you can be sure that your helpdesk will be flooded with support requests from frantic passengers desperate to know what is going on with their flight. The volume of calls, emails, and social media messages you get will surely overwhelm your customer support agents, create great confusion when it comes to rebooking/ cancelling, and undoubtedly lead to extremely unhappy customers who will think twice about using your services again.

Benefits Of Automation In Dealing With Group Bookings Of Disrupted Flights

When there is a flight disruption and you have a group booking on your hands, the first thing you need to consider is how to prevent the ensuing chaos when the passengers learn that their plans have been spoiled through no fault of theirs. Sending them an email or an SMS with a generic apology will not cut it.

Matter of fact, it is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. A disaster you will remember for a long time.

More importantly, it will be a disaster that potential customers will associate your name with.

Preventing all this requires a lightning speed response to flight disruption along with a level of personalized customer support that is unprecedented.

Now, is that even possible?

This is where automation comes in.

With the right airline disruption management solution that integrates with the group booking software, passengers can be provided with personalized notifications of disruptions, real-time support, the ability to rebook or cancel flights on their own, and the option of instant refunds if they need them.

Here is how such a solution can transform your operations and redefine customer experience.

Instantly Notify Your Passengers Of Disruptions

The last thing you want on your hands is a group of angry passengers in the lobby complaining that they were not informed of the flight delay. Upset passengers busying up your airport staff asking for more information or demanding refunds can throw a wrench in your day-to-day operations.

It is hence prudent to automate the notifications about flight disruptions and ensure customers get the message via multiple channels, such as email and SMS. They will appreciate the effort you put into informing them. Moreover, a timely warning that the flight will not be available will prevent them from coming to the airport earlier and wasting their time.

Make Your Customers’ Life Easy With Automatic Rescheduling And Cancellation Options

A stranded passenger’s biggest frustration is that he lost control over his schedule through no fault of his own. Giving the passenger the ability to automatically reschedule or cancel their flights and get a refund through a self-service portal is a great way to make them feel in control of the situation.

The process must be automatic; the last thing a customer wants when their schedule is disrupted is to wait in a queue to reach customer support.

Leave No Passenger Behind

When it comes to group bookings, you will see two types of passengers—one that proactively uses your self-service portal to rebook or cancel their tickets and another that is blissfully unaware of the flight disruption.

If you can provide automated flight rebooking or cancellation to the first type, then your customer support agents will be free to call the passengers who fall into the second category and take care of their needs, which will invariably delight them.

24×7 Support Across All Channels In Multiple Languages

With group bookings, there is the issue of getting multiple support requests simultaneously for the same issue. Having a dedicated support team is great, but it is no match for an omnichannel, automated support solution that can answer passengers in multiple languages.

Cost Optimization

During disruption, there is bound to be chaos in reassigning passengers to various flights. If you use AI, you can direct passengers to your flights that have low occupancy, which will free up demand on the overbooked flights and add to your bottom-line. Most significantly, you can do so without diminishing customer satisfaction.

Reduced Support Staff Requirements

Automate your customer support with AI-powered chatbots that never tire, no matter how harsh the customers are with their questions. Moreover, you can widen the range of the support questions the chatbots can answer, by using a comprehensive knowledge base with all the common questions that passengers ask during a disruption.

Conclusion

No doubt, the future of airline disruption management, especially for group bookings, is digital. Adopting automation for dealing with the group booking passengers during disruptions with a relatively small investment can go a long way in alleviating their frustration and preventing them from switching over to your competitors.

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Why NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey is very essential?

1. IDENTIFY DETRACTORS: Now its time to retain our existing customers as they are our biggest asset. Identifying customers who are not happy and solving them will be a key factor

2. GAIN NEW CUSTOMERS: Investing in the acquisition and converting a customer will be a complex task in this pandemic. So identifying promoters in your customer base help you to gain new customers

3. SERVICE QUALITY: NPS survey will definitely give you the bigger picture on the service quality and helps companies to streamline their support system.