Chatbots: Your Personal Guides and Companions

The travel industry is an ever-growing entity with more and more apps being developed, more drive to go to new destinations thanks to Covid 19, social media exposure and the general ease of it compared to the past.

With this comes more competition and with the Chatbot market value expected to reach over $100 billion by 2026, there’s even more reason to invest in digital service tools.

Thankfully, people are well used to booking trips through their phones. Multiple apps and sites are used to book these trips, but what if this could be done with one bot to simplify the process?

Facebook Messenger is a channel familiar to anyone who owns a mobile device. The purpose of Chatbots is to assist agents not replace them!

Chatbots can act as virtual travel agents, making suggestions that fit the customers’ preferences, answering questions, and making guests bookings. If the Chatbot encounters a query that is too complex they can pass this off to a human agent.

‘Booking bots’ are becoming more prevalent within the travel industry.  However, there are few companies that make full use of their automation’s full capabilities. With just a few questions to the customer, bots can also assume the role of a travel agent. By taking these answers into account the bot can tailor packages and deals to the customer’s needs. The added bonus of these AI agents is the ability to assist a customer in any time zone with 24/7 service.

What can a bot do for travel companies?

Expedia states that travelers will visit around 38 websites before making their final choice. Bots simplify the experience for you and your customers by having an engaging and helpful journey mapped out for the guest.

Make recommendations by asking the customer the right questions. Just like a regular travel advisor, a bot can narrow down preferences for the customer, and all in one place! No having to click back and forth to compare and contrast prices and details.

Booking and payment have never been faster, with an encrypted payment portal you can rest easy that customer info is secure. Furthermore, this is all possible right within the Messenger app.

Make that connection by sharing your helpful travel information. For example, when a customer decides upon a destination, engage even further by suggesting advice and tips relevant to that customer’s choice.

Cindy City Wonders. They’re not paying employees to be behind this atm… cost saving.

Messaging in City Wonders

It’s fair to say the entire world shut down during the first year of the pandemic. Confined to our homes, flight, holidays, and sightseeing were impossible. City Wonders had practically no business, and with no agents, there was a severe need for customer queries to be answered. Using their existing chat/messaging platform Stobee helped City Wonders create Cindy, a virtual agent to assist with popular queries. The customer care manager at City Wonders was able to pinpoint the customer queries that were already within the site, but for some reason, the customers were unable to find them or lacked the patience when looking. Despite how frustrating this can be for the business; it was beneficial in that she knew what the bot needed. Structuring this info into easy-to-follow flows, we were able to make Cindy answer the most common queries, and if she doesn’t have the answer she collects contact details for City Wonders to deal with the query. When humans are away, the bots can play.