Why Travel Companies Need Voice AI in 2022

In today’s unpredictable world, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic no matter what the situation is, people will always have the need to travel, which means that operations must continue in order to accommodate their needs.

Brands that are able to adapt quickly and scale operations while keeping their costs low will ultimately survive. And this is where automation can play a crucial role – helping customers and handling their needs with care and precision while keeping operations fast, scalable, and cost-effective.

Why Voice AI for customer support is the need of the hour?

Customer support is at the heart of the Travel & Hospitality industry. The key mantra is to be hospitable, which directly translates into taking care of customers to drive exceptional experience and take your business forward. Businesses want to raise their brand value and separate themselves from the rest of the competition through customer care and support. 

Because customers expect the best, the only way companies can manage the rising demand and complexity of the industry is by joining hands with technology. As a result, Chatbots and Voice AI have become essential components of customer support. They allow customers to seek information they require or to perform an action at any time of the hour with low levels of friction, making it one of the highly preferred channels of interaction.

By adopting Voice AI technology into customer support model, travel organizations will be able to –

Automate end to end travel operations – 

Backend operations are as important as front end ones. From responding to enquiries, managing bookings, making cancellations, processing refunds to collecting reviews and feedback, Voice AI can take on several responsibilities to offer superior quality travel assistance and streamlining customer support functions.

Enhance Customer Satisfaction –

By shortening the resolution time for customers, Voice bots can streamline the customer support of an organisation. Because they can handle multiple tasks together, they will have a higher degree of usability and better reach with its Omni channel and multilingual capability, ultimately enhancing customer experience and satisfaction.

Increase Customer Retention –

According to PwC, every one in three customers will leave a company they love after they go through one bad experience, while around 92 percent of users will entirely abandon a brand after having two to three negative interactions.

Because Voice AI will be able to resolve more issues that customers face quickly, the positive experience would only mean that customers will continue using services in the future.

Boost Agent Productivity –

Because mundane tasks are delegated to AI Voice bots, agents will be better motivated to focus on other high-value tasks to optimise support processes. Also, agents will be less likely to experience burnout due to being under-equipped. 

Reduce operational costs –

Voice bots are designed and trained to operate on their own and get smarter with interactions to quickly resolve user queries, resulting in fewer calls to customer support centres. This improves overall efficiency and significantly reduces operational costs.

Up and Cross Sell Opportunity-

AI Voice bot is a smart solution for up- and cross-selling without any additional assistance. They are smart enough to recommend personalised offers or upgrade plans to the customers according to their previous travel and conversation history or behaviour.

What Does the Future Hold?

As voice AI continues to improve and advance, conversations will be fine-tuned to sound more empathetic. How an AI powered Voice assistant phrases an answer or question will impact the customer’s response, ultimately deciding whether the discussion is taking a right or wrong turn. Because empathy is what separates a machine from a human, more research would go into creating a design that can understand the user, their needs, and the context to establish trust and a relationship.

Voice-based bots can be designed to be smart, intelligent, approachable, nice, sympathetic, and even humorous, depending on the situation. Although, customers will always prefer conversations that are short and concise.

Ultimately, a hyper-personalised voice AI approach will mark the future of customer experience in the travel industry. From booking a trip to notifying about exciting offers and activities, Voice AI will use customer data to know them and give them what they want, even before they’re directly commanded to do it by the user.

Wrapping Up

Companies across the travel industry are leveraging AI-powered voice bots to automate their customer support functions. Not only does it deliver exceptional customer experiences but also lowers costs of operations significantly.

However, it requires time, resources, and skill for companies to develop infrastructure for Voice bots. As a result, organisations are increasingly relying on voice AI vendors to automate their interactions.

At Engagely, our goal is to make human-like real time interactions a reality through automation. By integrating our voice AI, you can resolve customer complaints and manage their needs better to improve their experience for the better.