AI chatbots improve travel booking enquiries

Artificial intelligence is this decade’s unofficial tech focus, given its widespread omnipresence across nearly every industry, globally. We all use AI every day even if we don’t notice it, and with it’s ubiquitous usage, it’s moulding the future of our industries and life. We can easily see how much this high-level technology has impacted healthcare and given rise to data science as an industry in its own right. But how has it impacted how we live, how we communicate or how we shop as consumers?

Society, our lifestyles, our work, the way we play, our communication methods, and the way we shop, have all been impacted by technological advancements. We no longer live in an 8 to 5 world. We have grown accustomed to the always-on lifestyle, the 24 hour fast food restaurants, online shopping and potential for remote working. Technology also brought us closer with social media, video calling and instant messaging, all freely available with an internet connection. This made an incredible dent in communication, making the world feel smaller and more in our grasp, allowing us to see things halfway around the world from the palm of our hand, and stay in touch with loved ones who live thousands of miles away. The internet, artificial intelligence and related technology has brought us closer together, improved our lifestyles, and granted us access to a world we only thought of as fiction.

How has this affected commerce?

With all these changes, business has been impacted in a much bigger way. While technology has allowed us to break down time restraints, it meant that businesses are now faced with the prospect of always being switched on. The tables have turned… Thirty years ago, customers had to work within the restraints of the business they were purchasing from. If the business was closed by 5pm, then you needed to be there before 5pm. Today, businesses have to work with the fluidity and expectation of customers. Nearly 50% of consumer retail purchasing is conducted online, with 60% of all purchasing starting online, from a Google search or your website. When you think about the numbers like that, then you see how much artificial intelligence technology affects business revenue directly.

Customers don’t change shopping habits just because of an industry, so if they are purchasing insurance, food and clothing online, then they will be more likely to purchase their holidays online as well. We also know that holiday research is almost always now done via a search engine, and quite possibly involves a Pinterest board or two, so as a travel agent, you have to ensure that your website supports online business. This is where the cycle is complete: artificial intelligence development influences and evolves consumer life and communication, which then influences and evolves businesses. In this scenario, the way customers are shopping online is directly influencing how travel bookings are made and the business model itself, as the business must evolve if it wishes to keep these consumers.

Getting your travel agency online

Most UK businesses today have a website, and if you don’t, many share the belief that you might not exist or be invisible to a large portion of your target market. Once you have a website, then you need to look at your user experience. Can website visitors easily access FAQ’s? Are your contact forms easy to find, intuitive and mobile friendly? Do you have a live chat where customers who have quick questions can simply ask you right there and then or will you potentially lose that prospect? Customers who go away with unanswered questions usually end up purchasing from a competitor who was swifter at responding. Now you have to ask yourself, how many of these customers are you potentially losing as a result of not having a responsive live chat?

Let AI do the heavy lifting

Having a website with live chat is one thing, but being responsive when your customers are on your website is another. Artificial intelligence can help in this regard. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you had a team member who did not sleep, always engaged all of your website visitors, helped them with the basic issues and navigating the website, and provided more time for the whole customer team to be more productive? In a nutshell, that’s what Artie, Click4Assistance’s AI chatbot, does. He can chat with an unlimited number of website visitors and engage them immediately, so your internal team doesn’t have to. And because he can help with navigation and answer basic questions, he can be online when the rest of your team is asleep, ensuring that those nighttime holiday shoppers don’t fall through the cracks.

But wait! There’s more…

Click4Assistance doesn’t only do live chat and artificial intelligence chatbots. They lead the way with communication software, so they have a deep understanding of how customers communicate with businesses and what are the most effective methods. The Click4Assistance customisable dashboard brings our live chat, smartContact enquiry forms and social media messages from Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, all to your desktop in one convenient place. And the in-depth reports highlight your customer agent team’s strengths and where they need support and training. It’s one solution that does everything your travel agency needs for communication.

If you’re interested in deploying Click4Assistance, the UK’s premier GDPR compliant live chat software solution, to make your travel agency more effective in 2020, give us a call on 08451235871 or send an email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk and one of our experts will be with you right away.