Avoid “Flightmares” with AI-enabled Virtual Agents
Cloud-based and AI-enabled technologies have the potential to increase the operational efficiency of contact centers through innovative and automated support.
Experts predicted a “flightmare” for airlines navigating increased travel demands and staffing shortages. This situation has brought countless flight delays and cancellations, leaving contact centers to deal with frustrated travelers. Rebecca Jones, SVP and GM of Mosaicx from Intrado, shares how intelligent virtual agents can enable rapid automation to help understaffed contact centers.
Travel has been unpredictable. Too few pilots. Not enough flights. Jammed planes and high fuel costs. These are just a few of the challenges facing global airlines. Industry experts call it a “flightmare,” including thousands of flight delays and cancellations resulting from increased demand and staff shortages.
Despite these challenges, travelers still expect fast, personalized and reliable support. If contact center wait times are too long, airlines run the risk of a customer disconnecting and never calling back, taking their business elsewhere. Or, if they receive a resolution through the help of a contact center agent but feel it took too long, customers may take to social media to air their grievances. Both of these scenarios threaten an airline’s reputation and, ultimately, its bottom line, making contact center efficiency a priority.
However, it’s not only airlines facing this dilemma. Brands across all industries are looking at implementing more modern contact center solutions that allow them to meet customer demands and improve experiences. Cloud-based and AI-enabled technologies have the potential to increase the operational efficiency of contact centers through innovative and automated support.
Alleviate Three Pain Points with AI-enabled Technologies
Modern, AI-enabled technologies play a vital role in supporting and managing the influx of inbound customer support requests flooding airline contact centers this summer. For example, intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) enable rapid automation of common requests and lift some of the weight off contact centers.
An IVA is a conversational AI tool that facilitates personalized responses to customers. In contact center settings, IVAs answer calls, streamline support, enable self-service and support human agents, alleviating the pressure felt by contact center staff. Below are three common pain points contact centers are navigating and how IVAs combat these challenges.
Pain Point 1: High call volumes
During times of high call volumes, IVAs take the pressure off of human contact center agents by providing simple task automation to help handle low-level customer inquiries. This support allows skilled agents to focus their time on addressing more complex and escalated customer issues. IVAs support customer service operations and make for decreased wait times, straightforward navigation, and quick and thorough answers.
For example, when a customer calls the contact center, instead of presenting the caller with menu options, an IVA asks what they need help with. The IVA then uses natural language processing (NLP) to recognize keywords and phrases to guide the customer to the next phase of their journey.
Pain Point 2: Understaffed teams
Due to the Great Resignation, staffing across all industries has taken a hit, and contact centers are not exempt from this loss. About 70% of contact centers reported more turnover than expected in the past year. Despite this, customers still demand quick, immediate and personalized service.
IVAs manage common customer inquiries without a live agent. A customer’s ability to serve themselves alleviates the burden on understaffed contact center agents and improves the agent experience.
In addition, customers can get support whenever they need it (regardless of human agent availability) because IVAs are available 24/7. Contact centers can deploy IVAs strategically to understaffed shifts. This additional support allows contact centers to offer continuous customer service, but fewer employees must be on call after regular business hours. Even if a team is understaffed, the quality of service will not diminish.
Pain Point 3: Remote work models
Some airlines are not only juggling an onslaught of calls from unhappy travelers, but they’re also shifting their operations to the cloud, including contact centers. For example, Southwest Airlines announced this spring that it is closing physical contact centers and having contact center agents work remotely, which was met with stakeholder hesitation. The move to the cloud during high times of call volumes is putting additional strain on contact centers as they get up to speed on new systems and processes. Thankfully, IVAs can be installed and fully operational in minutes.
Moving to the cloud has benefits for contact centers and their IVAs. For example, IVAs track and report data about a customer during a conversation. Suppose a call needs to be transferred to a human agent. In that case, the IVA remotely shares relevant information from the interaction, increasing efficiency for both the customer and the human agent.
See More: A Beginner’s Guide to TensorFlow: Programming Language for AI Applications
Selecting an IVA Provider
There are many conversational AI providers for airlines to choose from. However, IVA technology isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Because of this, it is vital that decision-makers carefully consider and vet their options to select the best IVA provider to meet their needs.
As a first step, organizations must fully understand their contact center’s communication needs and their passengers’ support needs before implementing conversational AI technology. For example, is wait time the biggest issue, or is it a lack of self-service solutions for managing flights? With this basic information, decision-makers can feel confident that the solutions chosen will be the most effective for their operations and customers.
Once airline business leaders uncover contact center and passenger needs, there are several questions they should ask as they vet IVA providers:
- How well will this specific system integrate with existing contact center tools?
- How reliable is the service?
- If the organization grows, will this technology scale alongside it?
- Does the IVA provider offer multichannel support?
- What capabilities and level of automation does the solution provide?
Other considerations include whether a provider offers personalization, self-service and 24/7 availability, as well as data on overall success rates. These questions can help businesses sort through and identify the solution that best meets contact center and customer needs. Not every IVA provider can do it all, but through careful vetting, businesses are guaranteed to find a solution that works for them.
High call volumes, understaffed contact centers and migration to the cloud have caused a bit of a “flightmare” for the travel industry. However, there is a solution. Airline contact centers can benefit greatly from implementing AI-enabled tools like IVAs. This conversational AI technology provides customers with improved experiences and allows for requests to be solved faster.
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