An Artificial Intelligence digital platform has been developed to support holidaymakers with queries about their trips.
The Artificial Intelligence Response (AIR) initiative enables customers to obtain answers to enquiries, such as transfer pick-up times from the hotel or the rep’s visiting times, automatically in a matter of seconds.
Such “standard queries” account for over 30% of the enquiries in the current summer season, according to Tui.
AIR has managed more than 5,800 guest queries which has helped to reduce waiting times for other calls to the hotline or enquiries by e-mail, SMS or the Tui App.
The use of AI is being supplemented by more contact centre staff, with 80 new jobs created to bring the number up to 280 in Palma out of a total of 370.
“For the agents in the contact centre in Palma, it is a significant reduction in their workload which allows them to respond much quicker and spend more time with guests that require personal customer care,” the company said.
In the first phase, AIR answered telephone enquiries. When guests phone TUI and request information on transfer and visiting times, they are either asked to enter their booking number or are identified by their mobile telephone number.
They are then forwarded to the AIR platform, where they receive the requested data automatically.
“Should the guest have any further questions or require assistance, he or she will be transferred to a member of the contact centre staff. Otherwise, the customer’s request was resolved in a matter of seconds,” Tui claimed.
In a more recent second phase, AIR is also responsible for processing written enquiries made by guests via the Tui app.
Chris Carmichael, head of the innovation lab at Tui Destination Experiences, said: “As a first step, we have the system work out answer suggestions, which are then checked by a contact centre agent before they are sent.
“Gradually, however, AIR will learn so that we can also answer many of our guests’ questions fully automatically.
“We deliberately decided against using a normal chatbot, as it does not learn and answer options remain limited. “That can be extremely frustrating for a guest. Our goal is to provide our guests not only with a quick response, but also with a satisfying one in all cases.”
AIR is currently being used to answer English queries. An extension to German and Swedish requests will follow this summer.