Business travel management company CWT has launched a messaging service within its myCWT platform.
The technology enables travelers to contact a counselor at any time of the day via desktop, mobile or a third party messaging app approved by their employer.
Travelers can make bookings, amend or cancel existing trips and retrieve itineraries via the messaging service, which also enables counselors to see the history of a traveler’s interactions.
The technology can also be integrated with existing messaging interfaces such as Skype and Teams.
Niklas Andreen, CWT’s chief traveler experience officer, says that despite the noise about artificial intelligence and chat-led services replacing human, this CWT technology is meant to complement its counselors.
He adds that AI can be used for data capture and answering the 20 most frequent questions but when things go wrong humans need to step in.
The technology is also used to guide travelers on company policy as well as prompt them if they have forgotten to book any of the necessary elements.
Andreen says the company is also looking at how voice might be used with younger generations increasingly carrying out online searches using voice.
CWT is looking at how voice can be converted to text as well as the potential to integrate various interfaces such as Alexa
CWT trialled the technology on 23 customers and is now introducing it in phases throughout the remainder of 2020.
The company says the majority of travelers, 90%, were satisfied with the service and 88% say it requires less effort compared with email and phone.