According to research from Salesforce, the use of chatbots
in travel, transportation and hospitality is expected to increase 241% by
mid-2020.
Already many hotel brands, airlines and online travel
agencies use chatbots on their websites, in text and through Facebook Messenger
to communicate with customers.
But how those chatbots are implemented can determine whether
users view them as a help or a hindrance.
B2C messaging solution Zingle, which works with a variety of
hospitality clients, surveyed more than 1,400 consumers about how they feel
about bots versus humans for customer service.
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The majority of respondents (66%) said they had interacted
with a chatbot or digital assistant for service in the past month, whereas slightly
less (59%) had called a customer service phone line during that period.
More than half of respondents - 57% - said human customer
service agents are more effective at handling their needs than a chatbot, and
49% said humans are also more efficient at handling their needs.
Nevertheless, willingness to use a chatbot is high if the
user believes it will save time. Forty-six percent of respondents said they
would “pick a chatbot if it meant I could solve my issue faster.”
Zingle senior vice president of marketing Jason Hekl says the
findings “should both be encouraging to businesses, but also a warning not to
overplay it [chatbots].”
In hospitality, the most effective use for automated
chatbots, Hekl says, is to handle simple guest requests, for example for
information about accessing Wi-Fi or checkout procedures.
“People are willing to try it, I think more than anything
else to avoid waiting in line, on a phone or at a front desk or concierge,” he
says.
“People are craving ways to save time.”
But for more complex requests that may require a
back-and-forth conversation, messaging systems need to integrate capabilities to
route the message to a human customer service agent as needed.
“If you put in a chatbot intending to replace a human, to
deflect calls, I think it’s a miss and you run the risk of alienating your
guests,” Hekl says.
“I don’t think the technology is there yet to replace a human
interaction. And for hospitality in particular, you are selling an experience. Using
it for deflection is almost counter to the idea of delivering a brand
differentiated service experience.”
Hekl suggests brands that use chatbots make it clear to
guests whether they are fully automated or connected to human service agents as
well.
“Otherwise if they expect a human and it is fully automated,
you run the risk of creating a problem as opposed to solving one,” he says.