Continental Airlines Scores a Customer Service Hit with VoxifyContinental Airlines Scores a Customer Service Hit with Voxify
I've been a fan of Voxify's Speech-enabled Automated Agents for a long time, so yesterday I sat in on a webinar that they did with one of their premiere customers, Continental Airlines. I'm not going to rehash the whole webinar, but I have to say that it was really worth listening to, and therefore blog worthy. Why? It is blog worthy because of the breadth of useful customer-centric applications Continental has deployed, the quality of those applications, and most importantly, thanks to Voxify, some are customer-accepted proactive outbound applications. This last point cannot be emphasized too much - outbound calls that customers want to get.
April 3, 2008
I've been a fan of Voxify's Speech-enabled Automated Agents for a long time, so yesterday I sat in on a webinar that they did with one of their premiere customers, Continental Airlines. I'm not going to rehash the whole webinar, but I have to say that it was really worth listening to, and therefore blog worthy. Why? It is blog worthy because of the breadth of useful customer-centric applications Continental has deployed, the quality of those applications, and most importantly, thanks to Voxify, some are customer-accepted proactive outbound applications. This last point cannot be emphasized too much - outbound calls that customers want to get.
I've been a fan of Voxify's Speech-enabled Automated Agents for a long time, so yesterday I sat in on a webinar that they did with one of their premiere customers, Continental Airlines. I'm not going to rehash the whole webinar, but I have to say that it was really worth listening to, and therefore blog worthy. Why? It is blog worthy because of the breadth of useful customer-centric applications Continental has deployed, the quality of those applications, and most importantly, thanks to Voxify, some are customer-accepted proactive outbound applications. This last point cannot be emphasized too much - outbound calls that customers want to get.Before I get to these spectacular applications, I first have to toot Continental's horn when it comes to providing self-service applications to customers. From a speech analyst's perspective I have followed the likes of American, United and others as they have deployed speech-enabled frequent flyer program, flight information, and ticketing applications for a long time. Some of these applications, such as getting flight status, are great. However, as a customer I'm not always happy using them when it seems like they are slowing me down gathering information for an agent--just to save on agent time - (United, are you listening?). In any case, I was amazed to find out what a long history of providing self-service applications that Continental has. It was impressive and it included:
1995 - introduced eTicket self check in (first airline to do so)
2003 - introduced online check-in
2004 - introduced international self-check in, along with an IVR for passenger reconfirmation
2005 - launched offshore self-service kiosks
2006 - introduced baggage service kiosks (first airline to do so), and launched an IVR for fare shopping
2007 - launched mobile check in
2008 - launched voice check in with Voxify
So here are the good takeaways from the webinar. First, Continental made self-service a premium focus within the company starting in 2000. Knowing that their customers are probably one of the most mobile of all groups, they attacked the issue of customer service by being fearless in their use of speech technologies and multimodal applications, from a point of view that embraces unified communications for the customer without talking about unified communications.
For example, when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shackled us with their edict on, Thou shalt not take gels and liquids on board the planes, Continental responded by emailing the rules to passengers so that they would be aware. They introduced multiple modes of check in so that customers had a choice when they are on the road, which is a big help in that most people (50% of their passengers) check in online before they leave the house, but don't always have the option of printing a boarding pass on their return. So, new options include the launch of mobile boarding passes that show up on the screen of the customer's PDA or phone, with a bar code that can be read at the gate.
Having a (green) no paper boarding pass on your phone is cool; however, the most spectacular application, is the newly launched voice check-in done by Voxify. A fully speech-enabled automated outbound agent application, it was deployed within nine weeks of when they started talking about it. In their demo, which my description doesn't do justice to, the automated agent places an outbound call to a passenger who has an upcoming flight. When the customer answers, they are given their upcoming flight details and asked if they would like to check in for their flight, with the option of getting the boarding pass by email, fax or airport kiosk. The content and the flow of the call is also personalized based on the passenger's profile. For example, if they are a OnePass frequent flier with sufficient miles, and an upgrade is available, they might be offered the chance to upgrade, with information about how many miles it would take. They are also offered additional options, such as opting to hear travel information such as baggage policies or custom alerts.
In all, I was taken by how much Continental is keyed into making customers happy. By providing time-sensitive, personalized calls to customers, Continental has been able to reach out and sustain contact with customers in a way that is beneficial to them both. Plus, from a business standpoint it also enables Continental to lower their inbound call volume and decrease customer churn.
So here are the good takeaways from the webinar. First, Continental made self-service a premium focus within the company starting in 2000. Knowing that their customers are probably one of the most mobile of all groups, they attacked the issue of customer service by being fearless in their use of speech technologies and multimodal applications, from a point of view that embraces unified communications for the customer without talking about unified communications.
For example, when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shackled us with their edict on, Thou shalt not take gels and liquids on board the planes, Continental responded by emailing the rules to passengers so that they would be aware. They introduced multiple modes of check in so that customers had a choice when they are on the road, which is a big help in that most people (50% of their passengers) check in online before they leave the house, but don't always have the option of printing a boarding pass on their return. So, new options include the launch of mobile boarding passes that show up on the screen of the customer's PDA or phone, with a bar code that can be read at the gate.
Having a (green) no paper boarding pass on your phone is cool; however, the most spectacular application, is the newly launched voice check-in done by Voxify. A fully speech-enabled automated outbound agent application, it was deployed within nine weeks of when they started talking about it. In their demo, which my description doesn't do justice to, the automated agent places an outbound call to a passenger who has an upcoming flight. When the customer answers, they are given their upcoming flight details and asked if they would like to check in for their flight, with the option of getting the boarding pass by email, fax or airport kiosk. The content and the flow of the call is also personalized based on the passenger's profile. For example, if they are a OnePass frequent flier with sufficient miles, and an upgrade is available, they might be offered the chance to upgrade, with information about how many miles it would take. They are also offered additional options, such as opting to hear travel information such as baggage policies or custom alerts.
In all, I was taken by how much Continental is keyed into making customers happy. By providing time-sensitive, personalized calls to customers, Continental has been able to reach out and sustain contact with customers in a way that is beneficial to them both. Plus, from a business standpoint it also enables Continental to lower their inbound call volume and decrease customer churn.
