AI Case Study
30SecondsToFly struggles to scale the automation of SMB corporate travel management with the deployment of text chatbots
30SecondsToFly's Claire, a travel assistant, uses natural language processing and machine-learning capabilities to assist travellers with their bookings. The technology can provide SMBs with a valuable customer service provider able to adhere to a company's travel policies. The chatbot is available to process booking queries through SMS or the messaging platform Slack.
Industry
Consumer Goods And Services
Travel And Leisure
Project Overview
"By automating the job of a travel professional, Claire eliminates the inefficiencies and high costs associated with managing corporate travel for companies." The benefits of the AI powered assistant include having a centralized travel policy, real time analytics, a lean setup and a duty of care. Claire is able to "set up and adjust travel policies with a few clicks and supports different travel policies for different groups and automates pre-trip approval processes."
A company is also able to track how a team travels and where it is at any time, since "Claire identifies inefficiencies and encourages positive behavior" and "automatically checks in with them in cases of emergency."
"For employees, Claire feels like a personal travel assistant. Booking and managing travel becomes as easy as messaging Claire, who learns individual travel preferences and curates 4 itinerary choices per trip that are within travel policy. For management, Claire ensures that travel policy is met, provides travel analytics, and makes savings recommendations."
Reported Results
The solution is designed to help small businesses tackle the challenges of corporate travel management, which include: "lack of transparency, inability to analyze data, inability to lower travel expenses systematically." However the company has in early 2018 pivoted to focus more on serving travel management companies and travel agencies.
"Selling to a few, selected TMCs worldwide will allow us to focus stronger on building an innovative product rather than making sure we have strong customer support that can cover hundreds of small business clients."
The company plans to keep its existing platform open, but it will not invest in acquiring new customers.
Technology
"30SecondsToFly uses a proprietary, travel domain specific natural language processing (NLP) engine and proprietary trip selection algorithms that mirror the complexity of travel agents’ choices."
Function
Human Resources
Employee Relations
Background
"30SecondstoFly, based in New York and Bangkok, has built a chatbot for travel booking that works via SMS or the messaging platform Slack. The company is using tools provided by API.ai, a California company that has built up a powerful suite of tools for handling queries written in natural language."
"It is difficult for management to lower travel expenses systematically when their employees are booking their business trips on multiple different websites."
Benefits
Data