5 Ways Conversational AI Can Accelerate Sales for Travel Brands

Building customer loyalty directly translates to brand growth for travel companies. Customer loyalty helps you retain customers and can amplify your brand’s presence through word-of-mouth marketing. 

Travel companies, however, face challenges in delivering the personalized and immediate experiences that today’s travelers want. A whopping 70% want instant and convenient communication channels, while 64% expect real-time responses. Imagine a traveler with a pressing question about a delayed flight – waiting on hold isn’t an option in this scenario.

This gets further exasperated with common issues like:

• Delayed responses
• Lack of personalized options
• Inefficient communication channels
• Limited 24/7 Conversational support
• Difficulty managing multiple inquiries simultaneously

To address these issues, travel brands need to adopt better communication systems. Moving from reactive to proactive service models with solutions like Conversational AI is essential. Gupshup’s Conversational AI can solve these challenges by offering:

• Real-time, personalized responses to inquiries
• Seamless 24/7 support
• Efficient management of multiple conversations
• Improved customer engagement through instant communication
• Enhanced customer satisfaction with personalized travel recommendations

With Conversational AI capabilities, travel brands can address these challenges and focus on delivering exceptional travel experiences while meeting high expectations. 

So, to help your travel business gain a competitive edge in a customer-first world, we have curated a list of 5 Conversational AI use cases. Let’s dive right in!

Ways Conversational AI Can Accelerate Sales for Travel Brands

To understand how AI-powered chatbots are beneficial for travel agencies, let’s get into their main use cases –  

1. Automation of Essential Customer Interactions

Travel brands often have to manage repetitive tasks efficiently, which can overwhelm human agents and lead to errors and inefficiencies. But, managing routine tasks is also the key to improving customer service and operational efficiency. 

Here is where automation solutions like Conversational AI come in. It helps travel companies reduce the workload on human agents, allowing them to focus on more complex customer service issues that need human intervention. This saves both time and money. It also makes processes more efficient and virtually error-free.  

How can AI-powered chatbots make automation simpler?

• Early Meal Bookings: AI-powered chatbots can automate meal bookings for flights or hotels. Once a traveler selects their meal preferences, the chatbot logs and confirms the booking without a manual entry from service agents.
• Seat Selections: Travelers can choose their preferred seats through a Conversational interface. The AI chatbot displays available seats and processes selections in real time.
• Handling Special Requests: AI chatbots manage special requests like extra pillows or special assistance at the airport efficiently, logging the requests into the system without back-and-forth communication.

Now that we have seen how Conversational AI can streamline the travel experience, let’s consider the example of John. John is a regular customer who appreciates efficiency and a hassle-free travel experience. This is where your company’s Conversational AI benefits John. Here’s how your travel brand can help –

What are the Conversational AI benefits in this scenario?

• Efficiency: Quick and effortless conversation.
• Convenience: Booking within a familiar messaging environment.
• Personalization: Remembering preferences for future interactions.

Gupshup can be your go-to solution for automating tasks. With Gupshup’s capabilities, your travel agency can significantly improve the travel planning experience for your customers. Your travel brand can help create personalized journeys with tools like Journey Builder and more and engage across 30+ communication channels. The AI chatbots can seamlessly integrate with CRM systems to ensure consistent, personalized interactions. 

2. Personalization of Travel Experiences with AI-Powered Chatbots

Generic recommendations generally fail to meet the specific needs and desires of travelers, leading to lower satisfaction and engagement. Thus, personalization becomes key to enhancing the travel experience and boosting customer loyalty.

In a cookie-less world, where traditional tracking methods are becoming obsolete, Conversational AI stands out by utilizing direct interactions and real-time data to personalize the travel experience. This shift ensures that personalization remains privacy-compliant, relying on the valuable insights gathered during customer engagements rather than third-party cookies. This allows travel brands to offer highly customized travel recommendations and services. 

Conversational AI benefits in creating personalized journeys: 

• Enhanced Recommendations: Tailored suggestions increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Loyalty Programs: Effective management of loyalty programs with customized rewards like upgrades, special access, and discounts.

Let’s look at a WhatsApp API template where we see how AI chatbots can help John with personalized travel experiences:

This interaction shows how chatbots can use personalized data to enhance the consumer experience. Consumers benefit from tailored experiences that are automatically arranged without the need to manually sift through options or negotiate for perks. This convenience, combined with the personal touch of tailored suggestions and rewards, significantly enhances customer satisfaction and retention rates.

3. Seamless Real-Time Customer Support

Real-time support is essential for managing immediate travel needs and crises. Delays and inefficiencies in customer support can lead to dissatisfaction, especially during travel disruptions. AI chatbots provide 24/7 real-time assistance, managing high volumes of queries and aiding in crisis management.

Conversational AI benefits in providing real-time customer support:

• Immediate Assistance: Round-the-clock support without delays.
• Real-time Responses: Quick updates on flight statuses and inquiries.
• Crisis Management: Proactive communication and decision support during disruptions.

To illustrate these benefits further, here is an example of how an AI chatbot can provide real-time travel assistance to customers – 

This conversation clearly shows Conversational AI benefits. It shows how chatbots facilitate seamless interaction, providing quick solutions that are crucial during travel disruptions. 

With Gupshup’s AI chatbots, support is immediate and effective, ensuring customer satisfaction during critical moments.

4. Enhancing Revenue Through Targeted Upselling

Upselling additional services can significantly boost revenue for travel brands.

However, generic upselling strategies often fail to resonate with customers, missing opportunities for additional revenue.

Thus, AI chatbots for businesses are the best solution. AI chatbots analyze customer profiles and interactions to make intelligent suggestions for upgrades, extended stays, and travel insurance.

What are the benefits of this?

• Personalized Offers: Tailored upselling strategies based on data.
• Increased Sales: Relevant and timely offers enhance conversion rates.
• Familiar Platform: Utilizing WhatsApp for upselling ensures customer comfort.

To see this in action, consider an example of how an AI chatbot can effectively upsell additional services to travelers:

This example illustrates how chatbots can effectively use data to make personalized upselling offers that are timely and relevant. By integrating these capabilities with WhatsApp API, the process becomes even more streamlined and accessible, leading to higher conversion rates and improved customer satisfaction. Gupshup can help your travel business streamline these processes even more seamlessly. 

5. Account Management and Support:

Traditional account management processes can be cumbersome and time-consuming for travelers. Thus, it is important for travel brands to develop efficient account management strategies that will help enhance sales. 

AI chatbots streamline account management tasks, allowing customers to access and manage their accounts securely. These provide instant support and personalized interactions, improving account management and opening opportunities for upselling and cross-selling additional services. This is a great aid in boosting revenue. 

What is the benefit?

• Easy Access: Quick checks on loyalty points and status.
• Profile Updates: On-the-go updates to personal information.
• Subscription Management: Handling preferences for newsletters and promotions.

Let’s look at an example – 

This interaction demonstrates how chatbots can facilitate the efficient management of travel-related accounts. They can offer quick, personalized, and accurate service. The ease of managing accounts via WhatsApp reduces friction and makes travel planning and account maintenance less cumbersome, and Gupshup is here to help you with that.

The Future of Conversational AI in The Travel Industry

The integration of AI-powered chatbots across various customer interaction points in the travel industry is just the beginning of a deeper, more intuitive technological integration. AI chatbots significantly boost sales by offering personalized upselling and cross-selling opportunities.

Imagine AI-driven interfaces that anticipate needs and personalize recommendations with incredible accuracy. From intelligent personal assistants managing complex trip planning to AI tools offering real-time support and personalized offers, the possibilities for enhancing customer experience and driving revenue are boundless.

As these technologies learn and evolve, they will offer more nuanced and sophisticated interactions that mimic human conversation and reasoning even more closely. 

To kickstart your AI chatbot integration, contact Gupshup now.