NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS CONTINUED FROM THE BACK
more demand for additional information that technology today doesn’t allow you to put on a website”, such as specific room details, which he said was “difficult to bring in front of the customer at low-risk”. But he did champion Cook’s
Choose Your Room option, launched in September, which the company says adds personalisation by giving customers the option to decide exactly where they are staying. “I think one of the most demanding requests from the customer is to know exactly what kind of room you will get before you arrive,” he said. Another innovation he
highlighted was Cook’s The Holiday App, which he described as a “companion” which can be used to book seats or meals on flights or to talk to the reps before arrival. “We want the customer to be
always in touch with us or the hotel at every point,” he said. Despas stressed that Cook
“doesn’t use technology for the sake of it”. He added: “We need to first
of all know whether it’s serving the customer before we hire a bunch of data scientists and give them the resources.” But he revealed that mobile
is now the chosen platform for 50% of Cook’s online traffic. “There’s been a big adoption
by our clients,” said Despas. “More and more customers are booking a package holiday on a smartphone – and actually transacting too.” He said this was in part down
to Cook optimising its websites for use on smartphones – “sometimes they are smartphone only,” he added. Technology, he said, would
ultimately lead to a change in many roles in travel, with fewer process-type jobs but increased demand for people with specialist travel knowledge.
Travolution Summit 2017: User reviews, data regulations, machine
Harness power of reviews, says TripAdvisor’s Reid
TripAdvisor’s head of destina- tions urged travel companies to embrace reviews and accept that they are “not going away”.
Justin Reid said companies should utilise the reviews culture as it continues to grow exponentially. TripAdvisor had one million reviews in 2000, rising to 100 million in 2013. Now the site gets 415 million unique views every month. “No one is slowing down in
terms of making reviews,” he said. “You should embrace reviews because they are not going away.” But he said the growing concern
of ‘fake news’ was becoming a problem. “The whole idea of what you can trust is becoming more and more confusing,” he said. “Fake news is something we didn’t even talk about a year ago.” Reid said a “critical mass” of
reviews is important. “When people see that critical mass of several thousand reviews which are overwhelmingly positive, people put trust in that,” he said, adding that firms can use reviews
Machine learning ‘can drive better customer service’
Machine learning can help travel firms become “frictionless” and deliver better customer service,
Rentalcars.com’s chief product officer told the Travolution Summit. Supriya Uchil, who joined from Amazon earlier this year and previously helped scale popular smartphone game Farmville from 16 million to 25 million users, said she was bringing some of
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travelweekly.co.uk 19 October 2017
as “free customer research”. Hotel giant Hilton, he said,
was set to spend millions on new linen but – after analysing typical reviews – realised customers wanted free Wi-Fi instead. “Reviews can expose the
weakness of your product and help you address it,” Reid told Travolution Summit delegates. His views were echoed by Matt
Eames, chief commercial officer at rival review firm Feefo. “There’s no such thing as
review fatigue,” said Eames, who
the practices over from the online retail giant to Manchester-based
Rentalcars.com, which now deals with more than nine million bookings a year in 158 countries. She said machine learning helps companies deliver “long-term trust” and keep in touch with customers 24 hours a day with “frictionless” customer service. Uchil said Rentalcars was set
to use machine learning to rank vehicles to suit clients’ preferences, cut out price anomalies, process cancellations, and figure out the appropriate tone of an email to generate feedback from customers.
REID: ‘Embrace reviews because they are not going away’
predicted ‘in-moment reviewing’. “Customers are willing to post
their feelings instantaneously. Businesses often complain that they wish they’d been given the feedback at the time of the service to remedy any issues,” he said. Eames warned companies that
if they don’t show some negative comments, customers query whether the positives are genuine. He added: “Reviews are happening whether you like them or not; harness the power and own the conversation.”
UCHIL: Rentalcars is to start using machine learning in its service
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