Vim Vithaldas
Gary Lewis (left) and guest speaker Sir Clive Woodward
New technology will listen to customer conversations
Technology that listens, records and analyses in-store interactions between agents and customers will be offered to The Travel Network Group members next year.
The consortium said the
technology, originally developed for call centres, had never been used in a retail setting and would revolutionise how agents measure performance. The move met with the
approval of England Rugby World Cup winning coach Sir Clive Woodward, guest speaker at the travel agency group’s annual overseas conference in Monaco. Sir Clive told delegates how his decision to use Prozone, which features powerful cameras to track players’ every move, was vital to his success with England. He told delegates “whoever wins
at IT tends to win” and added: “Voice analytics, amazing. I would love to see it.” Sir Clive admitted England
rugby players had not at first been enthusiastic about Prozone
cameras being installed at Twickenham Stadium because it meant there was no hiding place. But he said they came to
appreciate the data and insight it offered both on their performance and the opposition’s. Group chief executive Gary
Lewis said the technology, which was not named, was not about spying on staff but about measuring agent performance by analysing conversations with clients. “It’s about how you make your
customers feel,” he said. “It’s an emotion, it’s sentiment, positive or negative. To measure
that in a conversation becomes really interesting.” The technology will take voice
recordings via microphones placed in agencies and turn that into text which is then analysed. Lewis said permissions would
have to be sought from staff and customers, but he believed agents would embrace the technology to help them improve performance. The technology has been trialled
with a call centre and two shops. An implementation and
analytics team will be established and pricing set ahead of a planned introduction of the technology in the first quarter of 2018.
Agent award-winners, 2017
Six agent awards were handed out at the conference: l The Power of You award: Tailor Made Travel l TTA member of the year: Party Hard Travel l Worldchoice member of the year: Lincolnshire Co-op l Independent Travel Expert of the year (homeworkers): Lorna Hardy l Worldchoice Plus member of the year: Beacon Travel l Lifetime Achievement: Roger and Helen Hawke, Newell’s Travel
Bookings double on Honeycomb
Bookings on The Travel Network Group’s Honeycomb dynamic packaging platform have doubled since it was relaunched in February 2016. Since then 12 suppliers and
28 new features have been added. A total of 62 members have signed up for in-store training on the system. Further enhancements, including multi-centre and open-jaw flights, a new quotes display and website vouchers, are due to go live next week. Lisa Henning, group membership services director, said Honeycomb played a significant role when Monarch collapsed in October. By 9am on the morning of
the collapse, all bookings made on any of the group’s central systems had been reprotected, Henning said.
Lisa Henning
23 November 2017
travelweekly.co.uk 15
PICTURES: SIMON HARVEY PHOTOGRAPHY
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