HTS, Hopper's B2B ARM has launched a generative artificial intelligence (AI) assistant to help travel sellers improve the way they support their customers.
The tool, called HTS Assist, has already been used by some of HTS' bank partners, including Lotte Card and SMBC, and as a result, the partners report an average reduction in service costs by 65%.
“Through Assist's innovative AL technology, we provide world-class offerings to the market, enabling airlines and travel providers to provide faster resolutions, improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs.
How HTS works
Hopper co-founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde said the tool can handle all changes, including cancellations, confusion and refunds, and its human agents are trained to talk to customers around the world.
“It's completely transactional. It can actually deal with real customer issues and is specially trained for travel,” Laronde said. “If you go to ChatGpt on the app now and try to have this conversation, the language model continues on you, but hallucinates all sorts of things… because it's not designed for travel or has no connectivity.”
According to the company, HTS Assist is available in over 30 languages available in 200 markets and over 30 languages, and could also unlock the provider's new revenue stream.
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And it's cheaper than human customer support agents, Laronde said.
“The average cost of a solution is $1.12. [resolution typically] He said. “It's really very efficient and 92% cheaper for operators because it actually provides a solution four times faster than humans. So obviously these are metrics we've seen working in our environment. We expect the same thing to happen when we push our customers.”
Lalonde said the HTS Assist is connected to passenger systems such as airlines, car rental companies and more.
“One of the reasons why this really works is because we use the entire HTS connection that has been built for fintech and commerce for over a decade,” Laronde said. “We've been building this gradually on the Commerce Network.”
The tool can handle tasks independently, but it also allows customers to reach human agents.
“There [are] Because of a particular company's very specific use cases, we have many reasons why we may have something to say, for compliance reasons. [need this] “And by design, there are two or three different models that are used,” she said.
Lai expects adoption to take time, given the newness of technology.
“The idea that it's there isn't to the point where AI can't do some things, I don't think it's necessarily the case,” she said. “It's so connected to all systems that you can get information, and it can actually be end-to-end. [action]. But it's really a proactive business choice or where customers need it for accessibility or other reasons. ”
The Future of Travel and HTS
HTS Assist is a new development for HTS, but Lalonde generally believes that greater changes in Commerce are on track, indicating that HTS Assist's capabilities indicate that pending shifts.
“We haven't played like cavemen as a species, with Booking.com filters and checkboxes for a very long time,” says Lalonde. So it's completely clear that other services are the first place to start seeing innovation. This is a more constrained environment, but we expect significant changes in travel commerce over the next two to three years. ”
Lalonde also sees HTS leaning against AI for financial products.
“We've been a big data company for a long time and have done a lot of machine learning,” he said. “We are beginning to play with fully-generated predictive models.
“We don't even know what's possible there, but the idea of offering these policies cheaply and cheaper in more places gives customers better results. “So we're not showing anything right now, but we can imagine that's a big focus for us.”
Want to learn more about Hopper and HTS?
Attend the Phocuswright Conference in San Diego from November 18th to November 20th to listen to Dakota Smith, Hopper's president and co-founder, speak on an executive panel entitled “The New Travel Seller Arena.”
