Qantas has launched Qantas Concierge, a Facebook Messenger bot that gives customers personalised travel inspiration.
The launch of the bot is part of Qantas’ strategy to give customers faster responses and more relevant information through easily accessible channels.
Kristin Carlos, Qantas head of digital and entertainment, said Qantas Concierge will be an evolution of the airlines customer communications, boosting Qantas’ presence on a hugely popular social media platform while offering immediate travel solutions.
“We recognise that different people want to communicate with us in different ways. With over 15 million people on Facebook in Australia, growing our presence with the social networking service makes sense,” Carlos said.
“Qantas is committed to being at the forefront of innovation in the way we talk to our customers and the way we help them navigate the complexities of travel.
“Qantas Concierge is designed to save customers the time and energy involved in planning a trip while empowering them to self-serve from a virtual library of rich travel content.”
Through Qantas Concierge customers can access sale information and destination inspiration in line with their interests, whether that be beach destinations or amazing Airbnb’s around the world.
Learning from customer interactions and conversations, Qantas’ new Artificial Intelligence backed service will become more user friendly and effective over time, making it an increasingly powerful customer service tool for the airline.
Throughout 2017 Qantas plans to grow the chat bots capability to offer a full suite of concierge services including operational notifications such as itineraries, flight and gate change updates and boarding passes.
Qantas Concierge will ultimately become another support channel for customers complementing the airlines suite of call centres and social media response teams.
The launch of Qantas Concierge marks the beginning of Qantas as an official Facebook partner, joining a select group of companies recognised for their innovative ways in engaging customers.
The partnership will see Facebook work closely with Qantas to connect with new customers via the social networking site and engage with existing audiences in exciting new ways. Qantas was recently the first airline to work with Facebook on advertising through Instagram Stories.
Paul McCrory, group industry director at Facebook Australia and New Zealand, said, “Facebook’s partners are a community of best-in-class companies who are looking for innovative means to talk to their customers and new audiences.
“Qantas is always exploring new ways to evolve its customer communication, we look forward to collaborating with them on exciting new projects and pioneering new ground in this space.”
Qantas is one of the first Australian brands to introduce a Chat Bot following in the footsteps of innovative international brands such as eBay, Disney and Uber. Qantas is also the first airline in the Asia pacific to be announced as an official Facebook partner.
