Christian Draeger, who runs passenger experience there, talks about it in a way that’s surprisingly down-to-earth. “We’re not just starting at the airport door,” he says. “We’re already looking at customers, how they can get prepared for their travel, even days ahead of the actual travel plans.”

That’s a different way of thinking about travel, one where the airport is part of the journey, not a pause in it. Draeger’s rule is simple: “Put the passenger in the center.”

That idea is becoming more important. Around two-thirds of travelers now use AI tools to plan their trips, and most say they want services that adjust to them, not the other way around. Berlin’s answer is to mix technology with empathy, using automation to remove hassle, not humanity, and turn the everyday airport routine into something that actually works for people.

Understanding & Designing for the Modern Traveler

Christian Draeger has spent a lifetime around airports. More than thirty years in aviation have given him a deep sense of how people move, wait, and connect. During his time with Star Alliance, he helped shape what millions of passengers now recognize as the modern travel experience. When he joined Berlin Brandenburg Airport, he came in ready to rethink that experience from the ground up.

Berlin handles around 25 million passengers a year, so it’s big enough to be busy, but small enough to still care. “We also operate our premium services: two business-class lounges and an ultra-premium lounge where you get à la carte dining and a chauffeur service to the aircraft,” Draeger said.

That same care for detail extends to the parts of the journey most people barely notice. The airport also took control of its own security operations, because, as Draeger puts it, “We felt that the mandate of the federal police didn’t provide enough attention towards the passenger experience.”

Now there are 32 security lanes, 24 fitted with advanced CT scanners, so passengers can keep laptops in their bags and carry small amounts of liquid without delay. “It’s about having a consistent experience across the whole area of the airport,” he says.

Every choice is made with the passenger in mind. “It starts really by knowing our customers,” Draeger says. “If we have a family that’s traveling once a year on holiday, their prerogatives are different from a business-class customer focused on getting through as efficiently as possible.”

That balance, efficiency for some, discovery for others, is at the heart of personalization in travel, and it’s essential. A recent study found that 93 percent of travelers now expect some form of tailored service. Berlin’s approach proves those numbers translate into real-world design decisions: better security flow, less queuing, and even duty-free areas reimagined as “specialized marketplaces.”

Dual-Terminal Strategy: Two Philosophies, One Vision

A walk through Berlin Brandenburg Airport reveals something a bit different. Its two terminals don’t just separate airlines; they reflect two completely distinct types of travelers. One is designed for comfort, the other for speed. Together, they show how personalization in travel can be built into the physical space, not only into digital systems.

“The level of automation that you will find with low-cost carriers is more in focus than with a legacy carrier,” says Draeger. Terminal 2 is the efficient, minimalist one: smaller, sharper, and geared toward travelers who value simplicity and price over perks. “Terminal 2 is geared to simplicity and generating additional revenues through add-on services,” he explains.

Think self-service kiosks, intuitive wayfinding, and a layout that helps people move quickly from curb to gate. “The utilization of busses is less, you have more walk boardings,” he adds.

Terminal 1, meanwhile, is a different rhythm altogether. “It’s about efficiency and comfort, both guided by digital tools.” Business and frequent flyers pass through airport automation that’s designed to make the process seamless. Over a hundred self-service kiosks are spread across the terminal, complemented by digital signage and premium lounges.

It’s the physical version of a digital truth: no two passengers want the same thing. Some want to breeze through with a coffee and a boarding pass on their phone. Others want time, space, and a glass of something cold before they fly. Both deserve an experience that feels intentional.

That’s what Berlin is building, a new kind of airport customer experience where infrastructure itself becomes a form of personalization. Different terminals, different tools, same philosophy: know who’s traveling, and design accordingly.

AI and Automation Enhancing Personalization in Travel

Like most airports, Berlin once relied on a traditional call center. It worked, but just barely. “We were looking at our call center and we weren’t completely happy,” says Draeger. “It was limited, inconsistent, and expensive.”

That frustration turned into an opportunity. Berlin decided to replace its call center entirely with a generative AI-powered system. The result was “Berry”, Berlin’s always-on virtual assistant.

“Customers can call the AI hotline and have a conversation just like we’re having right now,” Draeger says. It took just six weeks to build and launch, and within a few months, the results were striking: satisfaction above 85 percent, costs down 65 percent, and service available 24/7.

The human element didn’t vanish; it just found a new home. Instead of waiting in phone queues, travelers get answers right away. Lost something? Need flight details? Berry, the airport’s AI agent, takes care of it and loops in a person if the question needs a human touch. It’s simple to use too: one phone number on Berlin Airport’s website connects straight to Berry.

Building the AI Layer with Berry

Behind the scenes, Berry learns fast. “After six to eight weeks we reached an acceptable level… then you could see week-to-week improvements as GenAI learned,” Draeger explains. His team fed the system with real passenger questions and prioritized the most urgent topics first, like the classic “I left my laptop on the aircraft.” “We prioritized major customer concerns to ensure correct routing from day one,” he says.

Now the airport is preparing for the next step, chat. “We want to also offer the ability to get in touch with our AI agent through chat functionality,” says Draeger. QR codes will soon appear throughout the terminals, linking passengers directly to Berry via chat, integrated into the website and app. “If you’re standing in the arrivals hall, we’ll know based on the QR code where you are, and tailor the information accordingly.”

The idea is to build truly contextual assistance: a passenger in departures might ask about gate directions or restaurants, while someone at baggage reclaim could get help locating transport or lost luggage. “Customers can switch between voice and chat depending on environment or age. My children would prefer to talk; someone in a crowded terminal might prefer to chat,” Draeger says.

Operational AI and the Quest for Seamlessness

A lot of what makes Berlin Brandenburg Airport work isn’t something you can see. It happens on the tarmac between the terminal and the runway, where planes turn around for their next flight, and timing is everything.

“We also have others more on the ramp side,” says Draeger, referring to a system the airport now uses to track ground operations in real time. Cameras watch every stage of the turnaround, feeding data to an AI that predicts how long the process will take and where it might go wrong. “They can predict turnaround durations and steer additional resources if required,” he explains. “If a baggage belt is missing upon arrival, they can autonomously act on that and resolve bottlenecks.”

This is the kind of work that truly shapes the airport customer experience. When flights leave as scheduled, lines move faster, and connections fall into place without drama. Most travelers never think about the coordination behind it all. Yet every new piece of technology adds a layer that must fit perfectly with the rest.

But every new layer of technology brings its own challenge. “We always want to have this seamless experience for our customers,” Draeger says. “As we introduce more technology, we’ll have the challenge of combining it with legacy systems.”

Airports, after all, are built to last, and that means old baggage systems, decades-old software, and miles of wiring that can’t just be swapped overnight. “Traffic is increasing significantly, and we have limited infrastructure,” he adds. “We need simpler processes and better technology to absorb growth.”

Behind the polished front end of any airport automation project lies a balancing act: new tools talking to old systems, innovation working around concrete and cables.

The Future for Personalization In Travel: Digital Handholding

When asked what he thinks the future of travel looks like, Christian Draeger doesn’t mention drones or driverless terminals. He talks about something far simpler: help that is steady, thoughtful, and personal. “We always like to call it digital handholding,” he says. “A digital entity that’s completely informed, taking the customer by the hand and guiding them through the journey.”

Many agree that this is exactly where AI in the travel industry is heading. Gartner predicts that more than 80% of all customer interactions will be AI-assisted by 2029. The difference now is how personal that assistance can become.

“In the future, we see customers having their own personalized digital agents,” Draeger says, “on mobile, VR glasses, or other interfaces.” Those agents will be able to do a lot. “They’ll be able to rebook flights, change hotels, handle issues,” he explains. “We’ll need to provide them with the knowledge base and interconnectivity so they can act.”

He describes a world where these personal assistants talk to each other. “We’ll see a marketplace developing for agent-to-agent interaction,” he says, a network where your digital travel companion can speak directly to an airline, a hotel, or even the airport itself to smooth out the details before you notice them.

Some of that is already visible in small ways. Berlin is already imagining using augmented reality to help people find their way through the terminal. “If you come to Berlin Airport, sometimes you’ll find too many information boards,” Draeger admits. “Imagine augmented reality guiding you through the airport.”

It’s easy to see where this leads: toward an airport customer experience that blends technology with intuition. The idea isn’t to overwhelm passengers with data, but to take away the stress of travel entirely.

Personalization in Travel and Airports as Experience Ecosystems

Christian Draeger talks about air travel the way some people talk about music, not as noise and movement, but as rhythm. Airports, he says, are meant to keep that rhythm steady. When they do, everything else feels effortless.

“It’s all about making travel easier,” he says. “Like when you take a train, you just arrive and go, that’s the overarching ambition.”

Mostly, Berlin Brandenburg Airport is just pushing for a calmer travel experience. From the moment a traveler checks in to the moment they leave the gate, the goal is to take away the small frictions that make airports stressful. Berry, the AI voice agent, is part of that. So are the self-service kiosks, the CT-scan security lanes, and the quiet bits of software that keep aircraft turning on time.

“It’s not about one technology: Gen AI, robotics, biometrics, or AR,” Draeger says. “It’s about combining them to make travel much simpler.”

That line sums up Berlin’s whole approach to personalization in travel. It isn’t about showing off what technology can do; it’s about how little the traveler has to notice it.

That’s the real future of airport customer experience: an ecosystem that looks complicated underneath but feels beautifully ordinary on the surface, the kind of simplicity only achieved when someone’s been obsessing over every detail on your behalf.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a customer called up a company and ended up accidentally sending money to a bad actor.  

It isn’t quite a tale as old as time, but it’s certainly been around for as long as telephony customer service has been.  

In most cases, the customer uses an internet search to find the company’s contact number and is redirected to a scam line or receives a call directly from the scammer impersonating the company.  

However, in this instance, Smoker has proof that he only ever dialed the United Airlines’ official customer service number, so how exactly did he end up losing over $17,000?  

A Series of Usual and Unusual Events

As he was about to embark on a European family holiday, Smoker’s flight was cancelled.  

Most people will have experienced something similar at some point during their travels. While it is unfortunate and can be very irritating, it is usually a fairly straightforward process.  

Smoker contacted the official United Airlines customer service number to try to rebook a flight for himself and his family.  

During his three-hour-plus phone call, Smoker was able to rebook the flights and upgrade to premium economy. The service agent confirmed that they would have to charge Smoker for the new tickets, but that he would be able to get a full refund.  

Following the call, Smoker received an email confirmation with details of the new flights and the refund. 

It all sounds pretty uneventful so far, but this is where things took a turn. 

Months later, the refund never appeared. 

After checking over his credit card statement, Smoker noticed that the $17,000 charge was listed under AIRLINEFARE, rather than United Airlines.

At this point, he suspected he may have been the victim of a scam and reached out to Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger. 

Staegar reviewed Smoker’s call log and confirmed that he had contacted the official United Airlines number, but he did notice several irregularities with the email confirmation.  

“When I read that refund email, I spotted red flags almost immediately, like the email didn’t come from a United Airlines email address,” he said in an appearance on Denver, Colorado’s 9News.  

The format is weird, some numbers with zeros in front of them, dollars always listed in USD, dates with day in front of the month. I figured Dan had been taken advantage of.

But, if Smoker only ever contacted United, how did this happen?  

During the call, Smoker recalls being placed on hold by a female agent. When the call returned, it had been passed on to a new male agent named ‘David’.  

It looks like this is where the scammer must have made contact, as United later confirmed that although they did have a record of Smoker’s call, it had only been logged on their side for 12 minutes – not the three hours that Smoker’s call log shows.  

The airline has launched an internal review but cannot yet explain how the line was diverted to a scammer or why their own records showed a far shorter interaction. 

In the meantime, Smoker has filed a fraud report with his card provider as he waits for answers.  

However, Smoker has stated that “it’s not even about United paying the $17,000,” he just wants to know how he contacted United Airlines but ended up being on the phone with ‘David’. 

How Enterprises Can Avoid the Same Pitfalls

While the United Airlines mess has yet to fully untangle itself and is undoubtedly a unique instance, there are still wider customer experience and service lessons to be learned.  

For enterprises, the story should be viewed as more than just a one-off scam; it’s an example of what happens when customers can’t trust the channels you control. 

Contact numbers, live chat links, and social handles serve as signals of credibility. If those signals are hijacked or left vulnerable, the brand becomes part of the problem. 

So, what can enterprises do? 

First, agent education is critical. In this case, the agent could have been manipulated into forwarding the customer to a fraudster. As such, contact center leaders must offer agents a clear escalation path if they are ever threatened into following a scam, so they never feel alone and coerced. 

That’s not an unusual occurrence. Many customer service leaders will tell stories of their agents being threatened in the car park to share sensitive information.

There is also the chance that the agent did this of their own free will. Given this risk, service leaders should engage with their tech partners to ensure they can block external transfers or add a permissions layer.

Moreover, contact centers should tighten their verification processes. That means securing their digital footprint across search engines, directories, and social platforms, making sure customers aren’t falling into lookalike traps. 

From there, they must build redundancy into their trust markers. Caller ID authentication, clear callback protocols, and two-step verification for financial transactions are no longer ‘nice-to-haves’; they’re essentials. 

Equally, enterprises need to think about customer communication. When customers don’t know how to tell the difference between a real agent and an impostor, silence becomes a risk. 

Proactive education – whether it’s a line in the IVR, a banner on the support site, or consistent messaging in email receipts – can go a long way in this regard. 

At its core, this is about recognizing that the support channel isn’t just a service function; it’s the front line of brand integrity. 

If customers can’t trust the number they call, everything else comes undone. 

The vendor touted these deals during its quarterly earnings and has since shared more information as to why three of its biggest new customers chose eGain. 

According to Ashu Roy, CEO of eGain, these enterprises are typically “struggling with content silos and fragmented knowledge,” which makes it harder to ensure that AI systems provide correct and consistent answers. 

Naturally, if trustworthy information is hard for human and AI agents to acquire in contact centers, then this may cause slower response times and unnecessary frustration for customers and reps. The CEO continued:  

“Having a single source of truth in a knowledge central hub across the business is becoming critical.” 

Consequently, this is creating a trend of businesses sourcing solutions for knowledge centralization.  

Such knowledge centralization is critical for many generative AI (GenAI) use cases contact centers are experimenting with.  

For instance, over half of contact centers already use generative AI (GenAI) to draft customer responses that human reps can review, edit, and send.  

The Big Wins 

First, eGain signed a megadeal with an interactive entertainment company with around 800 million international player accounts. 

The company wanted a knowledge base for its players but struggled with the existing platform, as “it did not provide the necessary APIs and functionality to implement [their] vision.”  

eGain offered the company its “innovation in a 30-day pilot” program to experience the platform’s capabilities, which helped push the deal over the line.  

Another deal was with a global money transfer company with 150 million customers from across 200 countries.  

This company tried to implement a customer knowledge platform twice before turning to eGain.  

Finally, there’s the deal eGain secured with a prominent US airline company that is “one of the largest” in the world. 

With contact center locations spanning the globe, the airline wanted to modernize and streamline its customer service operations. 

As such, it built up many knowledge silos over time and wanted a single platform for use across multiple customer touchpoints, languages, and business units.  

Here, eGain can leverage its knowledge management heritage, accompanied by its “hub-based” approach, which the provider believes is unique.  

Why Might Big Customers Choose eGain? 

In the customer service CRM space, eGain competes with the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and several other tech giants.  

So why would CX leaders choose eGain? 

Last year, Gartner acknowledged eGain as a market “visionary” in its 2024 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Centers. 

The report pinpoints “AI-led innovation pace,” “composability,” and “knowledge management” as core strengths, positioning it as a strong contender in the CRM market. 

As mentioned, a background in contact center knowledge management – delivering “trusted” and “compliant” answers for customers, agents, and employees – is key. 

eGain built on this in 2024, introducing the capability to automatically capture emerging intents, understand how agents solve those queries, and auto-draft knowledge articles. These then power its customer-facing virtual agent for a more autonomous contact center.  

Brands may also bring their own virtual agent, perhaps leveraging a third-party conversational AI solution from Cognigy, Google, Kore.ai, etc.  

According to Roy, such possibilities are attracting new prospects, with the number of seven-figure deals in eGain’s pipeline doubling. 

However, the CEO  noted that “the side effect of this trend is more scrutiny on these projects, and the vetting process now includes groups like the AI office. So these bigger deals are taking some more time to close.” 

That’s a trend an increasing number of CX vendors are calling out.  

The customer in question, Jake Moffatt, was a bereaved grandchild who paid more than $1600 for a return flight to and from Toronto when he only in fact needed to pay around $760 in accordance with the airline’s bereavement rates.

The chatbot told Moffatt that he could fill out a ticket refund application after purchasing the full-price tickets to claim back more than half of the cost, but this was erroneous advice.

Nevertheless, Air Canada argued that it should not be held responsible for the advice given by its chatbot, amongst other defenses.

Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) member Christopher Rivers wrote as part of its reasoning for the verdict:

In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission.

“While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website.

“It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website.

“It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.”

Initially, an Air Canada customer service representative pointed Mr Moffatt to a link the chatbot had shared, which provided accurate information about its bereavement policies. They also told him that they would update the chatbot to prevent it from dispensing the same misleading advice.

Mr Moffatt was not satisfied with this, however, and elected to sue the airline.

Alongside its defense that it was not responsible for the chatbot’s words, the airline also argued that Mr. Moffatt could have found the correct information on one of its web pages, as well as the terms and conditions of its tariff removing its liability.

The court was unpersuaded by these arguments and it ordered Air Canada to pay Mr. Moffatt a total of $812.02 to cover damages, pre-judgment interest, and CRT fees.

According to a survey of the Canadian Legal Information Institute, which keeps a database of Canadian legal decisions, Mr Moffatt’s case is the first to feature fallacious advice from a chatbot.

The Bigger Picture

With new GenAI-augmented chatbots, brands can hook their virtual agent up to internal knowledge sources, and it will respond to customers without prior training.

This story underlines the necessity of vetting that material, and testing.

Yet, it also begs the question, is GenAI without a human-in-the-loop ready for such use cases?

After all, this story follows DPD’s GenAI-powered bot swearing and writing a poem about “how terrible they are as a company”.

Rebecca Wetteman, CEO & Principal Analyst at Valoir, projected that many AI projects will suffer “spectacular” failures in 2024 – and it appears she may have been onto something.

“Lack of mature technology, adequate policies and procedures, training, and safeguards are creating a perfect storm for AI accidents far more dramatic than just hallucinations,” she said in a CX predictions video.

Expect public fails, lawsuits, and effective shake-ups of technology vendors and AI adopters when things go awry.

While many companies are already relying on chatbots to meet their customer service demands, the technology evidently has much more maturing to do.

Indeed, Pierce Buckley, CEO & Co-Founder at babelforce, is concerned that a second wave of terrible bots is on its way this year; the first wave being those released in the early 2010s.

He believes that in order to raise the chatbot user experience, businesses must include the human perspective from the outset.

British Airways, a leading travel company from the UK, carries more than 40 million customers per year to their desired destinations, while also constantly addressing concerns, queries, and questions presented by their customers. To develop deeper relationships with their consumers, British Airways International leveraged the Salesforce CRM landscape, to unlock new insights and data.  

Here’s what happened when British Airways invested in the Salesforce ecosystem.  

Enhancing the Sales and Service Landscape 

British Airways International serves a variety of consumers, from everyday travel fans to Business professionals. As part of its growth plan, the company believes in the importance of delivering personalized, engaging experiences to each market segment. With Salesforce, the company was able to create a centralized sales planning and operation environment, where users could more effectively leverage customer data for improved interactions.  

The Salesforce ecosystem and the Sales Cloud has enabled British Airways to reduce some of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks distracting their workforce. The “digital platform”, as it is referred to by the company, ensures employees can plan, collaborate, and execute deals in the same, informative environment.  

Additionally, Salesforce Community Cloud has given the organization an opportunity to streamline interactions with clients, through self-service options. According to the brand, the Community cloud has reduced the time for publishing new far options from two weeks to 72 hours. It has also empowered travel management companies to manage their own offers more effectively.  

The Salesforce ecosystem is even helping the company to make the most out of the customer data it captures. Revenue streams, pending deals, and call volumes can all be tracked in the same environment, offering comprehensive visibility into risks and opportunities across the landscape. 

Creating a More Efficient Workforce 

The B2B focused arm of the British Airways brand has discovered a multitude of ways to implement the technology offered by Salesforce into its daily workflows. The end-to-end platform has provided the company with a level of visibility and agility they couldn’t achieve before. According to the brand, with Salesforce, the team can now check in an instant whether an individual’s ADPs align with business strategies, and pinpoint opportunities for growth.  

Salesforce has also helped to boost collaboration among the British Airways team, through the use of Chatter groups. These groups are bringing colleagues together from around the world, to ensure they can centrally manage accounts in one environment, regardless of where they are.  

Plus, British Airways has also integrated Salesforce with its deal modelling platform and data warehouse, as well as various AppExchange tools for contract management and authorization. Overall, the collection of products available rom Salesforce has helped British Airways to maximize productivity and efficiency, while building better experiences for customers.  

During the last couple of years, the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions have disastrously impacted the travel and hospitality sector. Consumers are willing to return to the industry when lockdowns and rules soften, so companies must work harder to regain trust.

While 2021 performance in the travel sector improved over 2020, it’s still 35% lower than pre-pandemic levels.

To revive a sense of excitement and opportunity in the “experience” industry, brands must rethink everything they thought they knew about CX strategies.

Using CX to Revive Travel and Hospitality

Travel and hospitality companies are responding to unprecedented change on a global scale. Over 2020 and 2021, everything from how we book trips to the countries available for travel began to turn upside down. Consumer trust dwindled to practically nothing, and endless flights, train trips and busses were cancelled.

Now, we’re heading into a future where the travel and hospitality industry may be able to start a slow yet steady path to recovery. However, industry experts like McKinsey believe this revival will only be possible if built on a solid foundation of customer experience.

Brands of all sizes must consider how they can tailor their services and products to suit a new series of priorities and demands from their target audience. Just some of the significant challenges facing travel and hospitality groups today include the following:

• Trust and safety: Even when the threat of the pandemic begins to subside, it will be years before consumers feel entirely safe travelling to different locations and accessing hospitality services. Companies must ensure they’re implementing as many tools as possible to serve their customers in a way considered safe, hygienic, and trustworthy.
• Evolving rules and regulations: Aside from staying up-to-date with consumer expectations, hospitality and travel companies must also ensure they follow the latest rules and regulations introduced by local and national governments.
• Distributed teams: Hospitality and travel companies have long worked with highly flexible, distributed teams, working in the field, on the floor, and face-to-face with customers. As we head into the future, these teams will continue to grow increasingly versatile, with more people working remotely and in mobile environments.
• Omnichannel communications: Customers increasingly seek ways to communicate with their travel and hospitality solution providers. This has led to the introduction of more two-way messaging experiences instead of voice or face-to-face interactions. Video may also be a valuable investment for some brands in the future.

The Trends Influencing Travel and Hospitality

Travel and hospitality companies will rely on CX technology as they search for ways to improve the customer experience consistently. Whether it’s a hotel providing a safe and welcoming stay to travellers or an airline keeping customers up-to-date about delays, the right technology can make a world of difference.

Although there are many examples in the current landscape of how technology influences how we travel, the following represent some of the most significant trends in the CX space.

• Contactless experiences: Travel and hospitality companies have always spent a lot of time face-to-face with consumers. However, as contactless experiences become more mainstream, people will increasingly look for ways to reduce their interactions with staff. This could mean hotels allow people to access self-service tools for checking in or that airlines allow their passengers to message staff members on a flight for assistance rather than trying to grab an employee in person.
• Automation and AI: AI and automation are valuable emerging trends in many industries today, but they could be essential in the travel and hospitality sector. AI will pave the way for the self-service experiences mentioned above. Still, it will also be beneficial when dealing with repetitive tasks and issues that would otherwise consume the time of critical team members. More automation and AI in the travel and hospitality sector will give human employees more scope to work on the tasks demanding their creativity and empathy.
• Endless innovation: Tourism and hospitality groups must innovate quickly to stay ahead of the curve in this increasingly complex landscape. We’ve seen several travel companies experimenting with extended reality to give their customers more unique, meaningful experiences when they cannot travel in a traditional sense. Companies have also introduced AI virtual assistants, bots, and apps, to help customers serve themselves more effectively in a world of contactless interactions. These innovations will only continue as we discover a new era of hospitality.

The Challenges to Overcome in CX for Hospitality and Travel

There are challenges to overcome in any industry searching for exceptional customer experience. For instance, the biggest concern for many companies in this era will be figuring out how to earn customers’ loyalty and emotional commitment while reducing face-to-face interactions.

Providing more engaging customer service experiences may be essential in overcoming this challenge. For instance, rather than just messaging a client about their upcoming vacation, hotel leaders could give these customers a chance to visit the hotel in VR and discuss any concerns they might have over video conferencing.

We’ll rely on technology to make life safer for consumers and employees. Biometric scanners may be the key to self-service check-ins, improving contactless travel and tourism opportunities. Cameras and sensors will need to track temperature and capacity in aeroplanes and restaurants. The more we innovate, the safer we can be.

Embracing CX for Travel and Hospitality

The hospitality and travel spaces are going through an uncertain period of transformation. The only way for this landscape to survive is through an investment in customer experience. With the right CX strategy, we can re-ignite consumers’ love for unique experiences. It all starts with finding the correct technology.

The process becomes even more challenging when companies are dealing with distributed tools for collecting, managing, and responding to customer data.  

SITA, a company responsible for helping thousands of airlines, government agencies, and airports power hassle-free customer journeys, found themselves seeking a more streamlined and intuitive solution for CX, in the age of digital transformation. Here’s what happened when SITA joined forces with the Genesys team for customer service.  

Preparing for Rapid Scale and Transformation 

SITA manages countless interactions between customers and travel leaders, supporting everything from the check-in and security process, to boarding and tracking baggage. To manage this workflow, the company utilizes eight service centers, with 400 agents handling calls across 150 countries.  

Growing disruption in the IT sector, prompting the rise of 5G, IoT, and other solutions, prompted SITA to update its customer service strategy to suit the modern landscape. SITA decided to elevate its customer experience with a cloud-based contact center, capable of offering more omnichannel features. The brand opted for the Genesys Cloud CX platform, citing its ease of use and excellent availability as deciding factors.  

The company wanted to manage calls from around the world in a central location, and make it easier for customers to leverage new channels like chat and email. According to the Service Improvement Senior Manager, Vichaig Douangpaseuth, transitioning to Genesys Cloud CX was surprisingly straightforward. It only took 5 minutes to switch SIP traffic from 150 countries into one environment.  

Not only has the technology improved communication quality and employee engagement, but it has also improved voice team efficiency by up to 50%. SITA also now has access to more data, allowing the company to adjust call flows more effectively. Even response times have improved, ensuring the team can respond to emergencies rapidly.  

Looking Ahead for New Opportunities 

Following the incredible success of the initial roll-out of Genesys Cloud CX, SITA said they were planning on implementing new strategies to improve customer experience. The current solution is offering seamless handovers between teams, as well as 24/7 customer service opportunities. The brand also noted they were in a better place for disaster recovery and disaster planning.  

Leveraging the open APIs of Genesys Cloud, SITA will be able to implement click-to-call features to check-in kiosks, and issue new PIN codes to consumers faster. SITA also plans on making further integrations with Salesforce and ServiceNow, building the Genesys Cloud CX landscape into its customer value proposition.  

The exceptional outcomes of the Genesys CX solution have prompted significant excitement among the SITA team, who are already in the first stages of planning what comes next in their CX journey.   

While there are many CX cloud vendors offering everything from digital contact centres to state-of-the-art helpdesks, some are more specially suited to the travel and hospitality sector than others. Today, we’re going to be looking at some of the most noteworthy leaders in this space to help you begin your search for a suitable CX investment.

Here are some of the top CX vendors majoring in travel and hospitality for 2022.

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) represents one of the biggest cloud technology providers in the world. More than just a solution for cloud computing, AWS also provides comprehensive lists of cloud-based contact centres and UC tools. The AWS environment also specially caters to several industries, ranging from travel and hospitality to health and financial services.

Some of the world’s leading travel and hospitality companies are already building their unique customer experiences with AWS. The AWS brand supports names like Booking.com, Airbnb, and even Hyatt hotels. With an ultra-flexible and easy-to-use CX environment, Amazon can appeal to all kinds of growing companies.

Salesforce

One of the world’s leading CRM software providers, Salesforce helps travel and hospitality companies to develop stronger relationships with their audience. The dedicated travel and hospitality team from Salesforce can help business leaders to create transformative experiences for their target audience. If you need help making the most of your technology, you can simply contact the Salesforce team and get step-by-step guidance.

Salesforce offers hospitality companies one of the most comprehensive customer relationship management and sales tracking solutions. What’s more, the technology is scalable to suit businesses of any size.

Freshdesk

Ranked a “visionary” by the Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for CRM and Customer Engagement, Freshdesk is a market leader in making guests feel special. The comprehensive customer service platform is suitable for businesses in all industries, including the travel and hospitality sectors. Customers can access everything from omnichannel conversations to increased loyalty opportunities with contextual engagement.

The Freshdesk ecosystem is also part of the Freshworks marketplace, where you can access a broader range of tools for things like collaboration, chat, and even appointment booking.

Front

Designed to give clients unforgettable experiences in travel and hospitality, Front is an effective tool for customer engagement and service management. You can combine all of your communication into a single team inbox, so staff members in remote locations can work together on customer problems. There is the option to instantly triage messages and assign them to specific staff members, while you can collect positive reviews and testimonials.

Popular among brands like Travel Leaders, Anywhere, and Airbnb, Front is ideal for companies looking for an agile and scalable way to update their customer service strategy. You also get access to a comprehensive selection of collaboration tools so your employees can stay connected and aligned when dealing with customer queries.

Content Guru

Content Guru provides travel and hospitality brands with an all-in-one omnichannel customer service environment. Content Guru puts flexibility and scalability first for its audience, ensuring global brands and growing hospitality companies can continue to offer consistent experiences anywhere.

Access to additional tools like workforce management systems and intelligent IVR also means you can upgrade the performance of your business no matter how your brand changes. Content Guru makes it quick and easy to manage a hybrid or dispersed team of customer service professionals.

NICE InContact

NICE is one of the market leaders in Contact Centre as a Service technology today. The company offers state-of-the-art flexible communication features, leading security, and excellent uptime. You can combine all of the various touchpoints of your customer’s journey in one system and provide your employees with a more convenient way to manage conversations. The CXone solution empowers several leading travel and hospitality companies already.

Through CXOne, companies have access to a streamlined and efficient environment they can adapt to suit their needs. NICE InContact also offers a range of specialist services and support options to help companies make a start on digital transformation.

Genesys

Genesys believes in giving companies the tools they need to drive excellent omnichannel experiences in any environment. This includes enabling travel and hospitality companies of all sizes and backgrounds. Genesys CCaaS solutions are wonderfully flexible, with a range of additional features available to explore, like artificial intelligence and virtual assistants or APIs for unique integrations.

Companies working with Genesys on transforming a travel and hospitality brand can access everything from automation to workforce engagement management in the same technology stack. There’s also the option to align your contact centre with your UCaaS technology.

Avaya

One of the better-known companies in the communication landscape, Avaya has supported all kinds of hospitality and travel brands for many years. Avaya is committed to delivering forward-thinking experiences for its customers in a flexible cloud environment. You can set up the contact centre most suitable for your needs and integrate the tools you’re already using.

Avaya also offers a selection of combined UCaaS and CCaaS offerings, so you can align your backend environment and improve your chances of better relationships with customers. With excellent uptime and reliability, it’s hard to go wrong with Avaya.

Zoho Desk

Zoho’s extensive range of CRM and helpdesk features make it an excellent pick for companies from all industries, including tourism and hospitality. According to Zoho, the hospitality and travel sector can benefit from accessing an all-in-one environment in the cloud for managing all kinds of customer conversations and queries.

The Zoho desk technology is already in use with some of the top brands in the industry, such as Raynatours, Tugo, and Red Tag Travels. For ease-of-use and flexible features, Zoho Desk has a lot to offer.

Star Cruises, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Genting Hong Kong Organization, is a leading leisure brand in the hospitality sector. Since launching in 1993, the company has remained committed to delivering fantastic cruise line experiences to global customers. This dedication to phenomenal customer service has been reflected in several accolades and industry recognitions, such as being named the “Best Cruise Operator in the Asia Pacific” 10 years in a row.

Of course, to stay ahead of the curve in a competitive landscape like travel and hospitality, both Star Cruises and its parent brand know they need to constantly transform, improve, and invest in new ways of delighting their customers. This quest for ever-evolving excellence in customer service is where Avaya and Star Cruises’ relationship begins.

Offering a Consistent Global Service

When Star Cruises and Genting Hong Kong approached Avaya in search of a solution to enable global connectivity, they faced high customer demand. Star Cruises received numerous queries and bookings from travel agents and members of the public across the region. One of the most significant challenges facing the company was finding a way to efficiently manage increasing call volumes.

To stay ahead of the curve, the company needed a flexible, scalable, and reliable communications ecosystem capable of operating globally. After assessing the marketplace and exploring a host of CCaaS solutions to enable a new level of customer service, Star Cruises selected Avaya’s Unified Communication and Contact Centre solutions to create a combined platform for growth.

The Star Cruises team chose Avaya because of the vendor’s ability to offer sensational cutting-edge service to customers on a global scale. More importantly, Avaya had the flexibility and strength to grow with the Star Cruises company as demand increased.

According to Henry Pang, the Vice President of Information Technology for the Star Cruises brand, Avaya fully understood the unique needs of the Star Cruises business. When the cruise provider approached the communications brand in search of a simple, and effective communication solution, Avaya offered a combination of Avaya IP Office and the Avaya IP Office Contact Centre.

The combined solution, according to Pang, has enabled Star Cruises to rapidly accelerate its growth and expansion through the delivery of seamless and stress-free experiences for both employees and customers. By leveraging Avaya’s contact centre, voice, and UCaaS offerings, Star Cruises has been able to unlock seamless global connectivity. The cruise provider also has a comprehensive omnichannel environment where it can handle both inbound and outbound calls.

An All-In-One Environment for Communications

Dealing with such a huge number of enquiries in such a flexible environment meant Star Cruises needed a contact centre and communication system capable of offering seamless communications experiences for both employees and customers. Avaya’s ability to provide a single global platform, that delivers both at sea, and on land, has supported the company in generating faster response times, better customers satisfaction levels, and enhanced employee engagement.

As Pang noted when talking about the implementation of the new Avaya ecosystem for Star Cruises, the innovative, combined solution allowed the brand to run its business communications more effectively, no matter what the quality of the internet connection was like in various countries across Asia. For a cruise company constantly moving between ports, it was crucial to have a communication ecosystem capable of withstanding sudden changes in connectivity levels and technology.

With Avaya, Star Cruises could deliver a consistent level of experience to its customers, while ensuring employees remained supported and empowered in every environment. What’s more, as the full IP Office solution was built into the existing Star Cruises Virtual Machines landscape, the company was able to achieve significant cost savings too.

The implementation of the Avaya Customer Experience platform meant Star Cruises guests could benefit from exceptional service and convenience across every potential touchpoint. Henry Pang noted that Avaya’s Customer Experience Platform values a high volume of inbound and outbound customer service contacts with minimal downtime, leading to better customer satisfaction scores.

Thanks to the innovation available from Avaya, Star Cruises can respond more rapidly to the needs of customers and with increased levels of efficiency. The company is even leveraging highly accurate and intelligent call routing strategies, to reduce overall enquiry response times and lower the risk of long waiting times.

Building a Future on Great Customer Service

With an always-on approach to customer engagement, Star Cruises feels capable of providing better levels of service to its global audience, regardless of the time zones for each customer, or their preferred method of communication. This results in a richer, more streamlined experience for all customers involved.

As the tech landscape continues to evolve at an incredible pace, Avaya believes that businesses need to leverage agile technology capable of transforming at the same rate. Businesses are increasingly investing in digital transformation initiatives as a way of keeping up with their customers and implementing the right solutions for forward-thinking customer service and experience is an important part of this universal step forward.

Following the success of the Avaya CX and IP Office implementation, Star Cruises announced it was planning on expanding its deployment of the technology in further countries like Korea and Japan. With the improvements in customer experience, Star Cruises felt it was finally able to build a more valuable, collaborative environment offering feature-rich engagement for employees and customers alike.

Now more than ever, the hospitality sector is under increasing pressure to re-engage missing consumers and bring the excitement of travel back to the world. According to market analysts like Deloitte, the travel and hospitality industry was one of the areas most significantly impacted by the pandemic. Lockdowns and restrictions prevented significant business from taking place during both 2020 and 2021.

While the performance of the travel sector in 2021 did demonstrate some movement in the right direction, sales are still 35% lower than pre-pandemic levels. So, how do you build a business case for new investments in CX when your budget is tighter than ever?

1. Highlight the Need for Transformation

Though the thought of investing more time and money into CX solutions when your budget is low might seem daunting, it’s not nearly as bad as overlooking the importance of transformation. To survive new regulations and expectations from customers in 2022 and beyond, companies will need to ensure they’re on the cutting edge with customer experience.

Upgrading your CX strategy means you’ll be able to appeal to the 77% of travellers who say they’ll be willing to begin travelling as soon as they’ve received their vaccinations. These customers will expect to be able to reach your contact centre through multiple channels (from phone call to text and live chat). They’ll also be looking for more flexible, safer ways to engage with hospitality.

Everything from contactless booking for your restaurant or hotel business, to contact-free check-in at an airport will be crucial to demonstrate you have your customers’ best interests at heart. Don’t’ underestimate the importance of transformation today.

2. Address the Needs of Employees

It isn’t just customer needs changing in the new hospitality and travel marketplace, but employee requirements too. To serve customers wherever they are with contactless, safe, and convenient experiences, your employees need access to the latest tools and systems.

A cloud-based contact centre solution will allow your service representatives and agents to continue answering customer questions and addressing problems wherever they are. This will be increasingly important in an age of remote and hybrid work.

CRM tools will provide employees with access to information about customer preferences and previous purchasing data so they can offer more personalised experiences. At the same time, helpdesk and service desk tools should provide your team with additional support when dealing with complex problems or queries. Updating your CX tools will make your team more productive, efficient, and engaged while at work.

3. Consider Changing Regulations

One of the biggest challenges faced by hospitality and travel companies in recent years, has been adapting to the changing regulations and guidelines imposed for safe and effective travel. The right CX solutions can be an important tool in keeping track of your response to these new rules for auditing and investigation purposes.

Your cloud-based CCaaS solution will make it easier to safely retain and record important conversations with customers which may need to be addressed by industry regulators. You’ll also find it’s easier to issue updates about changing rules to your customers when you have an outbound contact centre capable of sending automated text messages and email announcements.

A strong set of CX solutions will ensure you can collect valuable information from your audience and use it to your advantage, without falling victim to various data issues. The right technology can also offer additional support to your agents when they’re working away from dedicated office space to stay safe. For instance, helpdesks can help teams to troubleshoot problems wherever they are.

4. Prioritise Customer Loyalty

Dedicated repeat customers and brand advocates have always been crucial to the growth of hospitality and travel companies. Now, more than ever, as customers shop in an uncertain environment, they’ll be looking for recommendations from their friends and positive reviews before they consider purchasing anything from a hotel room to a meal.

CX solutions will be critical to building meaningful interactions with your target audience. A CCaaS solution can help you to track your customer journey across multiple touchpoints and determine what it usually takes to transform a consumer into someone willing to refer new clients to your brand. CRM technology can help you to pinpoint your VIP customers, to offer them a higher quality of service or unique deals on their next purchase.

Investing in your CX solution will help you to not only improve the experiences your customers have with your brand but ensure you can encourage more long-term interactions and conversions too. You might even be able to set up your own loyalty programs.

5. Look for Opportunities in Innovation

Finally, remember that investing in CX solutions now can open the door for further innovation and opportunities in the future. Moving into a cloud-based environment for customer service ensures you can be ready to update and enhance your customer service strategy whenever you choose, with new features like artificial intelligence, chatbots, and virtual assistants.

As customers look for safer ways to travel and enjoy recreational activities, companies will need to remain agile to stay ahead of the competition. The right CX solution will enable everything from comprehensive contactless digital interactions to better analytics, so you can make informed decisions about customer service in the future.

When making a business case for CX in travel and hospitality, don’t forget to highlight the value of being able to update your technology whenever you see fit. Today’s innovative cloud-based solutions are constantly upgrading. What’s more, many of the tools available can integrate with your existing investments, so you can use them without set-up issues.