At present, the travel industry is a booming sector for any economy. However, the travel industry seems to be facing a lot of challenges while conducting day-to-day activities. Issues such as managing high call volumes, timely assistance, and providing tailored services to individuals are quite common. The travel industry, working traditionally often fails to meet such needs.
Imagine there is a traveler who wants to make last-minute changes to a hotel booking, but he isn’t been able to connect to the sales representatives. This will definitely impact his patience level and make him feel irritated. Now, just at the beginning of the exotic vacation, the traveler’s experience becomes sour and disappointing, ultimately affecting the travel company’s business operations.
In such conditions, to handle calls effectively and solve customer queries, a travel company can use call centersoftware. The cloud call center software provides all the solutions related to your travel businesses, resolving your day-to-day issues.
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What is Cloud Call Center Software for the Travel Industry?
The travel industry is a broad term encompassing transportation, accommodations, entertainment, and other services specifically tailored to travelers’ needs. Hence, it is essential for them to provide excellent customer service in all sectors.
Cloud call center software for travel companies is the technological solution for the travel industry. This software is designed to smoothen customer service and support operations within the travel industry. It offers a faster and more convenient way to make conversation with travel agents through the use of phone calls, emails, social media, and other platforms.
Challenges Faced by the Travel Industry
The travel industry has to deal with a massive customer base all around the globe. So, it becomes difficult to respond to each and every individual query. Along with this, some other challenges faced by the travel industry are:
With the increase in new platforms, people prefer to communicate with different mediums such as social media, live chats, emails, etc. However, it can be a challenging task for the travel industry based on traditional call centers to be active on every medium at a time. Due to this, customers may not be satisfied, and hence, the productivity of different travel agencies will decline.
As the customer may be from any geographical region, the business hours of the customer may not be coordinated with the working hours of the agent. Therefore, the agent may be unavailable when a customer from a different geographical region calls to query about the travel. This may not only cause the customers to lose but also impact the business’s credibility.
The travel industry consists of a lot of information about individuals on a daily basis. If they don’t have an efficient system in place, it results in operational failure and loss of data. The travel industry that works in traditional ways will not have a backup center in case of hardware failure, data outages, or any technical issues, and hence, their operations get interrupted.
High-volume calls are often expected during peak times such as vacations, festivals, natural disasters, health crises, and more. In such circumstances, the companies providing travel-related services fail to answer the queries or even book the travel requests. Such actions may result in long waiting times for customers, which isn’t a good sign for a company and may result in a setback.
For the travel industry working traditionally, disruptions such as political unrest, pandemics, and extreme weather conditions may impact their ability to provide services from physical locations. Therefore, if you don’t have any advanced cloud software, it will become almost impossible to operate physically, resulting in interruptions in work.
How Can Cloud Call Center Software Enhance The Travel Industry?
Cloud call center software can enhance the travel industry in the following ways:
Call center software allows the travel industry to automate its communications processes. Automated services such as Interactive Voice Response(IVR), chatbots, AI-enabled speech analytics, Auto-attendants, etc, provide a modern way to communicate.
With automation, the customer queries are handled simultaneously, increasing agents’ scale of operation during peak seasons. It helps to provide consistent information over time, increasing travel-related businesses’ credibility.
Not only this, chatbots and IVR systems allow travel companies to work efficiently 24/7 without missing even a single lead. Customers prefer to get a clear perspective in real-time instead of taking hours to search for details on multiple websites. The chatbots provide related information to the prospects without the live agent’s involvement.
In travel-related businesses, a lot of customer information is needed, such as home address, passport details, credit card details, likes and dislikes, and more. These data are subjected to identity theft, leakage, breaches, unauthorized access, etc.
Luckily, cloud call center software can save travel companies from such disasters. Cloud call center software is loaded with several security measures that protect this crucial information by encrypting data, masking data, and limiting access. It also ensures regular security updates to protect the data from vulnerabilities and emerging threats.
Moreover, it also has a strong authentication process, such as multifactor authentication(MFA), which ensures protection and enhanced security. This software also maintains a detailed report of audit trails. All user activities, such as access to systems, login attempts, modifications, or any suspicious activity, are immediately monitored and reviewed.
Cloud center software monitors performance indicators such as call volume, average call time, customer satisfaction score, call waits, etc. The information obtained from these performance indicators can be analyzed to develop insights into customers’ behavior, preferences, and expectations to deliver a tailored service.
Moreover, the travel-related industry can identify trends and patterns to develop matching marketing strategies to attract and retain customers. Plus, by monitoring business operations in real-time, high-level managers can easily identify areas of improvement.
Likewise, the call recording feature allows the travel agency to ensure better agent-customer interactions by reviewing the delivery of service quality.
Overall, the software does a root analysis of the problems to prevent them from reoccurring. It also makes sure the service standards are regularly maintained.
Getting cloud-based software means it comes with advanced features such as multichannel communication, intelligent call routing, integration capability with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, call monitoring, etc.
The call routing feature allows the travel industry to have a customer-rich experience. They can simply route their calls to their respective departments, saving a lot of time and energy.
Also, its integration with CRM gives greater access to real-time data, enhancing more tailored services. Another feature includes quality monitoring that helps to maintain service quality and also comply with industry standards.
The cloud-based call center software in the travel industry helps increase the productivity of the sales agents. The automated features help perform day-to-day tasks without human assistance, and the energy can be invested in other tasks that require a human touch.
Further, it allows the sales representatives to work remotely at any location, improving agent satisfaction and seamless operations.
Similarly, it helps optimize the entire workflow by integrating call center software with the CRM system. This will ensure more personalized service and resolve customer’s queries faster.
Cloud software ensures flexibility in work by allowing agents to work from anywhere with just an internet connection. For example, if your travel company is situated in the USA but your client is in Germany, you can simply use cloud software to call Germany from the USA.
Likewise, with remote work enablement, the cost required to maintain the physical office is reduced, promoting cost savings. It also allows travel agencies to retrieve talent from a remote location and expand coverage over large areas.
Not just that, working remotely helps agents maintain work-life balance, increasing job satisfaction and customer retention rates. Agents can use video and audio conferencing features of call center software to stay connected with each other.
Integration of cloud call center software with CRM and booking systems provides a unified view of customer data in a single window. It brings all the customer information, such as contacts, booking history, past interactions, etc, into a single platform and lets the travel agents have comprehensive insights without switching between apps.
Moreover, this integration also ensures the data is synchronized along all the platforms and tools to ensure data consistency. What’s more? This integration allows the customer to get automatic updates and notifications regarding their travel status, such as flight delays, changes in schedules, cancellations, and more.
Cloud call center software lets the customer communicate through the most preferred channels since they support multiple communication channels such as emails, live chat, social media, and more.
Similarly, the automated systems, IVR and chatbots, providereal-time services to resolve customer queries on the spot. The call routing feature routes the call to the appropriate agent based on skillset, proficiency in the language, or previous dealings with customers.
Likewise, its integration with booking system allows automatic updates and notifications to the customer regarding booking confirmations, schedule changes, cancellations, etc. Also, resolving issues has never been easier and more effective for travel agencies as they identify issues in real-time and can simply quote the issues to the concerned departments.
Conclusion
Since the entire world is moving towards digitalization, there will be never-ending needs of customers. So, in order to meet these needs and increase profits, cloud call center software must be integrated into different travel-related industries.
The various advantages of the call center software, such as automated communication, enhanced security, high-end features, and more, will help boost the travel industry. Not just that multichannel support, IVR, and CRM integration will empower travel agencies to upscale their business processes to meet the changing demands of customers.
FAQS
A travel call center is a unique customer service centerassociated with services such as handling inquiries, bookings, customer support, and making travel arrangements for flights, rentals, etc. The call center also assists with the entire booking process. Further, it has to deal with cancellations and changes in schedule.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) means handling some of the activities of the travel industry by a third-party entity. Business processes such as customer support, ticketing, handling inquiries, etc, are handled by other companies. These third-party companies are specialized with skilled manpower, mainly in handling specific tasks. Thus, this reduces the cost and pressure in the travel-related industry and transfers their focus to other tasks.
Tourism is related to call centers in many ways. The call center provides services that will simplify the working processes of the travel industry. It helps the tourism industry in the following ways:
The travel and tourism industry in hospitality specifically focuses on providing accommodations, amenities, and dining services to customers who are engaged in traveling. Such services are provided by hotels, resorts, restaurants, airlines, rental companies, etc. Such services are established to provide customers with better travel experiences. Moreover, it largely contributes to the nation’s economy.
Cloud computing can manage customer contacts using various cloud-based tools such as Customer Relation Management(CRM) and cloud call center software.
The best travel agent completely depends upon individual preferences, available services, needs, and more. However, some of the common web travel agents are Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and more.
Yes, cloud centers are equally beneficial for all businesses beyond the travel industry. They provide flexibility, remote working capabilities, automation in daily tasks, and cost minimization in comparison to traditional call center systems.
Some of the benefits of call center to customers are: