Clickatell, a provider of chat commerce and messaging solutions, has updated its Chat Commerce Platform for travel companies to provide customer service in messaging channels.
Clickatell's Chat Desk, a digital contact center solution and part of Clickatell's Chat Commerce Platform, gives travelers access to flight details, booking options, cancellations, upgrades, and more at their fingertips via SMS, WhatsApp, and Apple Messages. Chat Desk integrates tightly with Clickatell's Chat Flow, a drag-and-drop conversation workflow builder, enabling businesses to visually create, edit, and manage communication and business process workflows across multiple channels with little to no code. Consumers can connect with travel companies through the Chat Flow automated chat before being escalated to a live agent through Chat Desk if necessary. Chat Desk consists of the following three parts:
- Agent Desk, which enables customer service agents to manage multiple customer conversations across SMS, WhatsApp, and Apple Messages in a unified inbox. Agents can transfer inquiries to different departments and other agents; retrieve chats, histories, and notes with search and filter functionality; provide two-way multimedia support (PDF, Microsoft docs, images, videos, voice notes, location sharing); create pre-populated responses to send to customers; and gain insight to customer sentiment through their remarks in the chat.
- Supervisor Desk, which lets supervisors route tickets to the right departments or specialist agents; manage agents' workloads and performance; and manage customer escalations and agent productivity.
- Real-Time Dashboard, which lets supervisors view agent performance, customer sentiment, and customer satisfaction and net promoter scores through customer surveys; categorize and tag customer inquiries; and send auto response messages, greetings, and good-byes outside of business hours and when agents are busy.
Additionally, Clickatell's new Chat 2 Pay integration into Chat Desk lets companies offer and accept payments in business messages. Travelers receive a payment link and complete the payment through a checkout page on their mobile phones.
"Traveling has become such a different experience in the post-pandemic world, and nothing is more frustrating than an inconvenient customer service experience," said Pieter de Villiers, CEO and co-founder of Clickatell, in a statement. "By reaching your customer where they already are in messaging channels rather than making them download or maintain a mobile app, travelers can instantly connect with your company and get support through their chat app of choice. Especially in the travel industry, a personalized and frictionless customer service and engagement strategy is important, if not more important, than the sale itself.
"Considering 87 percent of consumers prefer to use mobile messaging to communicate with travel companies, especially on the day of their travel, according to our Chat Commerce Trends Report on Travel, travel brands providing personal and timely communications in SMS and popular chat apps will help their customers get the most out of their trips and drive satisfaction," de Villiers added.