Why Hoteliers Can’t Afford to Ignore AI: The Impact of Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent™
By John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook
August 2024
Over the past couple of months, we’ve explored the evolving role of conversational AI in hospitality, particularly focusing on Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent™ by Travel Outlook. This series has highlighted Annette’s advanced capabilities, which include handling complex guest requests, personalizing interactions, and providing multilingual support. These features have positioned Annette as a critical asset for hoteliers looking to enhance guest experiences and streamline internal operations. As we dive into the final installment, we’ll review Annette’s many hospitality-specific capabilities and explore the affordability of AI solutions.
Annette’s Key Capabilities
Understanding Guest Requests with Conversational AI: Annette excels at comprehending complex, multi-turn interactions, making it possible for her to understand guests even when they speak in long-winded or rambling sentences.
Unlike traditional automated systems that often require guests to repeat themselves, Annette uses PolyAI’s natural language understanding software, which has been trained on billions of human conversations, to grasp the nuances and inflections in speech. This allows her to provide a seamless and intuitive guest experience, ensuring that guests feel heard and understood no matter how they communicate their needs.
Personalizing and Adapting Interactions
Annette’s ability to learn and adapt to hotel-specific terminology sets her apart. She can accurately answer queries about a property’s services, amenities, and local dining options. Her support for multiple languages, including different dialects and accents, also makes her a versatile tool in a global market. Annette also offers hotels the option to use their voice talent, which enhances personalization and makes guests feel at home when they hear regional accents.
Streamlining Operations and Reducing Workload: Annette not only answers hundreds of frequently asked questions (FAQs) specific to each hotel but also efficiently routes calls to the appropriate departments. Additionally, Annette can send follow-up texts to guests to provide additional information or confirm details discussed during the call.
Annette’s Tangible Impact: A Year in Review
In the past year, Annette has made a significant impact on the hospitality industry, including:
• Handling Over 550,000 Calls: Annette managed more than 543,385 calls, showcasing her capability to handle a high volume of guest interactions. This efficiency level has undoubtedly relieved much of the pressure on front desk staff, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks requiring human intervention.
• Containing Over 120,000 Calls Without Human Interaction: Out of the total calls handled, 118,567 were contained entirely by Annette without the need for any human interaction. This not only demonstrates Annette’s proficiency in managing guest requests autonomously but also highlights the potential for significant cost savings for hoteliers.
• Sending Over 17,000 Text Messages: Annette also sent more than 17,000 follow-up texts, ensuring guests had easy access to critical information after their call.
• Annette’s Role During Crisis (The Hawaii Fires): During the Hawaii fires last year, Annette played a crucial role in assisting OUTRIGGER Resorts & Hotels by handling 11,489 calls. She provided updates to callers, sent links to the most up-to-date information, and helped manage the situation. Annette handled 42.53% of the calls into Outrigger, proving her effectiveness in managing communications during a crisis.
• Optimizing Guest Communication (The Hawks Cay Example): Annette’s adaptability extends to improving specific guest communications. For instance, at Hawks Cay in the Florida Keys, many calls related to the check-out process were being received. After analyzing the call data, the Travel Outlook team updated Annette’s system to provide more detailed information on check-out procedures, significantly reducing the number of guests needing to speak with the front desk.
Why Hoteliers Can’t Afford to Ignore AI
As the hospitality industry continues to evolve, the question is no longer whether AI should be integrated but rather how quickly hoteliers can adopt these new technologies. Annette’s performance over the past year highlights the critical role that conversational AI can play in enhancing guest experiences, improving operational efficiency, and reducing costs.
With the ability to handle a high volume of interactions, provide personalized and multilingual support, and adapt to specific hotel needs, Annette represents a strategic asset that hoteliers cannot afford to overlook. As we look to the future, integrating advanced AI solutions like Annette will be essential for staying competitive in the ever-evolving hospitality landscape. The question isn’t whether hoteliers can afford to invest in AI but whether they can afford not to.
For more information on how Annette can transform your hotel’s operations and become an invaluable asset to your team, visit Travel Outlook’s Annette.
