Advantage boosts e-commerce operations

Agency consortium Advantage Travel Centres has announced it will be incorporating Chat4Travel’s customer services technology into its e-commerce operation.

Chat4Travel is Traveltek’s new service that enables web consumers to communicate with travel companies online, rather than having to drop their web connection and phone up to get their questions answered.

Already in pilot testing with Advantage Travel Centres, Chat4Travel enables agents – and other online travel providers – to handle customer enquiries in real-time through their websites. Currently most enquiries about online bookings are handled by telephone, which for many home shoppers means dropping their internet connection in order to speak a travel consultant.

With Chat4Travel, customers can chat to agency staff and search the website at the same time simply by clicking on an appropriate hyperlink on the agent’s website. A pop-up window alerts staff to waiting calls and allows them to communicate immediately with callers through a single mouse-click.

The solution logs all calls made, and so details of a customer’s previous enquiries automatically flash onto the consultants’ screens, enabling them to handle enquiries more quickly and efficiently.

Chat4Travel will go live on on Advantage’s consumer website, www.advantage4travel.com, on 1 February.

According to Advantage the solution will drive even more bookings to its members because of the improved customer service the group can now offer. Advantage’s sales and marketing director Colin O’Neill said: “By enabling us to answer customers’ questions as they search our site, Chat4Travel means that our members can deliver even better customer service. We expect to see conversion rates improve significantly as a result.”

In addition to increasing online sales and developing customer loyalty, Traveltek believes Chat4Travel will play an important role in agents’ e-marketing strategies. The solution enables consultants during the conversation to send web pages, special offers and other online promotional material relevant to the enquiry, directly to the customer.

Traveltek’s managing director Kenny Picken said: “Research shows 90% of online customers would rather deal with a real person when buying online and don’t want the inconvenience of losing the web connection in order to contact the agent. With Chat4Travel, agents can ensure repeat business by offering customers the convenience of a website but with the personal touch they like – all for next to nothing.

“E-travel is going to be the most competitive sector in the industry this year. We are committed to pioneering solutions such as Chat4Travel that help agents improve customer service and so increase their online profits.”