More and more people turn to buying their holidays online. Can the travel agent`s friendly approach be recreated in cyber space?
Is the service quite the same? Servicesoft are a company that are aiming to make buying a holiday online a more human experience. They offer the travel industry a choice of channels to implement into their sites so that travel companies can speak to their customers and customers speak to them, Servicesoft aim to make the customer feel as comfortable as possible about talking to a travel company through a computer.
To do this they offer several channels of contact. These include, email response, live chat, agent assisted service and live collaboration. All these different channels and ways in which to talk to the online travel company recreate the experience of buying a holiday on the high street. The aim is to offer more than an email and with a response 72 hours later - one of the things that turns people against buying online. The questions are tailored to a customer`s specific enquiry, they never leave the customer on their own, wondering about what to click on next. There is always the option of picking up the phone to speak to an assistant and with Live Collaboration, this can be done at the same time as booking on the Internet.
At the moment it is online service that is holding much of ecommerce back because people find interactions so much simpler in a face-to-face situation. As the online travel industry is one of the largest growth areas in ecommerce, surely this is the area where eService should be leading?
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