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Qantas today announced the trial of a new customer service initiative using
the latest speech recognition technology to manage telephone enquiries and
reduce call waiting times.
The trial of Qantas Voice will involve Frequent Flyer program members
seeking points balances and booking domestic redemption seats during business hours.
Qantas Executive General Manager Sales and Marketing John Borghetti said
the airline had followed closely the dramatic improvements in Natural Language Speech Recognition (NLSR) systems in recent years.
He said the Qantas system had been developed specifically for the airline, and
was amongst the best in the world in terms of functionality and customer
experience.
"Qantas Voice will handle domestic Frequent Flyer award enquiries and
bookings, reducing waiting times for all callers."
From tomorrow, Frequent Flyers in Western Australia, South Australia and
Tasmania will be introduced to the new technology, with the system being
rolled out progressively over the next six months for Frequent Flyers in all
states and territories.
"A key attraction is that Qantas Voice customers will never have to wait in a
call queue, because Qantas Voice will answer immediately, and once fully
implemented will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Mr Borghetti said.
"There is no change to our normal telephone sales centres in terms of
services offered. A Telephone Sales consultant will always be available to take
over the inquiry or booking whenever necessary or when the customer prefers. The technology has been designed to transfer non-standard enquiries
directly to an operator."
Mr Borghetti said that during tests of the new system, customers had been
amazed at how natural and intuitive the experience was, and how easy the
system was to navigate.
The software behind Qantas Voice has been developed by a consortium
comprising Unisys Australia, Avaya Communications and Scansoft (formerly
SpeechWorks). |
