Reacting to Peaks in the Travel and Hospitality Industry Multilingual CX World
The world is travelling again. Many international destinations are now receiving just as many tourists as they did before the restrictions of 2020 and 2021. Spain, Turkey, and Greece fully recovered in 2023, and destinations such as the UK (94%) and France (93%) are almost back to pre-pandemic levels. Traveller numbers increased so much in 2023 that some commentators began talking of ‘revenge travel’ — where people have reacted to the pandemic restrictions by travelling more than ever.
For the first time in more than three years, the travel industry is now looking to the future. Many travel companies faced an existential crisis during the pandemic, but now they are seeing growth return and a wave of new challenges related to evolving customer needs and expectations.
Managing Expectations
Customers always expected travel companies to deliver on the service or tickets that had been purchased, but the pandemic fostered a stronger desire for support — it is not enough to just deliver an airline ticket or hotel room. The travel brand must always be there ready to support the customer in an unexpected situation.
Peaks and troughs in the travel sector are generally easy to predict. We all know that customer contact volumes will increase at the start of a major national holiday or when schools break up for end of term. But sometimes more unusual and unpredictable events take place.
Experiences over the last few years have created a lot of lessons for the travel sector to learn from. Travel companies struggled with the volume of customer interactions and could not adjust their customer support processes to handle these increased demands. The airline industry in particular struggled to adapt and in 2021, the New York Times was reporting that passengers were often on hold for almost 5 hours when trying to talk to their airline about cancelled flights.
Unfortunately sudden and unexpected events keep on happening whether it be weather, strike action, political or acts of god. A customer in a challenging situation needs a timely and empathetic response, they may not be in a position nor have the desire to engage through digital channels and they don’t want to be waiting on hold. They need immediate help, and this moment of truth will either build or destroy their trust in your brand.
Why Can't Travel Companies React Faster to Unexpected Challenges?
The underlying challenge for brands is how to provide enough resource to manage these unexpected situations especially when their customers require support in a range of languages. If all support for all customers could be standardised in a single language, then flexibility during an unexpected event would be easier — but this for most brands is not realistic.
Travel companies need to serve customers using their preferred language but due to the range of languages that are often required the capacity will exist to support, day-to-day operations but offer little or no flexibility to react to unexpected events. Many travel companies will issue local language communication using social media when a crisis strikes, but for customers that are faced with an immediate and challenging problem there has to be more than just information on Facebook or TikTok.
Delivering A Solution That Works
Maintaining a large, multilingual customer service team can be resource-intensive, especially during periods of low demand for certain languages. However, today's customers expect seamless service regardless of their language. They have higher service expectations and lower tolerance for delays.
The solution is real-time voice translation technology, like ReVoLT part of our Alorica Clear suite, is the first of its kind in the market. This technology facilitates real-time voice translation of customer interactions across 75+ languages and over 200 dialects. It's a game-changer for multilingual support; and offers flexibility to navigate crisis situations.
ReVoLT offers several deployment options:
Full language support: moving individual language queues into one single queue leveraging a team of single language advisors driving operational and cost efficiencies.
Supporting low-volume languages: efficiently handle less common/expensive languages or those difficult to source and retain traditional support for.
Peak season support: remove reliance on temporary resources that are hard to source and take time to build capability by more effectively using existing teams to support multiple markets/languages ensuring quality and customer experience don't suffer during peak periods.
Contingency tool: empower your entire team to handle unexpected surges irrespective of market impact and language support required.
Enterprise-Ready Solution for Your Business
While some past real-time translation systems may have had limitations like robotic voices or delays, advancements in technology have paved the way for a more seamless experience. In fact, with the recent integration of this technology into smartphones by industry leaders like Samsung, the time is now to embrace its potential in customer interactions.
In 2024, real-time translation is not only feasible but highly effective. This technology can equip any travel business to address unusual or improbable events. Travel companies seeking a flexible, multilingual CX environment, prepared for unexpected service demands and capable of handling stressful situations, should strongly consider this option.
Implementing real-time voice translation technology leads to a more efficient and cost-effective business model for travel companies. It enhances flexibility, reduces customer service costs, and ensures exceptional CX, even during crises.
