Travel Counsellors to launch AI-generated booking system in 2024
TC Co-pilot will ‘save agents time and improve their performance’
AbJimroe
Travel Counsellors has revealed plans to roll out an AI-generated booking system next year.
Speaking at the homeworking agency’s annual conference in Manchester, chief technology officer Jon Bauer said the new software, named TC Co-pilot, will be trialled in spring.
TC Co-pilot will be integrated into Travel Counsellor’s existing booking platform, Phenix, and will produce “beautiful results personalised to your customers’ needs”, according to Bauer.
More: Travel Counsellors records sales of £936m for 2023 financial year
“It will save you time, improve your performance and make your lives a little bit easier,” he told delegates. “It will allow you to do what you do best: create memories.”
He stressed that TC Co-pilot is “not here to replace what you do”.
“We’re a digital business that feels human,” he said. “We’re a personal business in a digital world; we’re a business that augments and nourishes relationships instead of replacing them.”
His sentiments were echoed by chief executive Steve Byrne earlier, who urged agents to “think of artificial intelligence as a tool that will give you more time to do the things you want to do” in his opening speech earlier in the day.
Bauer said TC Co-pilot will give agents access to a “new and improved contact centre” that will enable them to view individual customer profiles for each of their clients, which display their preferences and booking habits.
Agents will be able to ask it questions, search for content and generate “both simple and complex inspirational journeys at the click of a button”.
The system will also “nudge” agents and prompt them to contact clients in their databases who have been inactive for a lengthy period if a product enters the market the software thinks could be a match.
The launch of TC Co-pilot forms part of a £15m investment in technology being made by Travel Counsellors for the coming year – compared with the £10m invested in upgrading software over the past 12 months.
This investment will also see other enhancements made to Phenix, which has this year seen a 30% increase in usage as more agents have joined the company.
