Airlines Put Facebook Messenger Chatbots to Work Answering Easy Questions
Photo Credit: Lufthansa Group is one of several airlines using bots to respond to Facebook Messenger queries. The company is trying to make the bots as human-like as possible. Lufthansa Group
Skift Take
Bots have come a long way since Alaska Airlines introduced 'Ask Jenn' about a decade ago. But they're still not perfect. At least for now, we'd rather have a human touch.
Every day, 10,000 customers contact Aeromexico to ask questions, and many — such as "Is there a charge for checking a bag?" — are so simple they don't require a human response.
So about a year ago, Aeromexico started using a Facebook Messenger chatbot to answer these types of questions, loading an artificial intelligence "brain" with 500 common responses, chosen from Facebook, Twitter, and telephone transcripts. The platform serves about 1,000 Spanish-speaking customers per day, handling roughly as many inquiries as two full-time employees could but at a cheaper cost.
"It's able to interpret any of the ways that any human could ask questions and determine what they're trying to ask and match it with one of the answers," said Brian Gross, Aeromexico's vice president for digital innovation and strategy.
Like a lot of newish tech, it's not perfect. Gross stumped it recently by using an offensive Mexican phrase, and the bot told him it didn't understand. It's also not fully
