Over the last few months, USAirtours have been using the Widgety AI Cruise Assistant to streamline their sales. Speaking at Widgety’s 10-Year Celebration and AI Cruise Assistant Launch at CLIA Conference, Jaymin Patel, Chief Revenue Officer at USAirtours, shared the following:
“The first thing we’ve gained from the AI Cruise Assistant is knowledge. As a leadership team, we often sit down and think, ‘Are our sales agents really equipped to share that knowledge with customers when they call?’ This tool has been a big part of the answer, allowing us to create consistency.
There’s a lot of information out there. This tool has made us comfortable that our agents are using the right information, and that’s a big thing in ensuring we have that consistency and high quality.
The second thing, on that knowledge point, is that our best cruise sellers are the ones who are really thirsty for that knowledge. They use all the tools we give them and actively go out to find it; this has been the perfect opportunity to maximise that.
Fundamentally, it helps us sell more. I spoke to one of our sales agents earlier today who loves using it, and she said, ‘I closed a deal today that I wouldn’t have been able to close without it.’ It was an off-season cruise to Rome. She wasn’t sure what ships or sailings were available, so she put it into the assistant and the result was incredible. The icing on the cake for that story was that the Cruise Assistant prompted, ‘Would you like to add a drinks package?’, and outlined it very clearly. She said she would have never been able to sell that drinks package if she didn’t have that information right in front of her.
So, as a Sales Manager, I was like, ‘That’s exactly what I want to hear.’
The final thing is pace. The speed at which we need to provide information to customers is getting faster and faster.
Yesterday at the supplier event, one of the great pieces of feedback I heard from a customer was, ‘When we call up Beyond Cruising, the staff are knowledgeable and we get an answer there and then.’ This tool is a huge part of that, giving us the ability to provide that information quickly and accurately while we’re on the phone.
All in all, this functionality is going to help us to continue to grow. We’ve been growing at a great pace on our cruising business, as we are currently up 80% year-on-year. To keep delivering that, we’re going to need to keep using these tools.”
