THE parent company of budget carrier brand AirAsia, Capital A Berhad, launched last Wednesday a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot that the company promises “to provide a better customer experience.”
Called “Ask Bo,” the new AI chatbot also has machine learning capabilities, enabling it to improve its accuracy in answering customer queries and assist in customer journey, the company said.
“Ask Bo” replaces the “AirAsia Virtual Allstar,” or “AVA,” which the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-headquartered airline company launched in 2019. AVA handled over 113 million guests since its introduction.
“Our guests have spoken, and we are listening and learning. We felt their frustration towards our first AI chatbot AVA, which was always a work in progress,” Capital A CEO Tony Fernandes said. We recognize she fell short of people’s expectations and we want to do better.”
“Ask Bo” will be able to provide live updates on flight status and/or changes and boarding information, in more languages including English, Chinese, Bahasa, Thai, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, Fernandes said.
The company said the new AI tool will also send push notifications on any last minute changes on the day of operations, and give baggage information—tracking, arrival belt, mishandled baggage reports—and report real-time automatic updates of departure timings into the electronic boarding pass for guests’ peace of mind.
‘More informative’
USERS will also be able to change flights, request refunds, or choose service recovery options through Ask Bo.
“Given the size of the airline that AirAsia is, with thousands of refunds and flight change requests, humans alone cannot cope, we have to also use technology. We learned through AVA how to use artificial intelligence to answer complex and sizable queries better and faster. Over the last eight months, the customer experience team have zeroed in on what our guests need and want, what their top complaints are, and today we are happy to introduce “Ask Bo,” named after our airline Group CEO Bo Lingam,” Fernandes said. “[Lingam] has been at my side for the past 21 years and is the go-to person with all answers to our Group’s airline questions.
By March, guests will also be able to talk live to human agents, during their “Ask Bo” interaction.
Lingam noted: “Lower fares doesn’t mean lower service quality and it is very important to us that our guests feel cared for when they choose to fly with us, for the best fares and the best customer experience. The buck stops with me. ‘Ask Bo’ will make the customer journey easier, simpler, and more informative.”