The no-fly cruise line, which operates two ships Ambition and Ambience, initiated the partnership by supplying Cruisewatch with historic call centre data from October before starting to share live data last week.
Around 7,000 calls from the past four weeks have been analysed by Cruisewatch as part of the line’s efforts to “transform” the service it offers travel agents and customers.
The line’s chief commercial officer Phil Gardner told TTG he believed there was still “a fear factor” around the adoption of AI in travel, and urged others in the industry to embrace the positives.
“In total, we’ve got 18 call centre staff – 12 on the sales side and six on guest services," said Gardner. "We’ve got no intention of replacing anybody.
“The rate at which we grow the contact centre is not totally reliant on the rate at which we grow our fleet. It’s also reliant on the development of these tools. It’s a real cultural change for us.”
Gardner admits the line could analyse individual calls manually, but said the AI-driven technology would allow Ambassador to improve callers’ experiences “faster and more efficiently”.
Currently, Ambassador call centre staff answer around 98% of calls “on a good day”, said Gardner, who revealed that figure can typically drop to around 85% “when it gets busy”.
Gardner outlined how he wanted the call centre to ultimately “emulate” the friendliness of the line’s ship crew. “If we can achieve that, there’s going to be a very friendly environment for everybody who calls us,” he added.
Gardner highlighted two “key” areas he wanted the call centre to focus on – sentiment analysis and solution rate. “Cruisewatch’s AI [technology] can detect the tone of voice used by the agent and how the call is handled, which gives us the sense of how an individual has dealt with the call,” he explained.
“We can also get a solution rate. Did we give the caller what they needed? We’re using this for performance management.”
He added: “We’re going to introduce this into the performance management of individuals. This is good news for them. They have full visibility of how this works. They will see their performance against others in the call centre. This tool will make them the best that they can be.”
Cruisewatch chief executive Markus Stumpe said Ambassador could “really get a picture of what is happening” in its call centre using the technology. “AI should not replace humans, it should support them with what they’re doing,” he added.
“We don’t want to get rid of the call centre agents because they’re the cause of everything. The customer wants to have this personal touch. That is key.”
He admitted a lot of firms were “scared” of using AI-driven technologies, but pointed out how they were “capable of solving problems short-term”.
“The only thing a client has to do a provide us with call files,” he said. “We can set up a project in two to three days. You will get some results after a few days.”
He confirmed Cruisewatch had recently partnered with German travel agency E-hoi and several US companies. Some cruise line call centres were also currently undergoing trials, Stumpe added.
