Generative AI product and solution developers Turing recently posted a blog on the 5 Key Considerations for Building an AI Implementation Strategy. We thought we’d apply the model to our AI-powered virtual assistant solution for hotels, EVA (Evolution Virtual Agent), to see how it measured up. Here are the 5 considerations and how we applied them to EVA.
1. Problem Definition
Defining the problem that the AI system will solve and identifying the business objective and the specific task that the AI system will perform.
In the case of a hotel, we believe the business objective is quite clear – to deliver enhanced guest engagement, satisfaction and loyalty, to drive repeat bookings and increased business success. There are additional benefits of boosting staff moral and reducing staff sickness and churn, in turn further enhancing guest engagement.
The specific task for EVA is to answer guest enquiries before, during and after their stay via voice or chat and free up guest facing staff to delight customers in person.
2. Data Quality
The data is just as important as the AI technology itself because AI builds upon the data. Data must be accurate, relevant, and consistent to produce reliable results.
Having answered more than 10 million guest calls in 2023 alone, we have vast amounts of data on guest calls answered, average call lengths, calls passed to operators, calls abandoned and so on. EVA typically answers 98% of all calls to front desks and customer services and typically manages 60-75% of those calls without referring the guest to a live agent, sometimes more.
3. Model (Solution) Selection
Choosing the right model that best fits the project requirement is one of the most crucial factors that an organisation and organisations must choose the one that best fits their requirements.
Having experienced competitor AI solutions, we are convinced that EVA is the best hotel voice AI solution by far, understanding more, quickly and in a single question and provide human-like answers and interactions. EVA is built using two large language models and can be programmed with any number of different languages.
Fourteen IP only supports the hospitality industry and has done so 2011. Longer as other businesses, so our AI solution EVA is designed specifically to meet the customer service demand of hotels. We believe it is the leading solution for hotel which is supported by the fact we are approved by Marriott, Hilton and most other leading hotel brands and independent hotels.
4. Integration with Existing Systems
Another, often neglected factor in building an effective AI implementation strategy is integrating an AI system with existing systems. This is a complex process that requires careful planning, and the AI system needs to be consistently integrated into the broader system.
Having been born out of the telecommunications industry and many years therein, Fourteen IP is perfectly placed to manage the integration of our EVA solution with both existing on-premise telephone systems and hotel cloud telephony solutions.
Click here to access our EVA Telephone Integration Guide
Using API’s, EVA also integrates seamlessly with many hotel productivity and guest management solutions, delivery additional customer service benefits to hotel guests.
Click here to access our guide to Empowering EVA with APIs
The Turing article went on to mention, if an organisation is implementing an AI system to automate customer service, it must ensure that the system integrates with the existing customer service platform and that the customer service representatives are trained to use the system.
Having deployed Eva into thousands of hotel rooms, we are very experienced in training hotel staff to achieve the most out over EVA and to deliver a seamless guest experience.
5. Ethical Considerations
The article raised the issue of how in some cases, handing over crucial factors to super-intelligent machines can make people uneasy and talks about how organisations must consider the ethical implications of implementing AI in business.
To our mind this raises some interesting points. Naturally hotel staff might feel AI could be a threat to their jobs, but our view is that EVA specifically, is there to augment the essential role of guest facing staff by answering guest calls immediately, however busy front desk staff may be and resolving the majority of guest enquiries without human intervention.
EVA can be programmed to recognise guest room numbers, names and loyalty status and in doing so, greet guests personally and professionally when answering a call or chat message. EVA can answer natural language questions from guests, including multiple intents, without any menu choices and can manage different languages. It can provide information, accept requests for housekeeping and room service and even gather guest feedback.
The overwhelming feedback from hotel staff working with EVA is they would not do without it once it is installed.
The article summarises with reasons why companies should adopt AI:
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Enhanced decision making
- Revenue growth and market expansion
- Improved customer experience
- Competitive advantage and innovation
We wholeheartedly agree!
Click here for more information about our Hotel AI Solutions
You can read the entire Turing article here.
