A first in India’s airline sector, “Pepper” provides an intelligent, bilingual conversational experience for callers, enabling faster and more effective customer service in Hindi and English
GURGAON, India, Dec. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — SpiceJet today announced the launch of Pepper, the first bilingual, AI-powered virtual voice assistant in the Indian airline industry. Built on the advanced natural language understanding and call steering capabilities of Nuance Communications’ Intelligent Engagement Platform, Pepper is able to understand customer requests over the phone without needing legacy touchtone or menu options. As a result, SpiceJet customers can simply communicate their intent directly to Pepper and the platform will automatically provide information and resolve queries through natural, human-like conversation in either English or Hindi.
With consumers today becoming increasingly familiar with the fast, easy access that virtual assistants provide on digital channels, the expectation for the same seamless and natural experiences on voice channels is growing. As a result, AI-powered virtual assistants are being deployed in voice channels to deliver the streamlined, frictionless, and fast conversational experiences that consumers expect and appreciate.
SpiceJet’s Pepper leverages Nuance’s conversational AI technology to help customers navigate through their SpiceJet experience quickly and smoothly, understanding call intent, verifying the intent, and then offering relevant solutions. The Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform expedites customer requests by accurately recognizing their needs and quickly steering the conversation to self-service options or directly to a customer service agent. The result is greater call routing accuracy, reduced call duration, and improved customer satisfaction.
Debojo Maharshi, Chief Marketing Officer, SpiceJet Airline said, “At SpiceJet, more and more customers are reaching out via voice channels for service— whether it’s for flight enquiries, bookings or cancellations, or flight status. Recognizing this shift in consumer preferences, we created Pepper, which is built on a technology provided by Nuance that understands a customer’s query and steers the conversation to provide a quick and relevant response. Now, customer satisfaction is measurably increasing. We’re already looking for ways to expand Pepper’s capabilities to address more customer needs and free up our human agents to provide more specific support related to our specialist service, SpiceMax.”
“People want to engage brands in the same way they communicate with friends, family, and colleagues, and the voice channel is starting to be their preferred choice in India,” said Tony Lorentzen, SVP of Intelligent Engagement, Nuance. “Our AI technology enables natural conversational experience by understanding what the customer is saying, processing that intent, and providing the bridge to either a resolution or the right live person to help get to one. We are pleased to be partnering with SpiceJet for the roll out of Pepper voice bot and congratulate them for being first in their field with this kind of application.”
To learn more about the Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform, click here.
