SPOKANE, Wash. — Red Lion Hotels Corporation (RLHC) has deployed an industry-first artificial intelligence (AI) virtual agent for central reservations at all 1,400 of its hotels. The announcement follows the completion of a three-month pilot program, which began on April 24.
The system will allow RLHC to support additional hotel-information searches and to confirm, modify or cancel reservations. It will also enhance its central-reservations office ticketing-system integration to ensure smoother transfer for the caller to a live agent.
“The results of our pilot have been very positive,” says April Weatherly, director of Telephony Optimization & Analytics at RLHC. “We’re seeing travellers engage with the technology at a rate higher than we anticipated and are very pleased with the virtual agent’s ability to resolve traveller questions autonomously, reducing the cost of non-revenue related calls.”
Over the next several months, RLHC will introduce further enhancements to support reservations, its Hello Rewards program and other telephony solutions.
“As technology continues to change, so does the expectation of the guest and how they connect to our hotels. By providing AI through central reservations, we’re opening up alternative channels and more options for our guests without sacrificing the positive experience they’ve come to expect from RLHC,” says Weatherly.
