Talkdesk Announces Vacation Now Solution Free for 90 Days

Talkdesk announced availability of Talkdesk Vacation Now, a new COVID-19 relief and recovery solution designed to help travel and hospitality companies ready their contact centres to support anticipated surges in demand as the industry reboots.

Talkdesk Vacation Now transitions contact centres to the cloud in as little as 24 hours and equips agents with best-in-class tools to work from anywhere. Talkdesk is providing this package to travel and hospitality companies free for 90 days, when companies sign up before Sept 1, 2021.

By moving contact centre operations to the cloud with Talkdesk and enabling agents to work remotely, companies are well positioned to scale services up and support the travel industry rebound. With an intuitive user interface, agents can serve customers immediately and become certified experts through Talkdesk Academy in just two hours.

The pent-up demand for travel is global. In the 2021 Global Travel Trends Report from American Express, 78% of respondents indicate wanting to travel in 2021 to relieve the stresses from 2020.

Results of the annual Vacation Deprivation study from Expedia revealed that in 2021 Americans plan to take an extra week of vacation, with 81% of working adults worldwide placing more value on vacation and ready to trade days off for bucket list experiences.

Travel Pulse magazine recently reported traveller optimism as COVID-19 vaccinations continue to roll out, with 83% of hopeful survey respondents planning to take at least two domestic trips and about half as many (44%) targeting two or more international getaways in 2021.

Tiago Paiva

“Customer experience has never been more important than it is now, as customers look to the brands they love and trust to help them reset, refuel and restart their lives. As consumers prepare to leave their homes to visit loved ones, see the world and celebrate life again, Talkdesk will be there to help the travel and hospitality industry deliver fast, personal experiences for every customer,” said Tiago Paiva, chief executive officer, Talkdesk.

“By reducing friction and decreasing the time it takes to address customer queries, Talkdesk Vacation Now helps travel and hospitality companies reimagine the traveller experience to get people out and about faster. Talkdesk is simple to use and tailor to our needs, which enables us to streamline our processes, making our agents’ jobs easier,” said Marco Racanelli, Customer Intelligence and Operations, trivago.

“With Talkdesk, we provide our hoteliers with a more customized and exceptional customer experience.”

“Talkdesk’s adaptability and scalability accommodate TAP Air Portugal’s need to support more than 30 different markets and countries in six languages, often witnessing seasonal sky-high traffic peaks,” said Eduardo Correia de Matos, customer service director, TAP Air Portugal.

According to the 2020 Talkdesk Contact Center KPI Benchmarking Report, the travel sector has the longest hold time of any industry.

Analysing anonymous data from thousands of companies, the report found that travel businesses keep their customers waiting, on average, for almost twice as long as manufacturing and more than three times as long as healthcare and life sciences businesses.

Talkdesk Vacation Now is an end-to-end, cloud-based contact centre solution that uses automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to help travel and hospitality companies achieve faster customer resolution, as well as increase secured bookings – and ultimately, revenue.

It is the third COVID-19 relief and recovery solution introduced by Talkdesk in the last three months. In January 2021, Talkdesk announced its Small Business Lending solution and its Vaccine Administration solution, to facilitate the rapid and accurate allocation of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to the small businesses who need it most, and streamline the vaccination process worldwide.

Author: Robyn Coppell