AWS for Industries

Drive Hotel Mobile Adoption with Conversations by NLX

In today’s fast-paced world, mobile adoption is critical for any industry looking to stay ahead of the competition. The hotel industry is no exception. Guests want mobile options, and the benefits of mobile adoption for hotels are tenfold.

Mobile adoption means fewer calls to the front desk and concierge, freeing up staff time to perform other, more complex tasks, which is especially important for hotels still struggling with staffing shortages. Additionally, greater mobile adoption amongst hotel-goers can result in the ability to automate upsells like:

  • Booking the hotel restaurant or spa reservations
  • Answering guest FAQs
  • Sending push notifications with important pre-stay and checkout reminders

Despite innovations and investments, guest adoption of these mobile investments has been slow. Many guests still begin their inquiry over the phone. Even if guests call and engage with a voicebot to inquire and self-serve, typical conversational self-service does not drive mobile adoption.

Conversations by NLX, available on the AWS Marketplace, is a powerful no-code conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform that delivers world-class customer experiences that meet the scale, complexity, and compliance standards of enterprise organizations. Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Conversations by NLX can help hotels build rich conversational AI applications and drive mobile adoption.

Multimodal Conversational AI and Generative AI Deliver Simple, Engaging Experiences

If guests are already in the practice of picking up the phone, why not start the mobile adoption journey there? It’s simple, and no initial change of action is needed on the guest’s end

Imagine a customer is calling in to change a reservation. A voicebot greets the customer by name and asks how it can help the guest. The guest asks to change the dates on a reservation. The voicebot asks if they can text a link to their mobile device to complete the order while the guest is on the phone. Should the guest agree to the text, a link to the hotel’s mobile app is sent while asking the guest to stay on the line so further assistance can be provided once the guest has downloaded the app.

NLX’s patented multimodal technology now takes over. Crafted within the no-code Conversations by NLX conversational AI platform, NLX’s multimodal solution synchronizes two or more channels to offer end-users a highly engaging, personalized, and seamless experience.

Voice guidance during end-to-end digital journeys_figure1

Voice guidance during end-to-end digital journeys

Using natural language processing (NLP) – like Amazon Lex – guests can interact with the contact center using their voice, and NLX’s technology will understand their intent and provide an appropriate response. Once the customer’s intent is understood, the guest stays on the phone while NLX voice guides the customer through changing their booking using their mobile application, allowing the guest to seamlessly transition back and forth between voice and mobile.

Using information from the customer and the hotel booking software, NLX authenticates and updates the booking using voice and mobile synchronization. If the guest still has issues, NLX voice can redirect the journey by escalating directly with an agent.

What is the outcome of this simple, elegant experience? Guests experience continuous engagement just as they would with a live agent while learning how to engage with the hotel’s mobile offering. There’s no change of initial interaction for the guest, but they learn how to use the hotel’s mobile offerings within the experience. Plus, hotel-goers can seamlessly transition back and forth between mobile and a voicebot friction-free 24/7 while feeling more engaged and informed thanks to the multi-sensory experience.

The business benefit is even more powerful. When enterprises use NLX’s multimodal experience, customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores grow above 85% on average. Enterprises aren’t simply focused on call containment but can automate complicated conversational AI journeys.

Hotels reap the return on investment for their mobile application with:

  • Fewer inquiries to the call center/front desk/concierge
  • Labor cost-savings
  • Better 24/7 service
  • Upsell opportunities
  • An indirect training for mobile adoption

The next time guests need help, they may think twice and simply use the mobile application.

Under The Hood

NLX’s patented multimodal technology allows the enterprise conversational builder to synchronize voice and mobile channels for a seamless customer experience.

Conversations by NLX is built using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon API Gateway, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS Lambda functions. Amazon Kinesis performs near real-time analytics, and Amazon Timestream stores timeseries data generated during conversations. Amazon Translate and Amazon Polly support conversational designs.

Customer calls are directed to Amazon Connect, and the call progresses through a contact flow. Amazon Lex supports intelligent conversational chatbots to automate responses for a high volume of user contacts without compromising the customer’s experience.

Customer requests are sent to NLX’s natural language understanding (NLU) engine, which is built using Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Translate, and Amazon ElastiCache. The scalable engine is built to analyze input text and determine the meaning behind the customer request. It is scalable, which helps minimize response times and makes it resilient against failure.

Enterprises can even power more accurate intent recognition, facilitate faster training, and better real-time data clustering with Large Language Models (LLMs) like Alexa Teacher Model (AlexaTM 20B), among others.

Finally, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) are used to create roles and temporary tokens that securely authorize access to various services.

Conclusion:

Over 95% of hotel operators are planning to add capabilities for mobile reservations, check-in, room key, and two-way messaging with guests.

Multimodal Conversational AI and generative AI can help hotels maximize their guest mobile adoption by providing a more engaging, personalized experience that takes advantage of pre-existing guest behavior and transitions to mobile use (phone to mobile). Mobile solutions are investments for customer’s needs while also helping hotels reap the operational, employer, and financial benefits of their initial investment.

NLX’s patented multimodal and generative AI technology and AWS’s cloud infrastructure and services enable hotels to offer their guests a seamless and personalized experience, leading to increased guest satisfaction, loyalty, and trust.

Go Deeper:

Brian Dawson

Brian Dawson

As Chief Strategy Officer at NLX, Brian is integral to helping grow the company’s strategy, partners, and helps in all areas of corporate growth. He brings over 25 years of company growth and executive experience across diverse industry verticals. He advises for several companies and worked directly within two major University incubators and entrepreneur programs. He holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and has a Master’s in Computer Science and Computer Engineering from California State University Long Beach.

Greg Land

Greg Land

Greg Land serves as Global Segment Leader in the Travel & Hospitality industry vertical at AWS, with responsibility for go-to-market strategy, business development and industry solutions development for accommodations, lodging, casino and cruise customers. Prior to joining AWS, he served in leadership roles with IBM, American Airlines, Sabre, Wyndham Hotel Group and Radius Global Travel Management spanning a 25+ year career across the travel industry. Mr. Land holds bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Accounting, and completed his masters of business administration at Oklahoma State University. He also completed the executive global leadership program at The Wharton School of Business.