A travel management tool at the palm of your handsโฆ
Earlier this week, PA Life were invited to attend theย press launch for Corporate Travellerโs exciting and innovative ‘chatbot’ app named Sam (Smart Assistant Manager). Sam is a next generation mobile app that blends artificial intelligence and the expertise of Corporate Traveller consultants to support business travellers before, during and post trip.
Known to many PA Life readers, Corporate Traveller are the UKโs largest travel management company (TMC), specialising in clients with an SME business travel spend of ยฃ50,000 to ยฃ2 million.
Sam was born and developed by Corporate Travellerโs sister business travel division FCM Travel Solutions. Despite the launch just this week, FCM Travel Solutions already have around 20,000 of their clientsโ travellers using the app.
PAs and EAs need a TMC solution that offers efficiency and speed at the touch of a button and it would seem that Corporate Travellerโs technology can offer this in the UK for the first time. No other TMC can provide this type of technology to business travellers in the SME market.
Andy Hegley, General Manager, Corporate Traveller UK comments: โWe are very excited about the launch of Sam as no other TMC can offer this kind of ground-breaking support to SME business travellers. Sam will be hugely beneficial to our customers. Most TMCs only support a traveller reactively if they need a flight booking changed during the trip, or to send them an impersonal/generic travel alert. But we believe that there is a real need to proactively support SME travellers at each stage of their trip.โ
A bit more about Sam; A highly-interactive, travel-savvy and anticipatory app that delivers personalized contextual information via a conversational interface on the userโs smartphone.
Sam makes recommendations and performs actions relevant to the individual travellerโs trip, assisting business travellers with everything from itinerary management, air and hotel bookings, online check-in, flight updates and local weather forecasts to security notifications, taxis and transfers and city guides and destination information.
A PA for the PA; Sam generates and exchanges messages with each user, giving travellers their own โpersonal assistantโ on the move. Sam can query, process and respond to data from a multitude of sources and suppliers almost instantly.
Sam is fully integrated with Corporate Travellerโs existing technology and can provide;
- Booking of flights and hotels
- Itinerary management โ users can view all their flights and hotels for each trip in one place
- Weather updates โ the night before a trip, Sam sends the weather forecast for the travellerโs destination, so he/she knows what to pack
- Traffic notifications โ Sam messages the traveller to advise how long it will take to get to the airport
- Online check-in – Sam reminds the user to check in online and provides the relevant link within the chat interface
- Travel alerts โ Sam notifies the user if their if his/her flight is running late; tells them their flightโs departure gate; and even the carousel number their bags will be delivered to on landing
- Destination city guides โ useful information about the city the traveller is flying to
- Taxi and transfer booking options โ when the traveller lands, Sam asks the user if they need to book a taxi โ if the user answers โyesโ, Sam connects to Uber or Lyft
- Trip synching with the userโs smartphone calendar
- Facility to share trip information with colleagues
- Fun yearly stats โ e.g. โYouโve spent 87 hours flying โ thatโs equivalent to watching 9.6 Star Wars filmsโ; โYouโve travelled 12,277 miles โ thatโs enough distance to travel the Tran Siberian routeโ
- The option for the user to contact their Corporate Traveller consultant via Samโs chat interface at any time
Additional capabilities will be added to Sam in 2019 so watch this space for further updates.
Corporate Traveller will be demonstrating Samโs new features on the TMCโs stand B30 at the Business Travel Show at Olympia, London on February 21 to 22 2019.
Before or after your visit to see Sam in action, be sure to stop by the PA Life stand to see all of the new and exciting things we have in store! Bookmark stand B700 NOW!
