Deem is building out its Work Fource platform with a
Facebook Messenger chatbot and integrations with chauffeured transportation
providers. Additionally, the company has added Lyft to its ground
transportation offering and made Intelligent Attach live in Work Fource.
Facebook Messenger
Chatbot
Deem's Facebook Messenger chatbot will connect travelers to
the Deem Work Fource platform within the Messenger app. Company and policy
information, as well as user-specific information like preferred suppliers,
negotiated rates, payment types and loyalty programs will be connected to
Messenger.
The chatbot will enable not only booking via Messenger but
also during-trip assistance in Messenger. "It's a surface that Deem Work
Fource expresses itself on through Facebook Messenger," Deem president and
CEO John Rizzo told BTN. "All of the power of the Work Fource sits behind
it, yet it delivers data in response to your spoken commands or typed commands.
And because it has access to all your records in Work Fource, it has the
context and therefore can respond intelligently to what you need." Over
time, the chatbot will improve, Rizzo said, enhancing services and enabling
travelers to submit queries about things like weather and local restaurants.
Travel management companies Cain Travel and Campbell Travel
are piloting the chatbot and expect to roll it out in the coming months.
Rizzo expects to make Work Fource available on a number of
messaging apps but started with Facebook because it has the largest user
base—one billion monthly users globally—and because its application programming
interfaces are extensive, allowing Deem speed and efficiency. Additionally, the
technologies that already are present in Facebook, such as speech recognition
and geolocation, are a natural fit for the travel industry. "If you landed
in a place where there's just been a terrorist incident and your company wants
to know if you're OK, the geolocation services Facebook has allow us to …
automatically let everybody know that you're in a different area, for example,"
Rizzo said.
Intelligent Attach
Deem has its Intelligent Attach feature up and running for
hotel content at Adelman and is implementing it at Campbell Travel. The feature
uses travel policy, traveler preferences, historical traveler behavior and
sentiment data to provide personalized hotel recommendations to travelers.
Intelligent Attach is built on tech created by Olset, which
Deem acquired last fall, and Adelman was an early adopter of Olset's hotel recommendation
engine. The feature will play a key role in curating a small number of
targeted, personalized results on Facebook Messenger when a traveler says,
"Book me a hotel room."
Soon Intelligent Attach also will recommend car services.
Ground Transportation
Developments
Deem is integrating Lyft into its ground transportation
platform, as well as in Work Fource, which will enable travelers to reserve Lyft
rides alongside their flights and hotels. Lyft content will appear in all of
Deem's existing ground distribution channels, which are provided by Sabre: Apollo,
Red Workspace, TripCase and GetThere. "We'd like partners using Deem Work
Fource to have the ability to add Lyft reservations directly in the global
distribution system, which enables complete itinerary management and reporting,"
Deem VP of travel and car services Mike Daly said.
Deem has fielded many requests from its corporate direct
customers to have Lyft in its platform, Rizzo told BTN, "because they're
already buying a lot of Lyft today off-platform."
Deem also is expanding its partnerships with BostonCoach
and Empire CLS and their affiliated networks to bring their chauffeured
transportation content into Work Fource. In addition to the planned Intelligent
Attach expansion to car services, the Work Fource platform will pre-populate
information, such as pickup location and time, for the traveler. Car booking
details also will be added to a traveler's passenger name record.