Low-cost arm of Singapore Airlines Scoot today launched a transactional chatbox christened MARVIE (Scoot’s Most Awesome and Resourceful Virtual Intern Ever), on its Singapore Facebook page via Facebook Messenger. It is Asia’s first transactional chatbox capable of allowing transactions and responding to customer queries.
“In addition to handling queries in English, MARVIE is able to assist customers to search for flights, display the same fares and availability as reflected on Scoot’s website and mobile app, make flight bookings, and allow payment by credit card – essentially a full transaction flow,” said Scoot in a press release.
The chatbox was launched commemorating with the one-year anniversary of the merger of Scoot with Tigerair.
MARVIE was soft-launched on July 2. Since then, it has serviced on average 50 unique users a day, and successfully resolved 37.5 per cent of the queries that come through Facebook.
This resolution rate is expected to rise as MARVIE is in constant learning mode and its capabilities will improve over time as more customers interact with it. The most commonly asked queries to date pertain to baggage, the Scoot Insider programme, KrisFlyer integration, as well as flight search and booking, proving that there is indeed demand for transactional capability via chatbot.
“Instead of having our customers come to us, we are committed to meeting them where they are, when it’s convenient for them. As the first airline in Asia to enable flight bookings and payment via our chatbot, we aim to make it simpler and more convenient for customers to realise their travel plans with Scoot, through a mobile-first approach beyond just the website and mobile app,” said Vinod Kannan, Chief Commercial Officer of Scoot.
"One year on from merging Tigerair into Scoot, Scoot has grown significantly and our network now spans 66 destinations across 18 countries/territories. We have also invested heavily in several initiatives to improve our digital capabilities and the customer experience,” he added.
Notably, MARVIE was developed with the expertise of Caravelo, a technology company specialised in solutions for the airline industry.
“We are super proud of MARVIE and of our long-standing partnership with Scoot. For the last two years, we've been pioneering conversational commerce in the airline industry,” said Jonathan Newman, Chief Commercial Officer of Caravelo.
In the future, MARVIE will be able to accept promo codes, assist customers to manage and make changes to their bookings, purchase ancillary products such as preferred seats and travel insurance, make interline bookings involving flights by partner airlines, and accept more payment modes.
There are also plans to make MARVIE. available in more languages and on more platforms, including Scoot’s website.
Meanwhile, Scoot has also announced prizes for chatting with MARVIE. Users can chat up with MARVIE on Facebook till August 12 with their flight requests or any burning questions they have about flying with Scoot, to train MARVIE to learn and become better over time.
“The top three trainers with interactions that help improve MARVIE’s performance the most stand to win a free flight to any Scoot destination. Three lucky ‘trainers’ who hit a milestone interaction mark will also stand to win SGD100 Scoot travel vouchers,” announced the company.