Whether traveling or booking for business at home, arranging for a rental car never seems pleasant or straightforward. The next time you rent a car, you may get some help in the way of Artificial Intelligence. Budget Costa Rica and the Costa Rican company EDNA have teamed up to improve the digital experience of the car rental agency customers.
A chatbot called Franco has been rolled out on Facebook and the Budget website. If you have questions about rentals, options for the type of cars in the fleet, what the coverage is, or where the closest location is, Franco has the ability to help you in English or Spanish.
The service is not slated to end there. Eventually, customers will also be able to book car rentals and obtain real-time quotes using AI. Booking car rentals online used to be innovative and new, but it was not always the best way to go, as it was sometimes difficult to obtain all of the information needed to make informed decisions.
Calling and talking to an agent was the safest way, but that had its drawbacks as well. Franco has all the advantages of both.
This joint venture is breaking ground in Costa Rica, as has been pointed out by the CEO of EDNA, as Budget would be the first car rental company in Costa Rica to use a chatbot. By partnering with each other, both businesses have used the other’s strengths to increase their footprint and market impact.
Great care was taken to keep the interface natural, quick, automated and friendly. Rolling this service out on Facebook has leveraged the fact that most of their customers are already comfortable with it and interact with it multiple times a day. By taking this step, Budget Costa Rica is looking to dominate the industry in a new way.
Budget Costa Rica has confirmed that they have been working intentionally on a plan to improve the experience for their customers. This innovation fits in perfectly with those efforts. By focusing on changing how their customer interacts with their service, Budget is pushing their competitors to change that dynamic as well. Time will tell whether they succeed.
Being able to turn to Facebook and ask questions or make reservations 24 hours a day with an interactive and friendly virtual assistant like Franco may just change the way you think about booking the car.
Original source Auto Rental News
