Jetstar’s virtual assistant launches on Facebook Messenger

Jetstar’s virtual assistant launches on Facebook Messenger 

SYDNEY, Australia, 13 February 2018 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced Jetstar has extended the deployment of web virtual assistant “Jess” to Facebook Messenger to offer more points of contact for its customers to engage.

Powered by AI-driven virtual assistant, Nuance Nina, Jess is now capable of providing real-time conversations on Facebook Messenger to resolve customer queries across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

As the first airline in Asia Pacific to extend the same AI-powered virtual assistant from web to Facebook Messenger, Jetstar is providing a contemporary digital experience for its highly mobile customer base.

Jess is now able to assist Jetstar’s Facebook fans quickly and conveniently through retrieving customer bookings, resending itineraries and adding baggage to bookings, amongst a range of other ‘smart’ features.

Through Facebook Messenger, Jess is already showcasing results by achieving an impressive 73% first-contact resolution (resolving the consumer’s query through the chat session) when inbound traffic quadrupled during the recent volcanic activity of Mount Agung in Bali.

“We’re excited to extend Jetstar’s virtual assistant, Jess, to Facebook Messenger in partnership with Nuance.

We have been testing Jess on Facebook since November 2017 and have been overwhelmed with the response. Jess has lowered response time from up to 17 hours to zero minutes and has already assisted thousands of customers with their enquiries,” said Liz McCarthy, Head of Customer Care, Jetstar.

“Jetstar’s deployment on Facebook Messenger is setting a new standard, allowing customers to engage with the brand the same way they would their friends. Through Nuance’s natural language understanding, conversational dialogue and advanced resolution techniques, Jetstar customers can converse in real-time, everyday language whenever and wherever they are and receive immediate and accurate responses,” said Robert Schwarz, managing director for Nuance Enterprise, Australia and New Zealand.

With increasing expectations for personalised and targeted interactions, Jetstar’s expansion of its virtual assistant offering to Facebook reflects consumer demands to reach brands through their preferred online channels. Jess on Facebook Messenger is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language understanding to deliver an accurate, contextual, and conversational dialogue, providing consumers with answers in real-time in the same way it powers the virtual assistant on the web.

Today, Jess engages in close to 250,000 cross-channel conversations per month and has managed over 9 million conversations with Jetstar customers.

Earlier this year, Nuance was ranked the number one chatbot/virtual assistant vendor for enterprise customer service by leading research and advisory firm Forrester. There are over 6,500 enterprises using Nuance’s self-service technologies, processing an estimated 16 billion transactions each year.

Nuance has over 700 professional services team members who integrate the Company’s customer service solutions deeply within the back-office systems of many of the leading telecommunications and financial institutions around the world, as well as leading healthcare, travel, and government organizations.

In a single platform, Nuance is the only vendor to combine the tooling, intelligence and analytics of natural language processing (NLP) and cognitive technologies, as well as integrated security, to deliver automated and assisted solutions targeted to Enterprise needs.

For more information about Nuance’s Nina, please visit the Nuance website.

About Jetstar

The Jetstar Group is one of Asia Pacific’s fastest-growing airline brands with one of the most extensive ranges of destinations in the region. It is made up of Jetstar Airways (a subsidiary of the Qantas Group) in Australia and New Zealand, Jetstar Asia in Singapore, Jetstar Pacific in Vietnam, and Jetstar Japan in Japan. Jetstar branded carriers operate up to 5,000 flights a week to more than 85 destinations. The Jetstar Group carried more than 37 million passengers in the financial year 2017.

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications is the pioneer and leader in conversational and cognitive AI innovations that bring intelligence to everyday work and life.  The company delivers solutions that can understand, analyse and respond to human language to increase productivity and amplify human intelligence.  With decades of domain and artificial intelligence expertise, Nuance works with thousands of organisations – in global industries that include healthcare, telecommunications, automotive, financial services, and retail – to create stronger relationships and better experiences for their customers and workforce. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com

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