Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Latin America's Copa Airlines Powers its 'Ask Ana' Virtual Agent with IntelliResponse Technology

April 12, 2012

“Is Web self-service a good thing?” Anyone who has ever used it knows the answer to that is similar to the answer to “How long is a string?” The answer depends entirely on the Web self-service. Done properly, Web self-service can be a boon to both contact centers and customers, helping the latter find the answers they need with minimum fuss. Done improperly – designed to benefit the contact center only and not the customer – Web self-service can turn customers away in droves.


When Copa Airlines, the fastest-growing airline in Latin America and recipient of the 2011 World Travel Awards for “World's Leading Airline to Central America & Mexico,” began searching for a Web self-service platform to power its “Ask Ana” virtual online self-service assistant, it chose IntelliResponse Systems' Answer Suite, a multichannel Web self-service solution designed to deliver answers to customer and service agent questions.

Virtual assistants, of course, are online personas, usually in an avatar form, that help Web customers find the answers they need, even if they're not sure where to look. Powered by the IntelliResponse Answer Suite, Ask Ana ensures that the online customer experience delivered by Copa Airlines is both enjoyable and rewarding, enabling customers and visitors to www.copa.com to type in a question using everyday natural language. Users get a single, accurate and approved answer to their questions, the very first time, along with a short list of helpful, related questions. Users also have the ability to view a dynamic list of the top ten questions based on previous question patterns.

Since its implementation in November 2011, Ask Ana has managed to steadily redirect general inquiries and questions towards this new and enhanced web self-service option, improving the online experience and allowing service agents to focus on high value customer interactions.

“The feedback we've received, both internally and externally, about Ask Ana has been very positive, and our customers love using Ask Ana to help them get answers to their commonly asked questions,” said Diego Quesada, eBusiness director of Copa Airlines, in a press release. “The staff at IntelliResponse were professional, knowledgeable, and very helpful in getting us live with Ask Ana. In addition to our current English version of Ask Ana, we are excited about adding support for both Spanish and Portuguese in the very near future.”

Mike Hennessy, vice president of Marketing at IntelliResponse, says building a great online self-service experience is about listening to customers, and backing it up with a flexible, intuitive, multichannel product.

“All the research we've seen points to the customer's desire to be able to self-serve on a company's website, and Copa Airlines is listening to their customers and providing the necessary tools to ensure a great online experience,” he said.






Edited by Jennifer Russell



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