PhoCusWright Europe Conference 2014: Egencia® announces smart customer service technology

-- Egencia's Intelligent Service Platform brings new technology to its customer service offering to improve the business travel experience

LONDON, May 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Egencia®, the business travel company of the Expedia® group, today announced the rollout of its Intelligent Services Platform (ISP) in Europe during a panel discussion on the future of business travel at the PhoCusWright Europe conference in Dublin.

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Senior Vice-president, Egencia EMEA, Christophe Peymirat described how Egencia is continuing to focus its technology investment on improving both the online and offline experience for their customers to make business travel management easier and more productive.

"We want to give our customers a personalised and easy way to manage their travel by perfectly integrating offline and online services across mobile, desktop and our call centres," says Peymirat. "Because we develop our own technology, Egencia is in a unique position to combine advanced call centre services with our online booking solutions. When a traveller or travel arranger calls, our agents don't just see a number: they can greet the caller by name and quickly access current itineraries, past preferences and company travel policies. This makes managing changes and more complex travel arrangements easier and quicker for our customers."

Egencia will roll out the ISP in nine customer service centres across these European cities over the coming weeks: Paris, Marseille, Tourcoing, Lyon, London, Manchester, Munich, Brussels, and Zurich.

Technology-infused service integrated into Egencia's proprietary platform
Egencia's customers make changes to over 20% of their itineraries and often these changes require assistance from customer service agents and can be short notice and time-critical. To improve this experience for its travellers, Egencia connected its proprietary booking technology with advanced telephone services to automatically trigger a 'screen pop' on the agent's terminal. Egencia customer service agents can then greet travellers by name, immediately access their profile and help smooth out the details of their trip.

The platform has been live for Egencia customers in the United States since mid-2013. The European roll-out began with the Paris customer service centre where the ISP has already improved the service experience there. Nathalie Covaneiro, Facilities and HSE Manager from Eneria says, "Egencia has always provided an extremely tailored and personal service for our travellers through their website, customer services and mobile platforms. Now when travellers call Egencia, the agent immediately recognises them and has access to their profile. This saves time and improves our travellers' experience, ultimately making them more productive."

Immediate in-trip assistance at the tip of your fingers
Customers using the recently launched Egencia® TripNavigator application will also benefit from the ISP. With the app's "click-to-call" service, callers are one-tap away from their Egencia designated customer service agent and immediate, personalised service.

Egencia TripNavigator is now available for download on iTunes for iOS and will soon be released for Android devices on GooglePlay. Non-Egencia customers may download and preview the app using the "Explore" button on the home screen.

Notes to editors
Christophe Peymirat took part in the panel discussion "Future unknown: The changing landscape of business travel" at the PhoCusWright Europe event in Dublin, Ireland at 12:15 pm, May 21, 2014.

About Egencia
Egencia is a leading full-service travel management company delivering innovative business travel technology and expert local service to more than 10,000 clients in over 60 countries around the world. As part of the Expedia group (NASDAQ: EXPE), one of the world's largest online travel companies, Egencia provides forward-looking companies with the ability to drive compliance and cost savings in their travel programmes, while meeting the needs and requirements of the modern business traveller.  For more information please visit us at www.egencia.co.uk or connect with us on Twitter @Egencia_UK.

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