Jetstar 'overwhelmed' with response to chatbot 'Jess'

Jetstar Group head of customer care and shared services Liz McCarthy stated Jess engages close to 250,000 cross channel conversations per month and to date has managed more than nine million conversations (Mumbrella/CIO Australia, 12-Feb-2018). "We have been overwhelmed with the response. Jess has lowered our response time from up to 17 hours to zero minutes, and has already assisted more than 8000 customers with their inquiries, including 3000 customers during the significant disruptions in Bali caused by Mount Agung", Ms McCarthy said. Meanwhile, Nuance Enterprise MD Robert Schwarz stated Jetstar's deployment of its virtual assistant 'Jess' on Facebook Messenger is "setting a new standard, allowing customers to engage with the brand the same way they would their friends". He added: "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". Initially introduced on the airline's website in 2013 and created by Nuance Communications and Nuance Nina, Jess answers questions customers may have in real time, generally providing a 'yes' or 'no' response.