Title	CHAT TRAVEL
Brand	CHEAP FLIGHTS
Product/Service	FLIGHT SEARCH ENGINE
Category	C03. Use of Social Platforms
Entrant	UNCLE GREY Copenhagen, DENMARK
Idea Creation	UNCLE GREY Copenhagen, DENMARK

Name	Company	Position
Thomas Ilum	Uncle Grey	Creative Director
Andrei Andreescu	Freelance	Creative tech
Magnus Kristoffersen	Look at Me Now	Motion Designer
Charlotte Porsager	Uncle Grey	Client Service Director

The Campaign

We utilized the new Facebooks Chat SDK and combined it with Cheapflights flight search API to build the service called Chat Travel. Chat Travel is a personalized chat bot servicing the thousands of flight price requests that Cheapflights gets on Facebook messenger. Chat Travel responds immediately, 24/7/365, to all flight searches, without Cheapflights having to lift a single finger. The chat bot was created with a warm, witty persona, which truly gave fans an experience of chatting to a human.

Creative Execution

The team created an interactive bot utilising Facebook’s new Chat SDK. The technology was uniquely curated to offer a human response, which embraces the Cheapflights brand warm, witty personality and adds to their suite of products that allow users to be connected, wherever they are. Whether users are a fan of ‘dropping the f-bomb’ (or worse) or a fan of a ‘winter-is-coming-sword-fighting-like’ series, the bot has an answer for them. If they’re a fan of another flight search competitor, well, then not so much. The bot was launched across all of Cheapflights markets through social media, and has due to its massive success become an on-going platform that Cheapflights keep building on.

Results

With the build of Chat Travel thousands of flight search requests are now automatically handled in just a few seconds, giving thousands of customers an instant respond. Before 80% of all messages on Facebook messenger were flight search requests, now they’re dealt with, so Cheapflights spend less time with manual labour searching flights for people. So now the brand can more valuable time with the customers who have other request. In just a few weeks 20.000 people searched 28.000 Flights, and a staggering 36% clicked book now. Chat Travel has become an on-going platform for Cheapflights to maintain a direct relationship with a demanding audience on Facebook.

Chat travel is solving a real business issue as 80% of all Facebook messages to Cheapflights on Facebook was flight price requests. Obviously Cheapflights could not handle flight price requests as fast as their flight search service, which lead to dissatisfied customers. The solution created an immediate, direct response to customers requesting flight prices on Facebook messenger, giving them a digital service just as fast as Cheapflights website delivers, which truly demonstrated Cheapflights is ‘Smart Search. Made Simple’.

Search on mobile devices continues to grow and data shows that for Cheapflights 63% of all traffic and 54% of the revenue comes from this platform. Research furthermore shows that Cheapflights appeals to a younger audience; consumers that expects seamless interaction with brands and who are not afraid to try out new ways of communication. This group applauds challenger brands that dare to stick out in the category. In order to differentiate Cheapflights from its competitors the idea should leverage the possibilities of combining existing and new technologies to make the search experience even more personalized.