A Robot Took My Job…and I Love It!

In this guest piece, Kurt Knackstedt, CEO of Troovo, has stepped into addressing the future of robots.

‘Manual data entry’ are the dirty words of the travel industry. It’s dull, difficult and time-consuming so nobody really wants to do it. And as it turns out, boredom is bad for business.

Global studies show that jaded staff experience greater work dissatisfaction, are less productive and more likely to look for other jobs. But now it’s one part of the job people no longer have to do.

Because Aussie tech start-up Troovo is using Robotic Process Automation for post-booking data entry and itinerary processing and agents are finding plenty of good reasons to welcome the robots.

Troovo virtualises travel booking processing from start to finish, seamlessly handling all post-booking processes for agents, as well as handling payments, producing invoices and itineraries, delivering e-documents, collecting and formatting data and more.

It’s fully automated, so there’s no need to log in and, as a modular system, agencies have the flexibility to choose how they implement it – installing just one feature or the entire system. Agents that have already invested in technology will find that Troovo fits right in – integrating with all GDSs, online booking tools and third party systems.

“Nobody joined the travel industry to spend the majority of their day doing data processing,” Knackstedt says.

“And yet, with an average of 50 per cent of online bookings having to still be handled at some point by people, travel agents are responsible for an enormous amount of data processing.

“With Troovo, the processing of 99 per cent of online bookings and more than 85 per cent of offline bookings are taken care of, so employees have more time to dedicate to the part of the job they enjoy most – helping customers have amazing travel experiences.”

What’s more, human error costs your business money. Troovo gets the job done correctly, every time and nobody in your team needs to touch a calculator or fill out forms. The increased efficiency and accuracy doesn’t just increase your margins, it makes for happier customers too.

Troovo dramatically and permanently cuts the costs of itinerary and transaction processes to deliver a return on investment within the first six months of deployment. In fact, thanks to increased process efficiency and reductions in capital costs, some Troovo clients have quadrupled their margins.

Based off savings from incremental variable transaction fee revenue, revenue in incremental commissions, reduction of service fees and staff redeployment, one Troovo customer has made $930K in direct savings from the first two Troovo modules – an 11 per cent increase in operating margin. And because costs are based only on transactions processed, any risk is extremely low.

Having already successfully launched in Australia over a year ago, Troovo is now moving into New Zealand, and later this year will deploy into the US and UK. Troovo is in discussions with airlines, online travel agencies, consolidators, corporate agencies and multi-national TMCs.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au