Your goal as a travel company is to be aware of how travelers search for a flight, but also when, where, and what’s truly motivating them. According to Expedia, a typical customer searches up to 48 times before booking a flight. To provide travelers with a seamless Search experience, it’s no longer enough to display the resulting flight options.

1. +

2. Rethinking Flight Shopping
with Conversational Search...
June 15th, 2017
with Chatbots

3. PRESENTER
Greg Mushen
Director of Product Management,
Flight Shopping at Expedia, Inc.
@gregmushen
PRESENTER
Misael Leon
Product Designer at Nearsoft
@misaello
HOST
Kim Lantis
Content Coordinator at Nearsoft
@kimlantis
I’m Emily

4. MisaelKim

5. Greg

6. 1. How We Search for Flights
2. How Chatbots Change the Search Experience
3. Creating a Flight Concierge Chatbot Experience
4. How to Display Search Results
5. Takeaways
Our Time Together...

7. PLANNING BOOKING
BEFORE
AIRPORT
CHECK-IN
IN-FLIGHT WHILE
TRAVELING
POST-TRIP
DURING
INSPIRATION
AFTER
The Travel Funnel Is Long

8. Anticipation

9. Decision

10. “That moment”

11. Enjoyment

12. I’m a robot!
Reduce Initial Effort
with Relevant Results

13. The typical customer
searches up to 48 times
before booking a flight
!!

14. The typical customer
searches up to 48 times
before booking a flight
!!
48 times

15. — Expedia
“For a given round trip flight search
between two destinations, there can be
billions of flight combinations, even when
only looking at a single departure and
return date.

17. MIAMI
SEATTLE

18. MIAMI
SEATTLE

19. MIAMI
SEATTLE

20. MIAMI
SEATTLE

21. MIAMI
SEATTLE

22. Flight search is a hard
computational problem…
also a tedious task for the user

23. Travelers like to think they have a trick
or strategy for finding the best airfare,
but in reality we are all searching for and
reserving tickets in similar fashion.
— Skift
“

24. How We Search for Flights
~60%
Websites
~35%
Tools
Results on
Paper

25. How We Search for Flights
Getaway
1 mo
Weeklong
3 to 6 mo
Holistic
Search

26. Chatbots are changing
the Flight Search Experience

27. What is a Chatbot?
A chatbot is a program which conducts a
conversation via auditory or textual
methods.
Designed to convincingly simulate how a
human would behave as a conversational
partner.

28. ● Certain queries may be more natural in chat
interface
e.g. When is the best time to go to Mallorca?
Why use a Chatbot?

29. ● Certain responses may be more understandable
in chat.
e.g. The lowest price from Seattle to Mallorca is
$1200, but if you fly out of Vancouver, BC the
lowest price is $900. There is a 90% chance the
price for this route will increase at least $100 in
the next two days.
Why use a Chatbot?

30. Specific
Problem
Creating a Chatbot Experience

31. ● Contact to sales agents
● Inspire about destinations
● Alarms on fare opportunities
● Search and find flights
● Info on in-trip information
● Tips on getting cheap flights
● Info on flight status
Examples...
Specific
Problem

32. PLANNING BOOKING
BEFORE
AIRPORT
CHECK-IN
IN-FLIGHT WHILE
TRAVELING
POST-TRIP
DURING
INSPIRATION
AFTER
The Travel Funnel Is Long

33. Specific
Problem
Creating a Chatbot Experience
Multiple
Scenarios

34. Hi! I’m Standbot
Case Study: Chatbot for Stand-ups
SoftwareDevTools.com/stand-bot

35. USER FLOW NAME
AVAILABLE OPTIONS
USER’S POSSIBLE ANSWERS
ERROR
PRECONDITIONS
VALIDATION
Documenting a Chatbot Workflow
HINTS / HELP
BOT’S SPEECH

45. Creating a Chatbot Experience
Personality
through
Conversation
Multiple
Scenarios
Specific
Problem

48. Creating a Chatbot Experience
Interactive
Options

51. Creating a Chatbot Experience
Interactive
Options
Natural
Processing
Language

56. Creating a Chatbot Experience
Interactive
Options
Natural
Processing
Language
Work Towards
Being Predictive

57. How do results differ
on Websites vs. Chatbots?

64. Bare Minimum Information
1. Airports
2. Departure / Arrival Date and Time
3. Length of flight
4. Number of Stops
5. Price
6. Category
7. Action Item

65. How to Display Results
Airports

66. How to Display Results
Arrival / Departure Date & Time

67. How to Display Results
Length of Flight

68. How to Display Results
Number of Stops

69. How to Display Results
Price

70. How to Display Results
Category

71. How to Display Results
Action Items

75. TAKEAWAYS
Rethinking Flight
Shopping with
Conversational
Search… with
Chatbots
1. Chatbots are booming
Do well one touchpoint of the funnel
2. Make a friendly personality
Use of Natural Processing Language
3. Cover all possible scenarios
Use inline prompts and buttons as call to actions
4. Display bare minimum results
Provide clear action items for each result
5. Have a graceful exit strategy
Create a general statement and/or propose a next step

76. SoftwareDevTools.com/stand-bot

77. bit.ly/expedia-bot
Expedia bot for FB Messenger

78. Want to know more? Contact us!
Thanks!
ux.nearsoft.com
mleon@nearsoft.com
@misaello
Misael Leon
expedia.com
gmushen@expedia.com
@gregmushen
Greg Mushen
Director of Product Management,
Flight Shopping
Product Designer