Learn how the leading Las Vegas resort developed and deployed a digital hospitality concierge, powered by Amelia, to provide extraordinary service to resort guests and associates.
When the team at Resorts World Las Vegas began their pioneering journey with Conversational AI, they had two clear goals: to deliver extraordinary customer service and to be the most technologically advanced resort on the Las Vegas strip. The team understood the importance of guest service in the hospitality industry and wanted to leverage technology to provide the best hotel guest experience. With these objectives in mind, the team – led by the resort’s Executive Director of Application Development and Quality Assurance Namratha Nandagopal – set out to achieve these goals.
Resorts World Las Vegas’ Conversational AI-powered customer service strategy was amongst the first of its kind within the hospitality and entertainment industry, which created a unique set of challenges for the development team. As Namratha said during Amelia’s first seminar of 2023, What’s Next in Digital Hospitality Experiences, there was no roadmap for her team to follow. If you missed the seminar, click here to watch the full replay!
That said, nearly three years after deploying the Conversational AI platform from Amelia, the enterprise leader in Trusted AI, Resorts World Las Vegas has solidified its position as an industry trailblazer. The resort’s Conversational AI journey is an excellent example for all hotels and resorts looking to deploy AI and automation, as Amelia Conversational AI – renamed by the resort as RED – drives tremendous business value for the resort in both guest and employee services functions.
Regardless of industry, companies that are planning their own Conversational AI deployments can look to Resorts World Las Vegas’ journey for insights, best practices and inspiration.
How to Improve Guest and Associate Experiences with Conversational AI
Step 1: Engage Stakeholders Across the Organization Once the team at Resorts World Las Vegas decided to deploy a digital assistant, the next step was determining its use case applications. Namratha explained how the team was “very ambitious” and came up with use cases that ranged from 100% guest call handling to hotel room service to hotel check out to a Conversational AI employee IT service desk.
With such a wide range of potential use cases, it was clear that the digital assistant would interact with every department at the resort. Instead of developing use cases on behalf of each department, Namratha’s team met with stakeholders from the resort’s various business units for weeks on end to discuss and build high-value use cases.
“To implement a digital assistant project successfully, it’s not just five people in IT who can do it, even with an amazing product,” said Namratha. “What you need is input from every business group. It’s an ongoing effort and it continues even after the initial implementation because people’s questions are going to change. We just needed investment of every group to be successful.”
Step 2: Go After High-Impact Use Cases First The endless list of potential Conversational AI use cases may feel overwhelming, but organizations shouldn’t feel the need to boil the ocean with their first deployment. Instead, businesses can begin with use cases that address their most critical needs and have proven impact.
For example, one of Resorts World Las Vegas’ first use cases for RED was for employee service desk support. Given the high volume of incoming requests from resort employees, this use case drove immediate value. “IT is like my favorite use case here, almost… Everyone calls up to open tickets. Everyone calls up because they forget their password; they’re locked out. And in the hotel and casino industry, we have 100-plus applications,” said Namratha. “By implementing these use cases, it’s been hugely successful for us.”
Step 3: Consider Your Technology Environment From the start, the team at Resorts World Las Vegas knew they wanted their digital assistant to be more than just an FAQ bot. They wanted their digital assistant to complete tasks, not simply answer questions, which meant the assistant needed to integrate with the resort’s existing systems and tools.
“To actually plan to implement a digital assistant successfully in our industry… we have to evaluate what kind of support we are getting from our integrating systems, because that is what determines our success at the end of the day, from an integrations perspective,” said Namratha. The team at Resorts World learned the importance of this step from experience. Namratha explained how her team initially pursued use cases without analyzing the integration capabilities of their technology environment, and subsequently faced roadblocks as some systems weren’t built to integrate with digital assistants.
If she could go back in time, Namratha said she would analyze the support from their integrating systems before deciding on use cases. She would also ask their vendors to build out the necessary APIs to enable integration with a digital assistant. Namratha therefore urged other development teams to evaluate and understand their environment before deciding on use cases for their digital assistants.
Despite the few challenges the team faced in integrating RED with their existing systems, Namratha highlighted one key reason why it was all worth it. “Having a digital assistant answering FAQs is really not a big deal. But putting in those integrations which are accessible with ease, just at a click of a button, that is what makes the digital assistant stand out and the customers come back to use [it].”
Step 4: Analyze and Continuously Improve A successful Conversational AI project does not have an end point – it is a continuous journey. Once a digital assistant is live, teams should monitor, analyze, improve and expand their deployment based on customer demand and feedback.
It’s not enough to simply ‘wow’ guests the first time they speak with a digital assistant; companies should strive to create experiences that keep customers coming back for more conversations and assistance. To do so, they must address their customers’ needs and expectations. With Resorts World Las Vegas’ IT use cases, for example, Namratha said, “every month we do an activity wherein we go through the questions and look at the ones which [RED] didn’t have the ability to answer. And if she was able to learn that functionality, we would put that in the next cycle.”
For some industries, Conversational AI implementations and use cases are still relatively new. However, this should not deter companies from taking the leap with Conversational AI. Organizations can instead look to other pioneering companies, like Resorts World Las Vegas, for guidance on how to plan, build and deploy Conversational AI digital assistants that transform customer service, empower employees, reduce operating costs and drive greater efficiencies. And by partnering with Amelia, companies also benefit from having the enterprise leader in Trusted AI by their side throughout their Conversational AI journey.