IBM Watson and Lufthansa

Customer service is an increasing space for AI technologies.

IBM Watson helps Lufthansa Group optimize its customer service in DSSRseources
Lufthansa and IBM collaborate in the field of artificial intelligence (AI); new AI Studio leverages IBM Garage method

ARMONK, N.Y. and EHNINGEN, Germany, Oct. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Lufthansa Group have joined forces to establish the Lufthansa AI Studio, a collaboration that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to help address the airline's business challenges, such as improving customer service.

Leveraging the IBM Garage method, the Lufthansa AI Studio's interdisciplinary team consists of IBM Services professionals with diverse expertise working side by side with Lufthansa employees to quickly test new AI-based business ideas and services suitability, implement them in pilot projects, and roll them out within the company.

Focusing on better customer service with the AI Studio

The AI Studio is simultaneously working on more than ten different solutions for various departments within Lufthansa Group with a focus on applications for sales, customer service and operational areas.

One of the first projects of the Lufthansa AI Studio was to integrate IBM Watson solutions, including Watson Assistant and Watson Natural Language Understanding, in the Service Help Centre (SHC). The 22 employees of the SHC support 15,000 Lufthansa agents at 180 Lufthansa stations worldwide in answering service questions involving check-in and boarding processes, which can add up to more than 100,000 support calls per year. By integrating IBM Watson AI services, previously disparate data sources can now be searched for possible approaches and answers to customer queries. The SHC employees can phrase their questions in natural language, and the solution is also trained to 'understand' specialized aviation and internal company terms to enhance results. IBM Watson manages, searches through, analyzes and interprets the various relevant information sources, such as SharePoint and internal ticket systems. In addition to shorter waiting times of the customers at the check-in, the quality of the information provided as a whole was increased.

Follow-up projects to help address greater agility and innovation   .... "