Club Med, previously known as Club Méditerranée SA, a French travel and tourism operator headquartered in Paris, has recently announced the launch of a WhatsApp based Club Med AI Assistant.
Good news one might think, right? Well, we also thought so until we have tested Club Med AI Assistant.
Our conversation with the Club Med AI Assistant started with the following inquiry:
'Hi, I would be interested in resorts in the Alps for hiking.'
The answer to our inquiry was lengthy, perplexing, and not very welcoming. In addition, it did not address the inquiry. Why to a simple question a customer needs to hear that the Club Med 'strictly following all protocols to ensure the protection and security' of the customer's data God only knows, and perhaps the Club Med themselves. We did not, nor we cared really. What we cared was our inquiry.
As we kept reading the reply provided, we discovered that Club Med also wanted to know if we would be interested in receiving their notifications and promotions, but still not a word about our original question.
After having notified the Club Med that we were not interested in receiving any promotions, their AI Assistant still ignoring the original inquiry jumped to offering options such as 'new booking', 'existing booking', and 'I'm a Travel Agent'.
Not giving up, we tried to bring the lost Club Med AI Assistant back on track and reminded that we wanted to find out about resorts in the Alps. At this point the AI Assistant appeared to have had a memory loss, as it started all over again by greeting us and stating that while it was still learning it already had in depth knowledge of Club Med activities, services, and excursions, wrapping it up by saying it was ready to take the challenge. Which challenge? Is it a some sort of competition? At this point, we thought it was a practical joke really.
yet, not wishing to give up, we repeated our original inquiry to the Club Med AI Assistant. The answer we got startled us more than any of his previous replies: 'Unfortunately, at the minute I am only trained to answer questions regarding product information linked to one specific resort'. The name of the resort was not mentioned of course. Perhaps the Club Med thought the customer needs to guess for themselves what resort it was.
However, the cherry on the cake was when the Club Med AI Assistant offered us to ask another question or chat with an agent, not forgetting to add that one needs to 'press 0' to return to the main menu. We found it amusing and pressed the '0'. The reply brought us back to square one, as the Club Med AI Assistant had another round of losing his memory.
One might blame it on technology but having experience in working and training AI Assistants we know that it is not the technology but people who, lacking on knowledge, organisational skill, understanding, and clarity of their business vision, fail to properly apply and use it.
But what really sad about this situation is that such thoughtless and careless 'launches' do more harm than good as they do not assisted anyone. Not the hospitality industry, not the AI, not the customers.
We beg you - be customer smart and DO NOT go in the footsteps of Club Med!
For you to see the difference between the above mentioned AI-Concierge and the AI Assistant who is faster and more helpful, we have created two Testers which you are welcome to try out. Both testers are based on Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLM.
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