Case Study: AC Group and Itinerary Assist AI
How TourConnect AI helps AC Group significantly improve response times.
Rob Russell of AC Group recently sat down with TourConnect AI’s Ross Hill for a discussion around DMC booking operations, and specifically, why they chose Itinerary Assist AI to help them unlock growth and what impact he’s seeing so far.
Transcript
Rob Russell - Itinerary Assist AI is a tool that is learning all the time. What we're seeing is, as we are working more with it, is that it's improving the quality every single day. So for us, it's a game changer.
Ross Hill - This is Rob Russell, CEO of AC group, which is a leading DMC based in the UK. In today's conversation, you will learn why Rob decided to integrate Itinerary Assist AI to the operations team at AC group.
Rob Russell - So we needed a tool that would enable us to pull together a precise itinerary with plenty of options covering all of the areas, all the bases.
Ross Hill - You'll get to hear how much time Itinerary Assist AI has helped his company save so far.
Rob Russell - Well, so far, we've seen a huge improvement in the speed of turnaround.
Ross Hill - So Rob, let's start right at the beginning. How long have you been working with Tour Connect? And when did you realize that Itinerary Assist AI could streamline your operations?
Rob Russell - We've been working with Tour Connect now since 2020, building out our contract loading tool, as well as close outs. And Itinerary Assist AI became the next step in that development. It was a conversation myself and Michael had about bottlenecks in the business, and how we could use the technology to alleviate those. Not in the interest of replacing any personnel but actually improving service and improving the speed of response and the way in which we're building itineraries, and getting those offers out when the requests are coming through.
Ross Hill - And obviously, as CEO, you've grown teams and introduced a lot of new tech over the years. So can you explain the onboarding process for Itinerary Assist AI?
Rob Russell - The process has actually been really smooth from start to finish from the initial conversations and the outline of what we were looking for. We completely kind of road tested the bottlenecks, where we were hitting the problems and where we felt that the system could be used to benefit and improve and the team AC immediately bought into it. The team at Tour Connect were fantastic at rolling out the ideas and adapting what was effectively, a template was was almost already pretty much there with the Close Out AI that we've been using for some years now. And it was how we could build that out to better match the requirements that we needed to move forward. Between the two teams, they worked really, really closely on the testing environment. And we've been able to go through with a really quick process of knowing where we wanted to be, knowing how we wanted to do it, and getting there. So now it's the next steps of rolling out for the wider business.
Ross Hill - Whats been the impact of Itinerary Assist AI so far?
Rob Russell - Well, so far, we've seen a huge improvement in the speed of turnaround. As I mentioned in one of the earlier questions, the point I've always been trying to use this tool for is about service. We're a service related industry, we're not a bed bank. And therefore, what we build is dedicated, personalized itineraries for every every trip, every single trip we do is different. And that means that we need to create these itineraries quickly and efficiently to be able to present them to our clients who are, we're a b2b business, so they're tour operators or travel agents, who then need to be able to present them onwards. So we needed a tool that would enable us to put together a precise itinerary with plenty of options covering all of the areas or all the bases. And that kind of process is something we've been doing for many years. But the personalization of it can take a long time when you're pulling data out of the system. So having a tool that can build that skeleton for you, is a huge, huge assistance for the team. We've gone at this very much at the mindset that this is to improve service. This is to support the team members, this is never going to replace a team member. It's just become one of the team.
Ross Hill - How does our process compare to other software companies? What's it like to work with Tour Connect?
Rob Russell - It's been really good to work with Tour Connect, we've been working with them since 2020. We've been operating various different projects with them. And they've always got involved from from the outset, they tried to understand exactly what we're looking to achieve, how we're looking to achieve it, where our bottlenecks are, where we need to be careful of how we develop and how we move forward. And then really, really step by step process and getting things from the concept to life. And they've worked really, really closely with us to be able to do it. So as a company, I couldn't I couldn't recommend Tour Connect higher.
Ross Hill - So what would you say to DMCs and ITOs that might have similar challenges and are considering tools like Itinerary Assist AI?
Rob Russell - Do it. I'm part of an industry where I think we've been very skeptical and very nervous around what I would do to our industry and how it might impact negative and positive for us. But I think that if you understand it properly and you road test it and you put it into place, with the understanding that this is to assist and support your team, not to replace your team and not to take away from that person or service, then it's a no brainer. I've presented it now to team members, to partners, to operators overseas that we work with. Every one of them can see the benefits of what we're doing, how we're doing it and why we're doing it. And it can only get better. Itinerary Assist AI is a tool that is learning all the time. And what we're seeing is as we as we're working more with it, it's improving the quality every single day. So for us, it's a game changer.
CASE STUDY INTERVIEW ENDS.
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