Jetstar customers can now get instant responses to their questions through Facebook Messenger, as the airline’s virtual assistant ‘Jess’ expands its capability.

While traditional virtual assistants simply refer customers to relevant information on websites, Jess leverages artificial intelligence technology to retrieve customer bookings, resend itineraries and add baggage to bookings.

Jetstar Group Chief Customer Officer, Catriona Larritt said customers had been using Jess on Jetstar.com since 2013, and expected an even better response on social media.

“Jess is giving customer’s instant answers to their questions which previously would take our customer care team some time to process. This frees up our team to deal with more complex customer queries.” Ms Larritt said.

“We’ve been testing Jess on Facebook Messenger since November and have been overwhelmed with the response. This has lowered our response time from up to 17 hours in some cases to zero minutes.

Ms Larritt said two thirds of customers are now using Facebook to make enquires about their bookings.

“Jess is already assisting more than 8000 customer queries each month through Jetstar.com. We expect this to grow significantly through Messenger,” she said.

“While the trend for social media is increasing significantly, we are also seeing a significant decline in customers contacting us by phone.

“During the recent disruptions in Bali caused by the Mount Agung volcano, Jess assisted 3000 customers, and resolved almost three quarters instantly. The other queries were then managed by our customer care team.”

Jess is powered by Nuance Nina, an intelligent virtual assistant, that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) technology to allow customers to engage with Jetstar across different channels.

“Jetstar is providing its customers with support in the places they are having the majority of conversations today – on the digital channels,” said Robert Schwarz, managing director for Nuance Enterprise, Australia and New Zealand. “Through Nuance Nina, Jess ensures that no matter where a customer may be, they can get the information they need, in the moment they need it.”