Royal Mail says "Ask Sarah"
As part of its drive to increase self-service, the UK's Royal Mail is delivering enhanced online customer service through 'Ask Sarah', a new intelligent Web self-service system, states Public Technology.
Powered by Transversal, Ask Sarah enables the Royal Mail's 4.5 million monthly Web visitors to receive immediate answers to their questions online, reducing the need to e-mail or call Royal Mail.
Fully launched at the beginning of June, Ask Sarah has already reduced overall e-mail queries by 50% and by 96% in some areas.
University places kiosk at mall
The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and Texas Southmost College (TSC), in the US, will unveil its first interactive kiosk today at Sunrise Mall in Brownsville. The site aims to reach out to potential and current students, says The Brownsville Herald.
Kiosk users will be able to videoconference live with UTB-TSC staff in admissions, financial aid, registration, enrollment, testing and other areas.
The kiosk will have a Web cam, microphone and speakers and potential students will be able to print materials from university staff.
IATA mandate spurs self-service
If the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has its way, paper boarding passes soon may be a thing of the past as mobile devices such as smartphones and BlackBerrys become an air traveller's ticket to fly, reports Self-service.
In October 2007, the IATA, an association of roughly 230 airlines representing 93% of scheduled air traffic worldwide, issued a mandate for member airlines to replace all magnetic stripe and one-dimensional bar-code ticketing with boarding passes containing two-dimensional bar codes by the end of 2010.
Not only can bar codes be scanned from paper tickets, but unlike mag-stripes, they can also be ripped from mobile device displays, effectively turning a passenger's cellphone into a boarding pass, says Eric Leopold, project manager of IATA's Bar Coded Boarding Pass project.
Share