You may have seen "virtual assistant" demos before.  I have never been impressed by them -- they are usually clumsy and childlike, and plagued by frequent "I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean" responses when you manage to say something they're not expecting.

Jenn at Alaska Airlines changed all that for me.

I was first turned on to Jenn by a colleague who noticed this excellent article in the New York Times highlighting Jenn.  Disbelieving, I tried it out.  "What are your hub cities?"  "What's the best vacation spot?" "Do you connect to Boston?"  "How can I fly from Boston to Las Vegas?"  "What meals are served on your flights?"  "How long has Alaska Air been in business?"  "Who is Tim the Moose?"  "Can I get miles credit with another airline?"  For all of these, she either provided a direct answer, or guided me to a related page on the site... often with alternative choices in case she didn't quite get it right.

And my brain lit up on all sorts of levels.  From a technical standpoint, there's so much to love.  The way her window hangs out unobtrusively to the side, taking up minimal space.  The way it takes you around the Alaska Air website automatically to answer your questions but also lets you choose links.  Meanwhile, the responses are very pleasantly worded -- it almost sounds like synthesized speech but my guess is that a real person recorded all the responses.  And the natural language technology is top notch!  It is as helpful and pleasant as a human without trying too hard to impersonate one -- no Turing test candidate here, but who cares? 

But forget the geek side of my brain... is it helpful?  Does it add to the customer experience on the site?  Or is it just a cool widget that serves no purpose.  After my brief experience, I'd say there's no question of its value.  I want a Jenn on every site!  I want Jenn to take me to my portfolio on my online trading site without me wading through 10 tabs and 5 subtabs, 90% of which are irrelevant to me.  I want Jenn on my health insurance site to show me what's covered and what's not, to let me look up old EOB's and claims, and to explain what I need to do to handle disputes.  I need a general purpose Jenn that will let me find out the weather forecast, look up stocks, answer dumb questions, and parse information for me, so that I don't need to rely on Google, a carefully constructed search, and reviews of five different web pages to find the right information.

My second reaction was to realize that this feat is probably a lot more difficult to duplicate outside of the travel industry.  I'm sure the folks at NextIT would disagree, but certainly limiting the domain of questions made for more accurate answers -- my guess is that she's got quite a knowledge base behind her that can relate each website page to her responses.

My final reaction, however, was that since 90% of most company's interactions come over the phone, this sort of investment is probably a mostly wasted piece of customer service.  Certainly they've invested even more in their phone reservations service, right?  I called their number and was so disappointed to find a typical boring, inefficient automated system.  It had all the classic stereotypical annoyances: "To ensure quality service your call may be recorded."  "Lower fares may be found online."  Follow that with a confusing arrangement of options all squished into 5 touchtone options, plus another number to write down and call, and one last dirty trick: the final option was "press 0 to repeat this menu."  I never did find a way to speak to an agent.  An automation solution that forces people to your website and hides your customer service reps is simply not an acceptable answer in this day and age.  I wonder how many people have clicked on Jenn... and how many have hung up in frustration trying to figure out how to navigate that phone menu maze.  And I wonder how much the company has invested in their website innovations as opposed to cleaning up the basics of their phone interface!