You might wonder how our booking system is powered, especially if you're a car owner. You may have noticed that we give you exact departure times to help you reach a booking on time. This artificial intelligence (AI) system, lovingly named Oswald, not only powers this automated booking and notification process but contains a chatbot that will answer questions for both our car owners and customers alike.
Oswald is programmed to automatically calculate classic car prices based on the time the car is needed for and the price set by the owner. It can also tell car owners exactly when they need to leave to reach the booking destination, be it a wedding, photoshoot, graduation or another event.
Oswald's unique algorithm is designed to work with all manner of classic vehicles, so it takes each car’s ability into consideration when booking. It understands that at 1920's car is slower than something more modern and will need more time to reach its destination.
Because our car owners could be travelling around the whole of the UK, it’s important they have this information to ensure they arrive on time to each booking. The last thing our customers (and Oswald) want is for a car to turn up late.
Our CEO Claus Stig Christensen explains: “When a booking is been typed in by our users, Oswald starts communicating across borders and languages with thousands of classic car hire companies and car enthusiasts in their local language and currency.”
That's right, Oswald is multi-lingual too. He has to be in order to cater to all our customers across the world.
The system works across all countries in 20 languages and Virtual Oswald is more than happy to chat in a customer’s native language and as a result, handles 56% of our online customer support.
Virtual Oswald is our 24/7 AI customer service assistant that will happily chat with you and answer your questions about calculating prices, making a booking and more. We want to help you get your questions answered quicker than ever, which speeds up the route to booking.
Virtual Oswald can also help classic car owners who want to learn more about BookAclassic and upload their car on to the site.
Christensen says: “As a global company, we wanted to serve our customers and car owners around the world by creating something that works in their language. This minimises any problems caused by the language barrier so someone could browse the site in English and book in Russian, while the car owner gets the confirmation in their native Spanish.”
Fancy testing out Oswald or having a chat? Head to the homepage and go through the booking process to see just how it works, or ask a question in the chat tab.
