6th IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing, Computing and Control (ISPCC 2k21), Oct 07-09, 2021, JUIT,

Solan, India

A Design of Customer Service Request Desk to

Improve the Efficiency using Robotics Process
Automation
2021 6th International Conference on Signal Processing, Computing and Control (ISPCC) | 978-1-6654-2554-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ISPCC53510.2021.9609338

Nitin Goyal1 Harpreet Singh2

Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Chitkara University, Punjab, India Chitkara University, Punjab, India
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is an innovative the process. A process can be done by individual or by a
technology used to automate the business process with software system technology or with the help of both. In a business
robots. The RPA technology has improved the efficiency and process, the cost estimation, labor required, the time taken
ability of a business process with reduced cost and time. The and other quality measures might differ from process to
evolution of RPA marked as “fastest-growing sub segment”. In
process and system to system.
this manuscript, the importance of automation in customer
service request desk in travel and tourism is taken into Automation. It is the strategy of developing a device, a
consideration for making tourism better and a study has been work cycle, or a framework that works consequently by its
carried out about work done in the field of travel and tourism own. It is used for executing, altering, checking and
for customer service request desk. Moreover, automating the debugging a software application for controlling an
process for customer service request desk has been proposed automation system that can contain logic, movement and
for improvement of customer relationship, customer controlling a process. Incorporating individuals and
satisfaction, and loyalty from customer end in travel and frameworks to accomplish automation is definitely not a
tourism sector. simple task. Although, it is the need of the hour to procure
Keywords— RPA, Automation, Tourism, Travel, Artificial computerized applications in everyday life as it increases the
Intelligence, Machine Learning computing capacity and performance of a system process.
[4-7]
A. Working of RPA
I. INTRODUCTION The work process model of RPA includes action
Robotic process automation (RPA) is an arising initiator, robot monitors, bots and business clients as shown
innovation to automate business process with artificial in Fig. 1. Action initiator specify the guidance to robot for
intelligence or software robots. RPA has become the new performing a task and copy this data in robot monitors. The
dialect of business. It is the impressive innovation of 21st - monitor assign the task to the bot and check their activities.
century technologies [1]. According to- Sarah Burnett, Vice The bot interacts with the business software and completes
President of Research at the Everest Group “Robotic Process the assigned task. After completion of task, business clients
Automation is the next wave of innovation, which will review and resolve it for any exceptions [8].
change outsourcing. We already are seeing the beginnings of
a race to become the top automation-enabled service
provider in the industry. In time, we are likely to see an
arms-race for innovation in automation tools leading to new
Fig. 1. Workflow of RPA
offerings and delivery models” [2]. In current digital period
manual work has moved towards people working side by B. Applications of RPA
side with PCs. RPA software complete the tasks and jobs
assigned to it, as humans do. RPA is said to empower the RPA has a positive impact on business activities and
evacuation of manual and routine tasks from human results. It has many applications in the business processes
professionals [3]. RPA is a combination of robots, process out of which some are mentioned in Table 1 with the usage.
and its automation.
Robots. It is an integrative branch of science and TABLE I. APPLICATION AREAS OF RPA
engineering that can include computer science, electronics
Business areas Usage
engineering, mechanical engineering, and other engineering
methods. A robot is an electro-mechanical planned machine, Prompting cards
Banking and Financial Services
programmable by a PC and equipped to handle perplexing [8]
Claiming frauds
arrangements of activities automatically. It can perform Analysis
human tasks in real time with more accuracy and speed. Government [8]
Address changes in the system
Process. It is the journey of input to output conversion of Renewal of License
a task. For instance a computer system takes input from Healthcare [8]
Bill making
keyboard or mouse, etc. and processes it using Central Registration of patients
Processing Unit (CPU) and gives output as per the input. Human Resource Management Hiring candidates
Similarly in any firm the input to output cycle is known as [9] Salary process

978-1-6654-2554-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE 21

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA SALESIANA. Downloaded on July 16,2023 at 04:11:54 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Formalities for new joining case study was conducted with interviewing hotel managers
Processing of Issues of four and five star rated hotels in Scotland and revealed
Infrastructure [9] Account registration and that stimulating complaints by customers and feedback
communication
works well for developing a good relationship with retained
Processing of insurance claim
and clearance customers. Moreover, it is suggested that hotels be obliged
Insurance [10]
Information about premium to good provision for processing, analysing and logging
Billing of Goods
queries. Ogbeide et al. [23] indicated about the outcomes
Manufacturing and Retail [11] that showed the significance of engaging front edge workers
Sales calculation
Report generations to appropriately acknowledge, process, and respond to
Telecom [12] grumblings for a proficient complaints management process.
Management of service order
Booking of tickets It was studied that the relationship between employees and
Details of passengers other procedures for handling complaints concerning to
Travel and Logistic [13] Customer Relationship satisfaction and intentions to return and recommending the
management products to others.
Accounting information
Ivanov et al. [24] elaborates the challenges and issues
that a firm would face while automating the services for
C. RPA in Tourism tourism. It gives an overview for process automation in
Recently, the world has seen critical progress in the area hotels, events, restaurants, airports, travel agencies and other
of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and tourism data centres. It is also suggested that firms should
Business Intelligence. The use of AI in the travel and not adopt automation in early days of start-up. Sullivan et al.
hospitality industry have obtained a few, not inadequate, [25] expressed that in the perusing fourth industrial
consideration by researchers in the field of system revolution in non-IT professionals, RPA is able to automate
automation. The travel industry is facing issues for providing the existing manual systems at a realistic cost. RPA is
the best services at reduced costs to the clients. These issues collaborating with artificial intelligence and machine
faced by travel planners is the widened tourism activities to learning algorithms to learn how the existing systems are
fulfil needs, handling customer requests and payments, working and using this data to train, automate the business
giving clients customized offers at low cost [14, 15]. These systems increasing the efficiency of the system.
processes require high level of manual intervention by
These proposed approaches signifies the use of RPA to
humans that adds to the expense of tasks for travel services.
automate and speed-up the ongoing processes [25-27]. RPA
Also, additional care for the customers is most important
here. For this, some travel companies are now a days using helps to maintain a better relationship with customers in
today’s scenario in travel and tourism is explained in next
RPA to computerize exhausting rule based work such as
section.
handling orders, managing payments, communicating with
clients, administrative work, and information storage. RPA III. RPA IN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
gives benefits that overtake the restricted capacities of the MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND
conventional, yet fundamental travel automation TRAVEL INDUSTRY
programming projects [16]. RPA can be applied to automate a large number of tasks
in the client assistance or back office such as managing
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
events, billing inquiries, business clients and refreshing
Many researchers in the recent past have discovered
records, to provide various benefits. It would be able to
different views on RPA in customer relationship
guarantee business processes run perfectly with reliability
management [9, 10, 12, 17, 18]. Some of them are discussed
during peak hours and resolve the issues automatically [25].
below:
It can combine different frameworks and applications in a
Aguirre et al. [20] explored that maximum number of single reassure, construct a bound information base to
automations in business processes have been done on back convey information continuously, and consequently. Manual
office tasks where no direct involvement of customers is workers are liberated from handling manual tasks and can
needed. A case study was done on Business Process focus on building up their customer driven abilities. RPA
Outsourcing (BPO) Company to check the outcomes after virtual workers are also run fast in comparison to an
integrating RPA to its process with back and front office individual person. This considers a quicker turnaround for
tasks. The findings of this case study shows that increased customer acquisition and essentially improves the
productivity and task process improvement is the major performance and consumer loyalty [26].
well-being but time was not reduced for the processes.
RPA is a well-known process automation mechanism
Ramphal [21] provided techniques and systematic ways to
that uses software programs to replace the manual tasks.
integrate ISO 10002 that provide parameters for complaints
People that work at user interfaces will be replaced with
management system. An analysis was done on 20 complaints
RPA bots. In a customer service desk, when a service agent
handling management system that helps to get delve into the
receives a telecommunication call from the customer, the
necessities of a complaint system and helps in enhancing
agent needs to explore the information while dealing with
customer satisfaction.
the customer on call. For this, agent needs to check through
Dinnen & Hassanien [22] examined the involvement different applications and switching between different
and proficiency of hotels in managing customer queries. A screens can leads to delay in resolving the query. Moreover,

22

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA SALESIANA. Downloaded on July 16,2023 at 04:11:54 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 wrong information can be conveyed and service is impacted.
This is the reason consumer loyalty should be the main
objective of a business [23-27]. The proposed research work
aims to efficiently use RPA for automating a business
process of customer service desk in order to overcome the
following gaps:
• The manual service desk consumes more than
desired time for assigning and solving a query [20-22, 25].
• Service quality i.e. speedy and accurate solutions
given to the customers by resolving the queries is not
adequate [22, 25].
• Without automation, workload in the service
request centre create strain on employees [19, 25].
IV. METHODOLOGY
The need of automation arises, to overcome the
mentioned research gaps. In this paper a methodology has
been proposed to automate the customer service request desk
using RPA techniques that in result will develop a better
customer relationship and customer satisfaction
automatically. Moreover, the business will also be benefited
with increased work efficiency and better service quality.
The flow of the proposed work has been shown in Fig. 2. In
a customer support centre, the process could be initiated in
two ways manual and automated. In the automated process,
when a customer have a query an online form will be
submitted by him and an automated will come in the
customer support centre system mail inbox of hotel. The
process starts from email trigger as whenever an email will
be received by the customer support centre system, the flow
will automatically starts. It will automatically check the
email and extract data from it. The query subject gets
checked along with hotel source type, case reason and other
necessary data in the mail. Furthermore, it automatically
creates a ticket to save data, in the SharePoint lookup table.
In manual process, the customer support centre agent Fig. 2. Proposed methodology for customer service request desk
receives a telecommunication call from the customer having
query. On the basis of Hotel source type and case reason, the
agent fills a form manually and saves the form and create a
ticket for the received query. The created ticket data will be V. CONCLUSION
In this manuscript, work done to automate the customer
saved as a record in the SharePoint lookup table
service request desk in the field of travel and tourism have
Moreover, the created tickets will be shown in a task been discussed to help the growing tourism sector and a
viewer in the system from where the tickets will be assigned method has been proposed to automate the customer service
to one of the team members of the hotel customer support request desk in travel and tourism industry for maintaining
centre. The team member will works on the ticket. better customer relationship that will leads to increased
Furthermore, if ticket is solved, the team member working efficiency and productivity. The efficiency of the automated
on the ticket will change the status of the ticket to complete task will help to develop customer satisfaction including
and close the ticket. If the issue is not solved, the team speedy service recovery, loyalty of customer and a good
member will reassign the ticket to another member or higher word of mouth. By automating the service desk process, the
authority for further process. This proposed workflow will time consumption of customer as well as employee gets
help to increase the work efficiency and customer reduced results in improved quality of service. It will lead to
satisfaction. maintain better customer relationship.
REFERENCES
[1] Gao, J., van Zelst, S. J., Lu, X., & van der Aalst, W. M.: Automated
robotic process automation: A self-learning approach. In: OTM
Confederated International Conferences on the Move to Meaningful Internet
Systems (pp. 95-112). Springer, Cham (2019).
[2] Singh, H., Goyal, N., Guleria, K., Kumar, A.: Travel and Tourism in
Today's World using Recommender System. In: 1st International conference
on Mechatronics and Artificial Intelligence (ICMAI) (2021).

23

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA SALESIANA. Downloaded on July 16,2023 at 04:11:54 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 [3] Lacity, M., Willcocks, L. P., & Craig, A.: Robotic process automation at Kurzzusammenfassung. In: deutscher Sprache zur kumulativen Dissertation
Telefonica O2. In: MIS Quarterly Executive: Vol. 15: Iss. 1, Article 4 (Doctoral dissertation, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt) (2020).
(2015). [17] Neslin, S. A., Grewal, D., Leghorn, R., Shankar, V., Teerling, M. L.,
[4] Kumar, N., Panda, S.N., Pradhan, P., & Kaushal, R.: IoT based E- Thomas, J. S., & Verhoef, P. C.: Challenges and opportunities in
Critical Care Unit for Patients In-Transit. In: Indian Journal of Public multichannel customer management. In: Journal of service research, 9(2),
Health Research & Development 10, no. 3 (2019): 46-50 (2019). 95-112 (2006).
[5] Chhabra, R., Verma, S., & Krishna, C. R.: A survey on driver behavior [18] Akdu, U.: Smart Tourism: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities. In:
detection techniques for intelligent transportation systems. In: 7th The Emerald Handbook of ICT in Tourism and Hospitality. Emerald
International Conference on Cloud Computing, Data Science & Publishing Limited (2020).
Engineering-Confluence (pp. 36-41). IEEE (2017). [19] Troshin, A. S., Sokolova, A. P., Ermolaeva, E. O., Magomedov, R. M.,
[6] Ugale, A.: Impact of Conversational Agents on Customer Service & Fomicheva, T. L.: Information technology in tourism: Effective strategies
Employees. In: Doctoral dissertation, Auckland University of Technology for communication with consumers. In: Journal of Environmental
(2015). Management & Tourism, 11(2 (42)), 322-330 (2020).
[7] Badotra, S., Panda, S.N.: A review on software-defined networking [20] Aguirre, S., & Rodriguez, A.: Automation of a business process using
enabled iot cloud computing. In: IIUM Engineering Journal 20, no. 2: 105- robotic process automation (RPA): A case study. In: Workshop on
126 (2019). Engineering Applications (pp. 65-71). Springer, Cham (2017).
[8] Datta, P., & Sharma, B.: A survey on IoT architectures, protocols, [21] Sharma, V., & Bhat, D. A. R.: An empirical study exploring the
security and smart city-based applications. In: 8th International Conference relationship among human capital innovation, service innovation,
on Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies (ICCCNT) competitive advantage and employee productivity in hospitality services
(pp. 1-5). IEEE (2017). (2020).
[9] Robotic process automation, [22] Dinnen, R., & Hassanien, A.: Handling customer complaints in the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_process_automation, Retrieved 22 hospitality industry. In: International Journal of Customer Relationship
December 2020. Marketing and Management (IJCRMM), 2(1), 69-91 (2011).
[10] Sharma, A., Goyal, N., & Guleria, K.: Performance optimization in [23] Ogbeide, G. C. A., Böser, S., Harrinton, R. J., & Ottenbacher, M. C.:
delay tolerant networks using backtracking algorithm for fully credits Complaint management in hospitality organizations: The role of
distribution to contrast selfish nodes. The Journal of Supercomputing, 1-20 empowerment and other service recovery attributes impacting loyalty and
(2020). satisfaction. In: Tourism and Hospitality Research, 17(2), 204-216 (2017).
[11] Taqui Syed, R.: Human Resource Automation: Benefits and Challenges [24] Ivanov, S. H., Webster, C., & Berezina, K.: Adoption of robots and
for Organizations. In: FINIZ 2020-People in the focus of process service automation by tourism and hospitality companies. In: Revista
automation, 161-164 (2020). Turismo & Desenvolvimento, 27(28), 1501-1517 (2017).
[12] Kumar, M., Raju, K. S., Kumar, D., Goyal, N., Verma, S., & Singh, A.: [25] Sullivan, M., Simpson, W., & Li, W.: The Role of Robotic Process
An efficient framework using visual recognition for IoT based smart city Automation (RPA) in Logistics. In: The Digital Transformation of
surveillance. In: Multimedia Tools and Applications, 1-19 (2021). Logistics: Demystifying Impacts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,
[13] Vitharanage, I. M. D., Bandara, W., Syed, R., & Toman, D.: An 61(2021).
Empirically Supported conceptualisation of robotic Process Automation [26] Mononen, M.: Robotic Process Automation and its effect on contact
(RPA) Benefits. In: ECIS (2020). center agents’ work and resourcing (2020).
[14] Reinkemeyer, L.: Process Mining, RPA, BPM, and DTO. In: Process [27] Herm, L. V., Janiesch, C., Helm, A., Imgrund, F., Fuchs, K., Hofmann,
Mining in Action (pp. 41-44). Springer, Cham (2020). A., & Winkelmann, A.: A Consolidated Framework for Implementing
[15] Salajegheh, M., Sridhara, V., & Gupta, R.: U.S. Patent No. 10,846,705. Robotic Process Automation Projects. In: International Conference on
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2020). Business Process Management (pp. 471-488). Springer, Cham (2020).
[16] Hettich, A.: Extending the research on service management-essays on [28] Verma, S., Narayanan, M. B., & Garrido, S.: Antecedents of Service
choice, automation and quality measurement in the service environment: Delivery in Hospitality Industry. In: International Journal of Management
(IJM), 11(11) (2020).

24

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD POLITECNICA SALESIANA. Downloaded on July 16,2023 at 04:11:54 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.