Silverdoor unveils RPA developments

Reporting has also had improvement roll outs to its online booking tool

SilverDoor has shared details of its latest technology innovations and upgrades to its online booking experience. 

The serviced accommodation has invested in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to extend its global live rate and inventory content available to book online, in addition to increasing the reporting capability of its online booking tool (OBT) for clients and supply chain.

The RPA powers a new digital worker built to rapidly increase serviced accommodation inventory available to book instantly on their silverdoor.com booking platform. 

The digital worker harvests, processes, and tests live rates 10x faster than a human, accelerating the upload process of online inventory to the SilverDoor OBT from across its growing global supply chain network.

The investment comes in response to increasing demand from clients for access to live rates and inventory content. 

SilverDoor’s investment in RPA functionality and AI-powered enhancements across its OBT means processing and testing new live rate plans, the digital worker also checks existing rates to ensure they’re accurate, delivering even faster updates and recommendations.

This increased data and rate efficiency supports the additional features of SilverDoor’s OBT which also offers visibility of all bookings in one place, options to track savings against market rates, bespoke analytics and traveller tracking. 

Additional investments in the OBT to further streamline and simplify decision-making for clients include enhanced shortlist functionality to more easily compare options and a new currency selector to view prices in preferred local currencies.

The new RPA-powered digital worker operates as an extension of the SilverDoor supply chain team, enabling them to process and, critically, negotiate rates more effectively, whilst at the same time giving them greater scope to focus on client requirements and manage more complex requests.

Hanish Vithal, SilverDoor chief technology officer, said, “We understand how critical it is for our clients to have access to online apartment content. 

"Corporate bookers of serviced apartments increasingly expect a consumer-grade online experience, and live rates are vital for a smooth, personalised and frictionless booking journey on the SilverDoor OBT.

“We’ve found the most scalable solution to loading more live rates onto our platform 10 times quicker than previous manual processes, supporting our clients to make clear, qualified booking decisions that meet both budgetary and compliance requirements. 

"Our investment in robotic process automation will not only rapidly expand our online portfolio of instantly bookable apartments, but it means we can ensure that our OBT only ever presents the most accurate, competitive pricing.

“As part of our solution, our technology checks rate parity and discounting, meaning our customers will always see the best prices and our property partners can be more strategic with their pricing to fill last-minute availability. 

"We’re looking forward to continuing to enhance the solution with AI and robotics to refine a simple and efficient workflow for our partner network and customers.”

Sandra Borges, senior B2B partnerships manager at Limehome, added: "The accommodation market, like the wider travel market, is becoming increasingly dynamic and expectations around live rate access are higher than ever before. 

"Rate mapping and testing is now quicker and more transparent, ensuring we are in pole position to support both SilverDoor and their clients to meet their programme objectives.”