What do you think about online payments for your vacation at Miami Beach? Although there is a boost in performing tasks, such as booking a vacation, online, when it comes to reserving a trip, many people turn to the phone to avoid any hassle that may jeopardize a vacation.

It seems that Virgin Holidays understands the gravity of problems customers come across while booking vacations. In a bid to provide a fast and smooth payment option, the company deployed interactive voice response (IVR) technology from Encoded to offer customers an automated payment option when booking holidays, adding excursions and making further payments through the company’s customer service department.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI (News - Alert) DSS)-compliant system is meant to protect confidential customer data during self-service financial transaction. With deployment of the IVR automated payment solution from Encoded, Virgin Holidays enhances agent’s productivity and improves the effectiveness of customer interactions.

Virgin’s customer care department works seven days a week and handles a wide variety of inquiries, ranging from adding excursions to booking.

Jessica Baker, operations analyst at Virgin Holidays, commented in a statement, “The automated payment solution from Encoded offers high level of sophistication necessary to authenticate the caller, inform them of their outstanding balance and accept full or part payment without the need for agent intervention.  What is more, the people at Encoded blended well with our own team and understood our culture perfectly. Fundamentally, they appreciated our requirement for a user-friendly solution that reflected Virgin’s own unique sense of style.” 

Virgin Holidays selected IVR automated payment solution from Encoded because it provided secure, scalable and easy payment solution.

Baker added, “Encoded has given us improved visibility with an instant snapshot of all payment data from when payments are being made to statistics that help us identify payment trends.”