In short, the Uber app creates a digital service, but much of its value comes from streamlining and improving human interactions on both sides.

The Evolution of Travel Agents

I do most of my booking online, where I can see and compare the price and convenience of various options. Once I am booked, I can change my seating and even change flights.

The widespread use of online travel management has changed the role of human agents from handling every transaction to helping on the difficult or unusual. Below are some examples.

• Travel Booking – The self-service nature of online travel management is complicated by another variable: corporate travel policies. I now talk to corporate travel agents when I have a conflict between when and where I need to travel versus the itineraries that meet travel policies. In most cases, the human agent can come up with an itinerary that meets my needs. Even then, we carry out digital interaction such as via email.

• Travel Disruption – When one of my flights is canceled or delayed, there is little that the website or app can do to help me. Sometimes, I will be automatically rebooked, but in other cases I need to talk to a person. The digital services nature of the online booking usually means that I already know the available options, so the discussion with the agent can be reduced to which flights have space.

Will We All Go Digital?

I gave some examples of how web-scale digital services can reduce human interactions, and yet make the remaining interactions more efficient and positive. Will humans be eliminated completely? Possibly yes. We are already seeing Uber cars that drive themselves. However, we are a long way from a robot being able to handle the disruptions due to a winter storm on the East Coast of the US. Between those two extremes is a wide spectrum of opportunities to continue to evolve digital services to maximize the value to the humans on both sides of a transaction.

Founded in 1994, ADVA Optical Networking specializes in Optical Transport, Ethernet Access, and Network Management. Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, the company delivers intelligent telecommunications hardware, software, and services deployed by several hundred service providers and thousands of enterprises.