A Chatbot Customer Service Deployment and Results for Large Hotel Chain
By Scott Tompkins, Enterprise Account Executive, Creative Virtual USA
Not sure if chatbots are right for you? Those on the fence often find it helpful to see the real world results that other organizations have achieved from using an AI virtual assistant. One Creative Virtual client took a bold approach to chatbot deployment, allowing them to see immediate gains in their digital deflection rate while lowering their expenditures.
The situation before chatbots
The client, a large international hotel company, was looking for a way to make customer service more efficient and free up support staff to handle more complicated matters. Because of the organization’s complexity and many different subsidiaries operating worldwide, they needed an intelligent solution that was capable of handling many different types of problems. They turned to our V-Person™ platform for help achieving these goals.
The chatbot solution
Creative Virtual’s chatbot solution was deployed across all 12 of the company’s subsidiary pages. Our virtual agent (VA) replaced their “Customer Care” page that included phone numbers, live chat information and FAQs. The knowledgebase has grown from 250 solutions to just over a 1000 in 18 months. Digital containment hovers around 80% meaning the end user didn’t ask for a phone/live chat and they also didn’t select “I need to speak with someone”. Creative Virtual’s VA is currently available in their web and mobile channels with multi-language capabilities.
How their AI virtual assistant launched
Instead of waiting and slowly releasing their chatbot to the public in small increments, this company took a bold approach – they deployed the AI virtual assistant on every page of every hotel brand and took a broad approach, asking the customer what they needed before suggesting any information. They took away links to other forms of support through phone and email.
In a worst-case scenario, the bot could provide the phone number for a support line if it could not answer a customer’s question. Initially, the bot was set up to answer between 50 and 75 specific inquiries – not a huge amount when you consider the size and scope of the company. Other companies in their position might have deployed chatbots much more slowly, using them for one specific purpose or waiting a long time to launch across the enterprise.
What were the results?
Immediately after launch, the company experienced a digital containment rate of 40%. Shortly after, it climbed to 60%, later maxing out at an impressive 80% containment. The company also reported that they could reduce their customer service spending by 30% soon after deploying the chatbot solution. By analyzing chatbot interactions, the company could identify key areas of improvement and iterate to continuously improve the virtual assistant’s value.
Conclusion
Chatbots can have an immediate impact on your customer service performance and spending – if you allow them to. Instead of waiting to deploy your chatbots in a more restricted way, model the approach of this client and allow your bot to handle as many customer interactions as possible. This will improve your digital containment rate and give you more data to make your chatbot even more successful.
