A Smart Help Success Story: Meeting the increasing demand for animal welfare advice
By Peter Studd, Knowledgebase Engineer & Leah Bateman, Project Manager
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), a registered charity in England and Wales, works to improve the welfare of pet animals and wild animals, and aims to improve the lives and reduce the suffering of both farm animals and animals used in research. We are both proud to be a part of the team from Creative Virtual that works closely with the RSPCA to help them provide up-to-date advice through self-service virtual assistants.
Peter says: As a Knowledgebase Engineer (KBE), I find working with the RSPCA on their Smart Help solutions to be really fun and rewarding. I grew up with lots of pets and have always been fascinated by animals and the natural world. I am currently the owner of a 15 year old blue tongued skink lizard called Gump. I feel like I’m helping a good cause by working with the RSPCA, and by improving the virtual assistant we help the RSPCA save resources for helping animals in need. The RSPCA knowledgebase has a wide variety of content covering all kinds of animal related questions and I learn something new about animals every day. Did you know that bumblebees do not produce surplus honey or lose their sting if they use it, unlike honey bees?
I communicate regularly with several of the RSPCA’s very friendly employees to help build, update and maintain the ever evolving knowledgebase. Our conference calls with the RSPCA are a great opportunity to discuss existing content and identify areas for new content and improvement. The RSPCA are all delightful to deal with and I like being a point of contact for their various queries and tasks. We all share the same goal of making the RSPCA virtual assistant implementations the best they can be.
Having worked on the RSPCA solutions for over a year now, I am pleased to say I have become quite familiar with its complex content. I really enjoy reviewing user queries and providing suggestions to help continuously improve the available content so the public and the national call centre staff can find the information they need quickly and effortlessly.
The Smart Help solution offers users a variety of different ways to find the information they require. They can select from categories or ask questions directly using natural language. Decision trees are available to help guide users to the correct answer. We have recently added an auto complete feature to predict what is being type into the text box and provide a drop down list of content suggestions.
Leah says: I have been working with the RSPCA since the virtual assistant was launched on their website in 2011. Over the last 4 years I have learned a great deal about the RSPCA and the animals they help to protect. I am an avid animal lover and have recently adopted a stray cat. The RSPCA virtual assistant was invaluable in providing advice about stray cats and rehoming. I have also sought advice regarding treatment of baby birds out of the nest and dangerous dogs. The information is provided in a clear and concise way, making it easy to ascertain the best course of action for each scenario, so the RSPCA virtual assistant is always my first port of call for all my animal related queries. The team here at Creative Virtual are very proud of the work we do with the RSPCA.
To find out more about how the RSPCA is providing consistent, accurate and up-to-date advice across contact channels, download the full Customer Success Story.
