Blokker's chatbot optimization
In 2016, Blokker brought in Engage as a partner to create future-proof customer service. In order to achieve flexibility and improvement, structure was required in people, processes and systems. Blokker’s customer service can be reached via email, telephone, Live Chat, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter.
The challenge
Closing shops due to COVID-19 put increased pressure on Blokker’s customer service. Online purchases increased, which led to an exponential increase in the number of contact moments. Response times grew long and the company’s inbox was overloaded. E-mail questions are difficult to resolve immediately with one response, as additional information often needs to be requested. With back and forth emails and no response within the expected timeframe, customers began calling customer service. This made repeat traffic a challenge.
The solution
The starting point for these improvements was: “How can we make customer contact more personal, faster and more effective?” A chatbot and live contact via chat just a button away was the perfect solution for this. A Business Improvement Manager (BIM) from Engage supervised the entire process, together with a senior customer expert and the Blokker team leader.
In the roadmap, we first looked at the most common contact reasons and subsequently whether that contact could be contained in a chatbot.
The results are analysed with a dashboard created by the BIM. Which buttons are clicked, which questions are asked, etc. In addition, buttons have been added to enable the chatbot to answer other questions as well. New dialogues were written using the lessons learned from this. This content is written by the senior customer expert, while the BIM optimises and implements the content.
Data analysis is a continuous process. The most important topics are covered by the chatbot, with the answers leading to improvements. If the chatbot can’t figure something out, a customer expert is always ready to answer the question via live chat.
“By working well together, digitization can be made a success. Engage really thinks along with us and is closely involved with Blokker. This allows us to properly implement changes. We feel genuinely engaged.”
Richard Padt
Customer Service Manager at Blokker
Succes factors
The chatbot is an informal tool. If the customer can’t figure something out, a customer expert is available to help them personally. For an extra personal touch, it was decided to display the name of the customer expert in the live chat.
The system managing the chatbot is easy to use. Easy for customers and easy for the customer expert. Images can be easily exchanged, attachments can be added, emoticons can be used to respond and a knowledge base with answers is available.
We use Qlik to analyse customer service call data and the analyses are based on customer expert logs. The chatbot analysis dashboard mentioned earlier contains valuable information for our partner. By seeing which questions are asked, Blokker can, for example, adjust the product information on the website or the actual processes.
The next step is the introduction of Insocial. A tool that measures the NPS across all channels in the same way.
Resultaat
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