20%
Fully Automated Complaints
“We handle a wide array of customer queries, some of which are complex while others are easier or repetitive. We wanted to see how we could automate the latter so that we could speed up the process for the customer.”
Kim Kavanagh, Outsourced Performance and Support Manager, CarTrawler
Resolving & Pre-processing Complaints using a Bot
In supporting mobility services for their travel partners, CarTrawler acts on behalf of the individual brands, handling various pre, during, and post rental support processes, including complaints. A significant part of the complaint handling process involves validating refunds so that the customer can be reimbursed in a timely manner.
The post-rental team at CarTrawler wanted to explore how a chatbot solution could provide customers with a convenient and self-service way to resolve common complaints. Besides fully automating the responses to simple queries and deflecting these from any agent handling, the objective of the bot was to also enable faster validation of customer refunds by agents, with the bot pre-processing and gathering supporting documentation upfront.
“To be able to manage complaints across multiple brands and multiple languages with a single bot solution is impressive. When you’re in the depths of it and going through the implementation it may not seem so, but in the end it’s an exciting solution.”
Kim Kavanagh, Outsourced Performance and Support Manager, CarTrawler
A Single Bot Handles Multiple Brands & Languages
The project was adventurous in that a single bot would intercept all customer complaints, across over 30 partner websites and 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish) and then either automate the response to the customer query or pre-process the request before handing off to the complaints team.
The bot would also offer a branded user experience for each partner company while sharing common workflows and training data on the backend. Since CarTrawler wanted to be as responsive as possible while keeping control, the bot would need to work smoothly and seamlessly across all partners.
Complaint Bot Design & Workflows
The bot was designed to handle different scenarios or workflows.
- It can fully automate some of the more straightforward queries without any human intervention, totally deflecting these from CarTrawler agents.
- As an intermediary service provider, CarTrawler can’t resolve all incoming customer queries so some need to be escalated to the appropriate supplier. The bot deflects these from agents by gathering information at the point of chat with the bot and then escalating them.
- For the cases that need to be reviewed and validated by agents, the bot is able to capture relevant information and supporting docs via chat. Integration with Salesforce.com means that the bot can also dynamically access case details. This has removed some of the friction in agents having to chase information and facilitates faster resolution and issuing of refunds.
Salesforce Integration
For the bot to function well, it needed to integrate with CarTrawler’s instance of Salesforce.com so that customer data such as case number, customer name, travel supplier, refund status, and more could be accessed by the bot, without the customer having to provide all these details.
In the case of logging details that needed to be reviewed and approved by an agent, the bot creates a summary of the chat transcript and documents the customer query type so context and history are visible to the agent reviewing the case. The bot also logs a full copy of the conversation history for easy reference in case-specific details need to be referenced.
“We enjoyed working with ServisBOT. No question was too hard and they always came back quickly with solutions. Their support and staff were great. We will definitely continue our relationship with ServisBOT.”
Tara Carmody, System Support Manager, Customer Operations at CarTrawler
A Win-Win for Customers & Agents
Despite the upheaval in the travel industry and the disruption caused by lockdowns and cancellations, the bot has demonstrated very positive results, with 78% of those that click the bot continuing to engage with it. Given that this is a complaint bot, this engagement rate is excellent, showing the willingness of customers, even when they are dissatisfied, to self-serve in the expectation of faster response and resolution times.
Between May 2020 and June 2021, of the 78% that engaged with the bot and completed the journey, 20% were fully automated by the bot, by either fully resolving a query or routing supplier-specific issues appropriately. 80% were pre-processed before raising a case in Salesforce for an agent to validate and resolve. Because the bot gathers appropriate information and docs related to refunds, the agents can validate them faster so that the refunds are issued more promptly to customers.