Insights, Solutions
Conversational messaging: 3 companies that are getting it right
Insights, Solutions
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Conversational messaging has proven to be a powerful method to increase customer engagement and drive conversions. This sounds good in theory, but what does it look like in practice?
At Sinch’s Conversational AI Fest 2022, three companies explained how they use conversational tools to grow their business. These examples from VanMoof, Bol.com, and Calzzapato illustrate how successful conversational messaging can be.
The Dutch company VanMoof is one of Europe’s biggest e-bike producers. When it first started out in 2009, the demand for e-bikes was still relatively low. However, with the growing popularity of micro-mobility solutions, interest in VanMoof bikes has skyrocketed. As a result, the service team had difficulties keeping up with the large number of queries that customers wanted answering immediately.
“As we were growing as a company, we received more inquiries, and needed a scalable solution,” says Fenne de Beer, Project Manager, Service at VanMoof. “However, we still wanted to offer a personalized service, without having to invest in more customer service agents. That’s when we decided to implement a chatbot.”
But VanMoof didn’t only want to scale its customer support, the e-bike company from the multilingual Benelux region was also looking for a bot that could support provide support in multiple languages.
By partnering with Chatlayer by Sinch, VanMoof was able to meet all its needs.
“Boost”, the conversational AI chatbot designed by Chatlayer by Sinch, uses natural language processing and conversation design. These technologies ensure that the human-bot interaction is smooth, conversational, and personalized.
Boost is also a great help to VanMoof’s customer service team. The bot can handle 70% of customer queries.
“With the chatbot, we are able to handle a lot more questions than before, without having to increase the number of agents,” says de Beer.
VanMoof has been able to improve the customer experience and scale its customer service while keeping costs low with the conversational AI chatbot.
The e-commerce giant Bol.com is the “Amazon” of the Benelux region. For customers in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, it’s the number one online marketplace.
Since being founded in 1999, the company has not only been an industry leader but has also set an example as a chatbot pioneer. Bol.com launched its first chatbot “Billie” in 2006. Long before chatbots became a standard enterprise solution, the personable Billie bot was already able to create strong brand loyalty for Bol.com customers.
By 2017, Bol.com had become the e-commerce brand for the Benelux countries. With tens of thousands of sellers on its platform, demand went through the roof: from product questions to inquiries about delivery status to return claims, the service team had a hard time keeping up with all the requests. That’s when Bol.com decided to upgrade its chatbot solution.
As Bol.com was looking for a scalable and technically strong solution, the company partnered with Chatlayer by Sinch, to design a new conversational AI version of Billie.
“Currently, the Chatlayer bot supports the customer service team 24/7 and helps Bol.com to gather and store valuable customer data,” says Yanick van Altena, Product Owner, Billie Chatbot Team at Bol.com.
While employees might store customer information in different databases, the conversational AI chatbot automatically saves important data in a central location where it’s easily accessible to the whole team. In addition, the bot can use this information in future conversations with customers to make these touchpoints even more engaging.
Calzzapato is a popular Mexican shoe brand. Customers can buy the company’s products for men, women, and children online, and at multiple retail locations throughout the country.
To make its products more accessible, Calzzapato also has a credit initiative (CrediVale) and a loyalty program (Monedero Azul).
Customers can reach Calzzapato by phone, e-mail, and for service questions also on WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messaging, and Meta’s Facebook Messenger. The company also sends its customers marketing messages on WhatsApp.
To streamline the different conversational channels, Calzzapato worked with Sinch to implement a customized solution specifically for its needs, as Arnoldo Gonzalez Medina, Digital Project Manager at Calzzapato, explains:
Calzzapato uses Sinch’s Contact Pro to manage its communication channels on WhatsApp, Messenger from Meta, and Instagram Direct Messaging at the same time in one place.
Aside from being able to handle customer service channels on one unified platform, Calzzapato also uses the Sinch solution to work with WhatsApp as a conversational marketing tool. With it, Calzzapato can track, measure, analyze, and optimize its WhatsApp campaigns.
Being able to reach customers on WhatsApp, Mexico’s favorite messaging platform has increased Calzzapato’s web traffic by 20%.
The conversational approach has clearly been successful for Calzzapato. In the future, the company wants to build on that momentum and introduce two conversational AI chatbots into its workflow.
Even though VanMoof, Bol.com, and Calzzapato come from distinct industries and countries, and have different use cases, their examples illustrate how successful conversational messaging can be for any company.
Get in touch to find out how you can grow your business with conversational messaging as well!
Keen to watch the actual sessions? Check out the full videos on our YouTube channel here:
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