How a leading telco increases client & employee satisfaction with Conversational AI

Is there a one-size-fits-all solution to improve employee satisfaction, customer service, and boost sales? Proximus decided to find out.

Proximus is Belgium’s largest mobile telecommunications company, offering internet, phone, TV, IT, and other services throughout the country. With a long history and a motto of “think possible”, Proximus is always leading the pack when it comes to innovation.

That’s why Belfius decided to use Sinch Chatlayer.ai for everything from HR requests to customer support.

Challenge: Challenging the status quo

Proximus has more than 4 million customers, and 5.5 billion euro in annual revenue. Obviously, the company didn’t get there by sitting still. Proximus strives to be a truly customer-focused company, offering customers “an outstanding digital experience” – and that means the status quo simply won’t do.

Proximus saw several areas in which its customer experience could be improved. The company website has lots of mobile subscription packages to choose from, and customers can easily get confused. The company also has massive customer support needs for existing customers. And with 15,000 employees, the Proximus HR team was drowning each year under employee questions.

Proximus had a hunch that Sinch Chatlayer.ai could help.

They were right.

Solution: Custom chatbots for each area of service

Using Sinch technology, Proximus built three separate chatbots to meet its various needs. Website customers can now get help from Alix, the subscription consultant chatbot, to choose the subscription package that suits them best. Alix is available directly on the website or through Facebook Messenger.

When customers have issues with their internet or television at home, SAM is ready to jump in. With the SAM chatbot, customers can do basic troubleshooting on their own, including performing a “line test” to check modem connectivity – something that previously required manual intervention from a call center agent.

And the 30,000 questions HR received each year? YODA (No, not Yoda from Star Wars but ‘Your Own Digital Assistant’) takes care of that. With a name like that, you would expect something great – and YODA lives up to its name, with 80,000+ expressions and 1,000+ intents. The new HR virtual assistant can assist employees with hundreds of HR-related topics, from salary and vacation to getting a company car.

Results: Dramatic improvement across the board

Great things come in threes, right? It’s a magic number, as shown in many a fairytale. And it was certainly true for Proximus: all three chatbots provided outstanding results!

Thanks to the friendly sales chatbot Alix, website orders increased by a whopping 120% over 3 months. With SAM, the company saved an average of 10-15 minutes per customer support interaction – a drastic improvement with an undeniably high ROI. And thanks to YODA, the number of questions sent to the HR team dropped by between 20 and 30% – saving a huge chunk of time that the HR team could invest in other priorities.

Are you ready to harness chatbots for your business needs? Get in touch!