Today, Jekaterina Cechini and Carlos Reinsch talk to Sophie about the use of a chatbot in sales at Berlin’s public transport company. In this podcast episode, you can find out why the chatbot exists, what an FAQ information graveyard is and what is planned for the future.

About Jekaterina Cechini and Carlos Reinsch

Ekaterina Cechini is Head of eCommerce and Sales Innovations at Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe and leads a team of 35 people in the field of digital sales channels. The team is responsible for the ticket app, the travel information app, the support systems, digital analytics and the sales part of the website, among other things . Carlos Reinsch works in Ekaterina’s team and is responsible for all of BVG’s bot technology.

Better customer service and high availability

BVG’s first contact with chatbots was in the search for a technology that would offer customers an even better service and at the same time be highly available. As a result, the first chatbot used by BVG was a sales bot that enabled customers to buy a day pass without having to register or log in beforehand. However, the decisive factor for the breakthrough of chatbot technology was a political decision in fall 2019 – the free student ticket.

The BVG received 300,000 applications in one fell swoop, reports Ekaterina. On the one hand, they always endeavored to process applications quickly, provide feedback and answer customer queries about the student ticket quickly. On the other hand, it quickly became clear that the personnel capacity for such a high number of applications arriving at short notice was not available. BVG therefore set out to find a technology that could support the processing of customer inquiries such as “What is the processing status of my ticket?” or “What proof must be provided for the free student ticket?”. Chatbots were quickly found to be a suitable technology that guarantees consistent response quality without downtime and is also available to customers 24/7, regardless of BVG’s opening hours. The first beta version went live just a few weeks after a partner was found for the pilot project.

BVG Service Bot

“Information graveyard” FAQ collection

Of course, the BVG’s FAQ collection has also been expanded to include frequently asked questions, for example about the student ticket, reports Carlos. Nevertheless, a conscious decision was made in favor of chatbot technology for two reasons. On the one hand, more and more questions are answered over time and not every customer has the time or inclination to search through the FAQs until they find an answer to their query. In addition, BVG has discovered that its customers do not like to read, but prefer to describe their concerns in their own words. According to Carlos, a FAQ collection often degenerates into an information graveyard after a while.

The second reason is that the technological possibilities of a FAQ collection for frequently asked questions are very limited. FAQs have no answer to individual customer questions such as “What is the processing status of my ticket?”. In addition, customers are more likely to seek help from a chatbot than from a FAQ collection when it comes to highly topical issues such as the student ticket, reports Ekaterina Cechini.

Customer acceptance determines success or failure

The best technology is useless if the user does not accept or trust it. For this reason, BVG has continuously measured customer satisfaction since the start of the pilot project and made appropriate adjustments as a result. One of BVG’s concerns was that the customer gets the right answers with just a few clicks. For this reason, the decision was initially made not to implement a free text search option and instead to rely entirely on buttons that users can click on. In the future, however, the BVG can also imagine an extension for free text searches if the technology is sufficiently mature.

Thanks to continuous user feedback, the bot’s responses have been continuously improved, the click paths for the customer have been made more efficient and therefore faster, and frequently clicked buttons have been placed particularly high up in the chatbot. According to Carlos Reinsch, almost 90 percent of inquiries can now be answered quickly and accurately, which is also reflected in a customer satisfaction score of 80. However, they started with a much less intoxicating score of 25, reports Ekaterina. A real boost on the way to a score of 80 was the integration of contact forms, as the customer could now not only articulate their request, but could suddenly also help themselves 24/7 and send their request directly to the BVG, including a confirmation email.

Status Quo

New answers are constantly being added to the bot, especially in times of Corona. Topics such as “What do I do with my subscription if I currently travel less by public transport?” are currently of great concern to people. In this context, Carlos emphasizes that BVG sees the chatbot not as a project, but as a product that needs to be continuously developed. As we all know, a project comes to an end at some point and then reaches a certain stage of development, he explains. However, working on a chatbot requires continuous adjustments. Once the pilot phase is complete, an official call for tenders will soon be issued to find the future technology partner for the chatbot.

What we can still expect

The bot is currently still very functional and does not yet have a personality. According to the official announcement, however, this is set to change and the bot will be much more emotional and personal in tone. The aim is to provide nothing less than the same quality as a BVG employee. This is an ambitious goal, especially since BVG is known for its special tonality and brand image through targeted marketing campaigns. In addition, almost 50 percent of chatbot calls are already made from mobile devices. This will be an additional challenge, reports Carlos Reinsch, as the tonality on mobile devices is often different from that on the official website on a PC due to the target group.

Targeted announcements about changes and innovations to the chatbot within the company also arouse the interest of other departments beyond sales. More and more areas want to handle parts of their service via the chatbot. Users can therefore look forward to encountering the chatbot on very different BVG pages in the future. The first recruitment chatbot will soon be launched and will support the HR department in making applicant management even faster and more efficient.

Learnings

1. consider whether a chatbot really makes sense for your use case or whether a FAQ collection might also be sufficient. The more individual the questions are, the more worthwhile a chatbot is.

2 Sometimes it helps to just get started. You can’t design a chatbot on the drawing board and then immediately hit the jackpot.

3. the best technology is useless if the user does not accept or trust it. Therefore, continuously obtain user feedback and see what customers want.

4. consider the chatbot as a product that needs to be constantly developed and not as a project that will be completed at some point.

It’s best to listen to the podcast episode with Sophie Hundertmark, Jekaterina Cechini and Carlos Reinsch for yourself pure. Have fun!

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