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Remote diagnosis in e-commerce: chatbot vs. malfunctions

05.06.2020

SPB launches its innovative chatbot for diagnosing malfunctions affecting retail products as part of warranty extensions, thereby enhancing the digitalisation of its customer journeys.

Up to now, in the case of extended warranties, the management of malfunctions affecting retail products was mainly done by phone. A multitude of products, complex situations and risks of fraud, among other things, are all obstacles to the complete digitalisation of the customer journey.

Thanks to its collaboration with the software publisher dydu and its partners in the retail sector, SPB has introduced a completely innovative chatbot. Designed to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the number of incoming contacts from after-sales service, this chatbot offers policyholders a way to diagnose faulty appliances quickly (household appliances, TVs, games consoles, etc.) and 24/7.

The result is a smooth, fast and satisfying experience for the policyholder thanks to the rapid processing of his or her enquiry. Connected to SPB's CRM, the policyholder can immediately find the context of his order and the insured product. The customer explains the "malfunction problem" and the chatbot understands the enquiry thanks to NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology and asks more closed questions via "point & click", all illustrated using visuals corresponding to each potential situation.

From a technological point of view, the SPB Group relied on the NLP software developed by dydu.  But, obviously, humans contributed the most effort; two experts from the customer relations department became bot trainers for the occasion! Their goal? To enable customers to always have an answer and support for their malfunction problem. To do this, they scripted and integrated all possible scenarios into the bot and, among other things, listed all the malfunction codes for the household-appliance brands. With that task accomplished, they now monitor bot/customer conversations on a daily basis to ensure that no questions remain unanswered.

Our chatbot is constantly evolving to enhance customer experience and policyholder satisfaction. This is why we are developing new features and plan to incorporate new products.