Overview

A leading retail company (hereafter “The Company”) recognized by Forbes as a Customer Experience All-Star, collaborated with OneReach.ai to implement an AI-driven communication strategy. The project entailed deploying intelligent digital workers (or IDWs), sophisticated bots that enhance customer interactions and streamline communication channels.

Problem Description

The Company faced several challenges in maintaining its high standard of customer service:

• Inefficient management and staff at retail locations led to customer dissatisfaction with call centers
• The Company had no centralized customer contact center, resulting in disjointed customer experiences.
• Inadequate utilization of SMS hindered effective marketing campaigns.
• Needed to reduce technical debt and improve profitability while maintaining a high Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Solution Identification

The Company identified the need for solutions that could effectively automate and manage phone calls in retail locations. They needed to establish a new, comprehensive customer contact center, implement intelligent SMS strategies for customer-facing applications, and centralize customer communication channels for improved analytics and customer experience.

To address the challenges, the OneReach.ai team has worked on three key solutions:

• Intelligent Digital Workers (IDWs) for managing retail-location phone calls.
• Standup of a brand new customer contact center, including human-in-the-loop and live agent tools.
• Delivery of SMS for all customer-facing applications, including intelligent outbound marketing campaigns.

Rollout

The implementation of the AI solutions included several phases:

Deployment Phases

Over the course of a year, the project saw over 350 individual production releases across store locations nationwide. The initial pilot in 2022 led to a $3 million increase in gross profit, with a projected annual increase of $80 million. The solutions significantly reduced calls to stores by 47% and achieved an NPS score of 65%.

Key Success Factors

The project’s success factors included a strong focus on customer experience, seamless integration with legacy technology, and the retirement of technical debt. Challenges included overcoming technical debt associated with the legacy telephony network and on-premise hardware for store connectivity.

Future Plans

Future plans for the project involve expanding the AI solutions to include internal service desk capabilities, enhancing point-of-sale options, enabling omnichannel text-to-pay, and integrating deeper with CRM systems to further improve the customer experience.