Improving Courier Customer Experiences with Conversational AI

Challenge

The courier faced several challenges in its customer service operations, primarily related to package tracking, pickup scheduling, and re-delivery requests. Customers frequently called in with inquiries about the status of their packages, wanting to schedule pickups for outgoing shipments, or needing to reschedule deliveries following unsuccessful attempts. The high volume of these routine inquiries placed a significant burden on the company’s customer service agents, leading to increased call wait times and reduced customer satisfaction.

The key problems the company aimed to address were:

• High Call Volume
  The manual handling of routine queries led to a high volume of incoming calls, resulting in long wait times for customers and increased operating costs for the courier.
• Customer Experience
  Long hold times and the need to navigate touch tone IVR menus to reach the appropriate department negatively impacted the overall customer experience.
• Abandoned and Repeat Callers
  As a result of long hold times due to high call volumes, callers would routinely abandon while in queue and call again at a later time. This would not only increase customer frustration but also increase call volumes which then further increased abandoned calls. This cycle became more pronounced during peak seasons such as Christmas and Mother’s Day when customers would be in a hurry to have packages delivered.

Solution

To address these challenges, the company decided to deploy Omilia’s automated Conversational Voice solution to provide three easy to use streamlined customer experiences for:

• Package Tracking:
  Omilia’s AI-powered system was integrated into the courier’s Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) phone system, allowing customers to track their packages by simply speaking the tracking number. The system accurately understood spoken queries and provided real-time package status updates.
• Package Pickup Scheduling:
  Customers could now schedule package pickups for delivery through natural language conversations with the AI. Omilia’s system was trained to understand pickup date preferences, package details such as number of items and weight, and package pickup location
• Package Re-Delivery Requests:
  In cases of failed deliveries, customers could reschedule delivery attempts by interacting with the AI. Omilia’s AI allowed customers to select convenient re-delivery options.

These services were all created using Omilia’s cutting-edge Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and speech recognition systems. 

Omilia’s AI was trained and equipped with advanced NLU capabilities specific to the courier’s requirements, enabling it to comprehend a wide range of customer queries and respond in a conversational and user-friendly manner.

Omilia’s solution seamlessly integrated with the company’s existing backend package tracking and CRM systems, ensuring a smooth customer experience and accurate tracking of package data. It also integrated into their call center CCaaS platform, allowing seamless escalation to live agents with contextual information, improving the way agents interacted with customers, reducing overall handling time and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Results

The deployment of Omilia’s automated Conversational Voice resulted in significant benefits for the company.

• Reduced Call Volume:
  The automated system effectively handled routine inquiries, leading to a substantial reduction in incoming calls to customer service agents.
• Enhanced Customer Experience:
  Customers no longer faced long hold times and could quickly and easily access the information and services they needed, leading to increased satisfaction.
• Cost Savings:
  Reduced call volume and improved efficiency led to cost savings for the company, as fewer customer service agents were required to handle routine queries.
• Positive Brand Image:
  The adoption of advanced AI technology showcased the courier’s commitment to innovation and customer convenience, contributing to a positive brand image.

What’s next

The company is in the process of using the Omilia conversational AI platform to automate more self-service functions and deploying the solution in a web chat interface.

The new functionality includes the ability to update or correct an address for a package delivery especially in cases where a delivery failed because of missing address information (such as an apartment buzzer code). This use case is a common call type handled by their call centers and automating it will further reduce the need to send these interactions to agents.