routing accuracy
access to expert knowledge
About the company
Swiss Life Germany is a leading provider of financial and long-term savings solutions. It offers private and corporate clients individually tailored solutions in the areas of insurance, pensions and investments.The company is headquartered in Hannover.
The bottom line
"The challenge was to create a routing logic that was as individual as the support we provide and as agile as our mindset. We were able to do this with Parloa.”
Tom Schneider
Consultant for Process and Project Management at Swiss Life
What was the challenge?
“Press one for…” – the traditional touch-tone IVR message of the Swiss Life hotline greeted callers in a friendly manner but with minimal and rigid choices.
As a result, customers and sales associates had limited access to the company’s extensive financial and service offerings. They had to wait on hold for the right information or employees with the appropriate expertise.
Swiss Life Service Center employees needed a simpler way to share niche and expert knowledge with customers – flexibly and across multiple use cases. In addition, it should be possible to deploy teams more flexibly to relieve them, especially at peak times.
The experience was suffering for both customers and employees. An extensive restructuring investigation revealed the solution:
A modern, scalable phone bot solution was needed.
These were the objectives of Swiss Life:
- Make service and expertise available through optimized routing,
- Manage peak loads during periods of increased call volume,
- Faster and more intuitive solutions for callers Improved caller experience.
What is the solution?
Conversational AI has taken the quality and capabilities of phone bot conversations to the next level. Swiss Life saw it as an ideal solution to optimize the quality of service for callers, support employees and share expertise.
Swiss Life, therefore, decided to integrate artificial intelligence into its telephone solutions – in close cooperation with the consulting agency MUUUH!.
Swiss Life tested several Conversational AI-based platforms in search of a partner with the technical expertise and cultural fit. Parloa was a winning combination becuse of its s extensive experience in Conversational AI and delivering high-quality dialog… And the chemistry was right!
The kickoff began, and it was immediately apparent that close collaboration with the customer care team would be necessary for a successful transition. After all, who else in the company knows more about what customers want?
Step by step, the Swiss Life team identified possible keywords and user intent options. They began a process of extensive testing and refinement with each successive draft.
“A team of experts was responsible for training our AI phone bot. Our employees have a good understanding of what customers frequently ask, and they’re also the people who receive feedback from them. So they know what’s important to include in conversations.”
Tom Schneider
Process and Project Management Officer at Swiss Life Germany
Swiss Life launched the pilot in one of its four sales divisions. After it proved successful, they rolled out the AI phone bot to all sales departments.
What are the results?
- 96% Routing accuracy
- Callers reach their requests 60% faster
- 73% of all respondents rated the phone bot 4 or 5 (out of 5)
- Expert knowledge is readily available
- Improved caller experience
A traditional IVR solution quickly reaches its limits with only nine available numbers. The intelligent AI phone bot could handle far more caller requests.
“The flexible AI-based speech recognition makes it easy for callers to communicate their concerns, even if they don’t know the right terminology. They can get in touch with the right person quickly and easily.”, Tom Schneider.
Parloa’s conversational AI platform efficiently manages contact center peaks and reduces employee workload. It intelligently distributes basic customer queries to the appropriate employees. Questions that require niche or expert knowledge end up in the hands of Swiss Life’s specialists. All in record time.
“With the Parloa platform’s low-code front-end, it is no longer necessary to involve Swiss Life’s IT department. Employees can change routing, keywords and intentions themselves – intuitively and without any programming knowledge.”
Tom Schneider
Process and Project Management Officer at Swiss Life Germany
The outlook
Swiss Life’s milestone phone bot: what does the future hold? In the short term, the company plans to make its AI solution even more customer-friendly, introduce claims reporting via the phone bot, and develop more efficient claims handling for large claims.
Swiss Life was proactive in retiring its touch-tone IVR. The company was rewarded quickly with a better caller and employee experience. Their service center anticipates a new future full of opportunities that will provide them with a significant competitive advantage in the insurance industry.
