ARAG is ready for its third chatbot supplier, KPN is working on a channel-independent smart assistant and at Picnic the complexity of a case determines the routing to the right employee. Impression of the Salesforce World Tour last week in Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam.

 

Legal expenses insurer ARAG “is not a frontrunner in digitalization,” said Martijn van den Heuvel, Senior Marketer Customer Excellence at ARAG Rechtsbijstand. Founded in 1935 and still a family business active in 19 countries with approximately 4.300 employees; in the Netherlands there are 800. The company has modernized its IT infrastructure and opted for two pillars: Microsoft and Salesforce. For the latter, ARAG has invested in its own competence center.

Telephony first

Until now, the company has relied almost entirely on the telephone as its main customer contact channel. But customers increasingly prefer digital services, according to Van den Heuvel. In addition, ARAG itself found that the process for submitting a claim - starting a file - was too inefficient: "difficult to use, little focus on quality". By the latter, Van de Heuvel was referring to the substantive quality of information provided by an insured person. The better the information, the more promising a case.

Customize standard solution

ARAG believes that the customer should be allowed to choose the channel. Hence: always personal and digital when possible – something different from digital first. Each channel must provide an optimal customer experience. This is also motivated by the belief that legal assistance is usually requested for situations in which customers experience stress. The company has taken several steps over the past 12 months, including optimizing the MijnARAG environment. This is based as much as possible on standard functionality from Salesforce - so it deviates as little as possible from standard solutions. From logging in and uploading documents: everything has been tested with customers. Although Van den Heuvel states that the new portal could go live four months after delivering an MVP, architectural adjustments had to be made and some coding work was necessary to achieve a distinctive CX and UX.

On to the third chatbot

Van den Heuvel also has GenAI on the agenda, for the benefit of both employees and customers. But he is clear about chatbots: that is difficult subject matter if you want to be successful with it. After two previous attempts, ARAG is now working on a third chatbot in collaboration with the German company Cognigy, which also works for Lufthansa and Toyota, among others.

Picnic about GenAI in customer contact: first determine the intended impact

Also on the podium of the Salesforce World Tour: KPN and Picnic. Stanley van Putten, Project Manager Transformation at KPN, left little doubt: human contact will remain, but the volumes will be small. Providing excellent service is not something AI will do.

Duco van Holthe, Analyst at Picnic, said: you really want to keep some contacts personal. The online supermarket (“We connect consumers with producers through technology”) has been using AI since the company was founded. There is a modest team of ten AI engineers on board and there is sufficient good quality data in-house. Prior to the deployment of AI, it is determined what impact is expected - after the deployment it is measured whether that impact has been achieved. Within customer service, AI is used, among other things, to match the case (complexity of the customer question) with the right employee (experience level). Intended impact: shorter handling time and higher customer satisfaction; both goals have been achieved.

KPN is committed to self-service

KPN has mainly used GenAI to update and organize the fragmented knowledge management, especially for the self-service environment in the MyKPN business environment. According to Van Putten, after the improvement project a case deflection rate of 55% achieved, with a CES of 71%. KPN is far from finished investing in self-service; For example, the company is working on a smart assistant that can be used channel-independently. The smart assistant must analyze customer problems, come up with solutions and guide the customer step by step towards a solution. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

 

Salesforce World Tour attracted approximately 4000 visitors. It was presented on three parallel stages; the audience could follow the chosen speaker through headphones. There were almost 40 keynotes around business functions such as analytics, finance, marketing, retail, service, manufacturing and sales.

Customer Experience, Featured Cognigy, Salesforce