Philip Morris reached 1.8m customers and improved key KPIs by up to 70%

Channels

Call Center, Rakuten Viber

Industry

Retail

Philip Morris International Inc. is a Swiss-American multinational tobacco manufacturing company, with products sold in over 180 countries

Background

In 2020, when the pandemic hit the world market, Philip Morris stores were closed. At the same time, the number of calls from customers to the contact center increased dramatically.

Philip Morris faced two main problems:

The company needed to provide customers with a tool to quickly resolve their inquiries from the comfort of their own homes. They also wanted to reduce customer service costs and offload call center agents.
The pandemic also affected the volume of requests to buy/test devices. Therefore, Philip Morris also needed a tool to handle such requests without agent interaction to minimize financial and human costs.

Goals

Automate the process of handling FAQs

Reduce average handle time

Automate the processing and verification of requests

Minimize financial and human costs

Solution

One of the main goals of the project was to automate communication with customers and reduce the involvement of phone agents while increasing the level of customer service

During the development process, the team encountered various challenges. For example, initially, clients preferred completely different channels of communication — a hotline and a visit to the selling point.

But with the COVID-19 lockdown, customers had no choice but to turn to online communication channels. At the same time, the team even had to release a chatbot a month earlier to reestablish customer support processes.

The chatbot Mark

The chatbot Mark was launched in February 2020. To determine the functionality of the MVP, the company analyzed customer requests and identified the top 5 topics

The team then gradually introduced new scenarios: the ability to track order status and checkout directly within the chatbot and more. They deliberately made the client's journey more complicated because of specific issues related to business regulation and some legal aspects.

5topics

Device diagnostic
Online order status
Trade-in service
Device registration
Referral program

The callbot Christina

1A user fills out the form on the website
2A hotline agent offers a delivery date or a convenient store location
3The voice bot contacts the user regarding their order

Next, the development of the callbot Christina began. Its main task was to cover the process of checking the already existing requests to buy/test devices, where clients did not come to the meeting/did not accept the order. Following a successful pilot of the callbot, the company decided to scale the solution in internal and external processes.

Now Christina covers the call center functionality, making first calls, processing requests to purchase the device and collecting customers’ data

Has Christina lived up to the PMI's expectations?

The voice bot's Reach Rate was even slightly higher than the agent's Reach Rate.

The voice bot makes the cost per contact 7 times cheaper than a hotline agent does

Reach Rate of the
voice bot

Reach rate of
a hotline agent

Device purchase

Paid trial

65%

75%

67%

69%

Results

up to 30%

Drop in the average handle time

+17%

Growth of automation of incoming requests through text channels

-27%

Drop in the cost of incoming contacts

x7times

More profitable than a hotline agent

As a result, Philip Morris has provided its clients with convenient tools. The company intends to continue to strengthen its digital presence and expand conversational agents’ functionality.

Customer satisfaction has increased with the quicker service. While Mark and Christina create a positive impression

Let’s have a conversation