A conversational bot's ability to solve queries is what determines its success and adoption by customers. And Efecty, one of Colombia's largest payment and transaction companies, understood this from the start. Here's their experience with Gyra, their conversational bot powered by Aivo's artificial intelligence.

Objective: instant resolution

Gyra was born in 2019 in response to a corporate need to optimize processes and incorporate technology into the strategy. With this in mind, they created this friendly and empathetic character whose mission was (and continues to be) to be the visible face of digital channels. 

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Up to that point, they did not have a channel that assisted customers 24/7. They identified that there were too many inquiries coming in through all channels and that, by not providing decisive assistance, each request demanded time and effort on the part of the customer and the Efecty team. 

In this sense, the main pain to solve was to streamline customer service processes to achieve the following objectives:

• Provide first contact resolution
• Improve customer experience 
• Reduce costs of traditional channels

Implementation: a constant evolution

From the moment they incorporated conversational AI into their strategy, times were in favor of the Efecty team. 

Throughout 2019 they trained the bot to build a robust knowledge base based on queries coming in through other channels. Thanks to this content building work, they launched Gyra to the public in the first half of 2020, just one month before the pandemic. 

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Then, in the second half of the same year they implemented transactional flows. This means connecting the bot to other sources of information, such as a CRM, so that it can respond not only to what is in its knowledge base, but also to other data relevant to the user. In this sense, Gyra began to answer questions such as the status of a draft, pending drafts, costs, rates, and all the information that was already developed in the telephony flows. 

Undoubtedly, having this technology already prepared allowed them to be one step ahead to guarantee the continuity of the service in times of quarantine, managing to automate more than 1 million queries in 2020. In addition, the bot was integrated into Genesys to strengthen its digital ecosystem and offer true omnichannel assistance.

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In 2021, they added the conversational bot to the app, which improved the experience in that channel. And finally, in 2022 they implemented it in the more than 11,000 customer service points they have throughout the country, which meant another step forward in the evolution of content, building it based on all types of customers. This has the objective of helping advisors to find information more quickly and thus speed up the service.

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"It is important to emphasize that we also seek humanization. As we implement these solutions, we don't want it to become a boring experience for the user. We are working on humanizing the interaction. That the person interacting with the robot does not feel that he is a robot, but that he feels the conversation is more friendly and has a context. That context is extended by getting to know the customer to answer according to what he/she is looking for" | Daniel Rivera, Efecty Customer Experience Manager.

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Currently, Gyra is present in the web chat, the app, contact points, and WhatsApp, which has already become a preferred channel. "Everything is for the sake of customer service, to solve the customer's needs at the first contact," explains Daniel Rivera, Customer Experience Manager. 

It is important to note that a bot was also created to serve corporate clients through WhatsApp. This bot seeks to streamline and accompany the companies that work together with Efecty and the more than 15,000 agreements they have nationwide for their customers.

Empowered agents, happy customers

In addition to improving customer service channels, the Efecty team also implemented Help, an intelligent self-management Aivo platform for advisors. Until now, human agents consulted Excel spreadsheets to find answers to customer queries. 

Help now helps to streamline and facilitate these processes. Each advisor can access this platform when needed to search for what the customer is asking and find all the information quickly thanks to the artificial intelligence engine. Thus, call time is optimized, channel costs are reduced, and the customer gets a faster response. 

"Customer satisfaction increases and is impacted in PRQs (requests, complaints and claims) because fewer requests arrive, allowing those that do arrive to be attended to better and faster, optimizing times," adds Daniel. 

Results: the million-dollar strategy

From 2020 to 2022, Gyra automated more than 2.5 million queries. In 2020 there were more than 1.1 million, in 2021 more than 600K and by mid-2022 they have already automated more than 470K.

Thanks to this, calls decreased by 48% in the first year. Currently, the bot handles 52% of interactions, making it the most used channel. Until 2021, the voice channel handled 99% of interactions, and this has now decreased to 45%. The remaining 4% of queries are handled by social networks.

On the other hand, Gyra has always maintained a resolution rate of 95% and an average service time of less than 1 minute. The latter metric decreased over time (1 minute average in 2020 to 41 seconds in 2022), which shows that Gyra's resolution capacity was improving.

By having such a high degree of resolution, less than 1% of queries are referred to agents (out of 35K queries on average per month, only 100 are transferred). "The team is constantly monitoring that percentage and we are feeding it into the bot so we can resolve it there," Daniel explains. As a result, they were able to reduce service costs by 20%.

Finally, bot satisfaction is 4.2 / 5, calculated based on the feedback left by customers at the end of a session.

"Satisfaction with the channel is very favorable. This has led to a drop in complaints and requests because, as the bot resolves them in the first instance, the customer's requirements are reduced and this is reflected in the management of the service itself. We improve the experience of the entire customer support cycle," concludes Daniel.

Next steps for Gyra

The Efecty team continues working to add functionalities to the bot and place it at the center of its customer service strategy. The next step is the implementation of IVR to WhatsApp in order to forward calls to this channel, encouraging its adoption by customers who use the telephone channel.

They are also working to turn Gyra into a revenue channel through predictive and automated new customer acquisition.

In his closing remarks, Daniel stressed the importance of understanding the strategic role of the bot in all organizational processes. "Attention is already solved and it will continue to improve, but it's about how to take advantage of this tool to optimize the processes involved in the service chain and how it allows us to put time back into the processes. How much time do we spend on tasks that a bot can solve? We have realized that these tools can help optimize time and thus dedicate it to more strategic issues." 

About Efecty

‍Efecty is today considered the most recognized brand by Colombians in the money transfers, payments, top ups and transactions sector through its 15,000 business agreements. It has a 41% market share, generating approximately 20 million transactions per year and covering 100% of the country with more than 11,000 points of service.