AON builds own chatbot

Aon is one of the leading advisors in risk, retirement, and health solutions. They deal with a high volume of customer inquiries, which come in by telephone, live chat, and, recently, also by chatbot.

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Aon is one of the first organisations to build its own chatbot using Spotler Engage technology. In this interview, Jasper Meijerink, Strategic Project Manager, discusses the successful onboarding of Noa, their new digital customer service employee.

Striving for more efficiency and higher customer and employee satisfaction

Chatbots contribute to happy customers, happy employees, lower costs and more productivity. That was music to Jasper Meijerink’s ears. Aon requested a feasibility report and concluded that a chatbot could also contribute to more efficiency and customer satisfaction.

“We’ve noticed many customers call for simple things, like changing passwords, requesting policy documents or a green card. Customers often have to wait a relatively long time to get answers to simple questions when they contact us by telephone. This is often at the expense of customer satisfaction, and we don’t want that. With the help of channel control, we want to establish the chatbot as the first point of contact. In this way, we hope to be able to limit the growing volumes of telephone inquiries and, ultimately, increase our customers’ satisfaction.”

By handling simple questions with a chatbot, the customer service employee can also put their focus more on giving good advice. Jasper says:

“That ultimately makes the work for the customer service agent much more attractive.”

Who’s Noa? From sketch to ideal customer service employee

Aon has developed a chatbot in the new Spotler Engage platform themselves, and they did it with the help of the entire project team.

“The input from the marketing and communication department was indispensable throughout the entire process. It also helped that our developers have a background as call centre employees. They know exactly who our customers are and the best way to communicate with them. That was very useful in the chatbot development process.”

“The name Noa came easily, it’s Aon spelled backwards. Then we started looking for a persona for the chatbot. A character sketch emerged that reflected the ideal call centre employee. What tone of voice fits best? Informal, or more formal? In order to familiarise our older customers with the chatbot as well, we have chosen a more formal tone.”

Building your chatbot? It’s easier than you think!

The first chatbot would be custom-made by Spotler Engage, which Aon would then use as a template for building their subsequent chatbots. Still, after looking at the chatbot platform, Aon’s development team decided to take the reins immediately. “When we had to enter the conversations, we had a choice: Either enter the conversations in PowerPoint or directly into the chatbot platform. We entered the conversations directly into the platform because it looked very user-friendly. Before we knew it, we had built a full prototype of our first chatbot, all by ourselves.” Jasper states:

“The whole process went very smoothly, and you don’t need any programming knowledge. Our developers are enthusiastic about the platform and are having a great time building the chatbots themselves.”

Is a customer service agent still even necessary?

Aon trains the chatbot with the data it receives daily via live chat. This is an ongoing process in which the chatbot is continuously optimised. Artificial intelligence makes the chatbot a little smarter every day, and it will, therefore, be able to answer increasingly complex questions.

So, do customer service agents need to start worrying about losing their jobs now? Spotler Engage answers this with a clear “no”. Aon is not afraid of this either:

“I don’t expect customer service employees to become redundant. Our employees specialise in giving good advice. You can’t leave that to a chatbot.”

Once again, Noa allows the customer service agents to focus on their core tasks. As a result, they enjoy their work more, and customers benefit from shorter waiting times. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!

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