Youfone is an independent telecom provider with more than 600,000 customers. SIM Only, TV services and super-fast internet. 

As a fast-growing company, they are always looking for the next technological tools to simplify the lives of their customers and their employees. 

Youfone already had a chatbot live on their site - but the results were below expected and it was not performing well.

They were at a crossroads. Either to end the use of chatbots or to look around and see if there were providers out there who could deliver the results and support they needed.

As it turns out just having a simple chatbot is not enough. You need to choose the right partner for your business, that will actually deliver the KPIs you need, not just check a box of “having a chatbot” Says Rick Van Gurp, Operations & Legal at Youfone

He highlights that you want to have your employees working on interesting and complex cases, not just on FAQ questions, the questions are boring, repetitive, and aren’t good for morale.

Going from one chatbot provider to another, I don't think the team had really high expectations based on the performance of the prior chatbot. But of course, the whole AI / GPT hype set some expectations.

After implementing Kindly we saw a drastic drop in numbers of handovers to live-agents, we can be reachable outside business hours, it's great for CX!

We chose Kindly because of their commitment to the impact their chatbot would have. They were confident in bringing specific KPIs and results

Kindly is a Scandinavian enterprise, which aligns more with the Dutch mentality compared to the typical slow-corporate bureaucracy you see around the world.

Kindly has ownership, and is flexible! The implementation team and maintenance team are the same people, they know how Youfone works, how the bot works, etc, it makes a difference and their understanding of the process and Youfone as a company lot smoother.

The idea that speaks to me is that Kindly has an open partnership, to discuss certain features, and new ideas we can create in the platform for Youfone. We feel like we are really having a partnership instead of feeling like a customer.

With Kindly we have a partner that is flexible, innovative and trying to get us moving forward.

“Kindly is on top of the new technology advancements which Youfone appreciates”

Martijn Doomenerik, an integral member of the telecom company's customer support department, played a crucial role in implementing the Kindly chatbot platform to transform customer engagement and streamline support operations.

Martijn's responsibilities included managing operational tasks, assessing incoming chats, analyzing customer queries, and utilizing analytics to steer the chatbot's direction. Youfone, now with Kindly, has a higher degree of automation compared to their previous Chatbot, and aimed to address challenges related to agent management and lacking AI capabilities.

Kindly Platform Selection

‍The decision to choose Kindly over other options was influenced by the platform's flexibility, alignment with the company's needs, and the ability to fit their schedules. Despite the initial perception that building the chatbot was not technical, the effort invested in collaborating with Kindly paid off significantly, providing enormous better results than the previous solution.

Customization and Integration

‍Martijn described the process of customization, highlighting the initial focus on functionality rather than brand identity. The integration with marketing in later phases ensured input on the bot's appearance, with particular attention to campaigns and deals.

Results and Impact

‍After implementing the Kindly chatbot, significant positive effects were observed. The number of representatives needed for chat drastically decreased, allowing for a more efficient allocation of resources. Complaints about long chat times diminished, and Martijn highlighted the impact on manual chat reduction and improved agent utilization.

Scalability and Adaptability

‍Martijn mentioned his favorite feature;  sample candidates, which he uses daily to refine and train the chatbot based on how the end-user comes in. This makes it easy to develop the chatbot for the better every day.

Lessons Learned

‍Key lessons learned included the importance of including a larger part of the team for internal ownership and Martijn advises other companies to set concrete goals, implement quickly, and assemble a dedicated team with ownership of the project.

Future Plans

‍Plans include implementing a full-screen chatbot embedded on the site and looking to integrate with more of the systems they use.